Show HN: Webwide – a discussion community for web designers, devs and makers - <AUTHOR> https://hello.webwide.io <comment><USER2> Extraordinary that we're coming full circle with the internet. Slack is the new IRC and "communities" are the new forums.

Makes me think how much collective human knowledge we're losing as all the old forums go extinct (Archive doesn't backup everything).

<comment><USER3> I hate the overuse of the term community nowadays. All it is is an attempt to prod users into contributing more whilst the "community" will never even once consider contributing back to the user(s).

Live streamers are guilty of this. Its become a standard for Twitch broadcasters to call their viewer base a community in, what I guess is, a way to get viewers to think tipping the broadcaster is benefitting the "community" while only the broadcaster benefits.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope we get a pass with the word. At this stage any revenue made from supporter memberships, the only revenue stream atm, is being funnelled back in to the platform and documented transparently in monthly updates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I launched Webwide this week. A bit of a throwback to the traditional forum. About time they made a comeback in this space I think!

Let me know if you have any questions or comments at all.

<comment><USER4> Curious about how this is different from [https://www.designernews.co](https://www.designernews.co) and dev.to? :- )

B.t.w. I'd suggest including a link to [https://webwide.io](https://webwide.io), otherwise people (incl I) might believe everything is behind a login wall.

This:

> Get writing \n Start sharing writing without the pressure of a blog.

Is there a place for "blog posts" over at Webwide? Like posting to Medium? But for web things? Or how does / will it work?

<comment><USER5> I had the same impression about the hello.webwide subdomain, thinking that a person had to sign up to see everything.

I'm certain that impression is intentional. They're using it as a conversion page, which is of course why it was the page posted to HN. Dark pattern in action.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, sorry! Didn't want to mislead. I am of the impression that not knowing it's all in the open is a bad thing so definitely not something I wanted to hide away.

Of course the page was built with conversions in mind, for the good of the project I want to spell out the benefits and convince people to sign-up but certainly not in a dark way.

I've added some more links including the logo, a view all discussions button and a browse as guest down by the bottom CTA to communicate this better.

<comment><USER6> I noticed the "browse as guest" link as I was about to (begrudgingly) sign up. Thanks for adding that.

After poking around a bit, I felt like I could use a very brief introduction, like "what should you do first" suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> User beware: "You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service."

...and

"We may remove or modify any Content submitted at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice."

<comment><AUTHOR> It's my understanding that covers us to actually display your content on our website and distribute on social etc. which is sort of the bread and butter of a discussion community.

The latter is surely standard across any community for moderation.

Users have the ability to edit and remove their own content to take it off the platform.

Happy to receive any advice on how this could be more palatable!

<comment><USER8> IANAL but doesn't `irrevocable` means that user legally can't remove their own content from the platform?

<comment><USER9> IANAL either, but I do not read that as a lack of permission to remove your own content. It sounds more like a statement that the the user cannot expect the site owners to remove all their content on demand.

Which sounds like it is in direct conflict with GDPR.

<comment><AUTHOR> GDPR applies to personally identifiable information, this may apply to some content posted. Of course no ToS can override your rights under GDPR and there are tools built-in to comply with any data requests.

<comment><USER9> GDPR grants you control of your data, including the right to have it removed. And if you have tools built in to comply with such requests, then you absolutely can remove the "irrevocable" clause from your TOS.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I say I am no lawyer but will be getting some more personalised advice on wording since we seem to be growing! I hope you can see there are no ill intentions but I understand that it is good to have these things in black and white. Many thanks. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just a feedback on registration. I used github connect, then you ask for me to type both username and email, but you should already know these info. I'm using a lazy third party sign in just to avoid this and skip the activation email procedure.

</comment><comment><USER11> I mean for this comment to be constructive, but it is steeped in my personal opinions about the web and the rise of social networks within it, so I would like to emphasize that any apparent animus is not directed at your product, which seems nice and good intentioned. That said:

I personally wish that any forum for discussions about the web and related professional and/or creative work would be (wait for it) open and readable by the entire web. To me, the advent of walled-garden / login-gated content silos was a milestone in a long, degenerative process for the web overall. This forum seems to follow in that mold, preventing me from viewing any of the related content without first creating an account, signing some TOS or EULA and logging in. To be honest, this whole arrangement reminds me of ExpertsExchange, which some might recall from the days before StackOverflow was a thing.

I completely agree with the premise of this product, but I will always caution my colleagues to avoid closed forums like this.

[Edit] At the time of writing, there was no obvious way to view content in the site without logging in. OP has since shared a link below showing how to browse the content without logging in.

<comment><AUTHOR> All public discussions are available on the main domain without a login: [https://webwide.io/](https://webwide.io/)

Sorry that wasn't clear! I'll add a browse as guest button to the landing page.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, I definitely looked through your landing page more than once trying to find something like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries thank you for your thoughtful comment and feedback!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> i would be much more interested if it was built on open source forum software that we could all improve and use to build our own communities. in fact i wonder why OP didn't use an open source alternative like phpbb, flarum, or discourse but instead went with a proprietary solution?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question! XenForo is mature software developed over almost a decade by a great team in the UK. It is unfortunately proprietary and this was a decision making factor when choosing a platform.

The only other contender that matched my vision for a revival of a more traditional style forum was phpBB and I don't think it would have been up to scratch for the eagle eyed and fairly demanding tech community.

Discourse, Flarum, Vanilla are all great options but I don't think they were well suited to what I wanted to build. Not enough to set them apart from other communities in this space.

Building a bespoke solution wasn't an option when time commitments and budget are considered.

The data is all well portable and neatly organised so if those needs change and can be reconsidered as we grow what is the best decision.

<comment><USER4> > Not enough to set them apart from other communities in this space

That sounds interesting to me. Was looking different, a goal in itself? (if I interpret you correctly?)

(Interesting that going back to the "old style" forums, is the way to look different, nowadays :- ))

<comment><AUTHOR> Sort of! For starters, Discourse, Flarum & Vanilla all share a similar structure of a single feed of posts organised by tags which is quite different to an "old style" forum where there are individual boards. These kinds of set- ups are possible in those ones but aren't highlighted as much. But not only that...

Flarum is not at v1 yet and isn't really recommended for production. It's also quite feature light and I would be hesitant to expand upon it while it's not stable yet.

I've never seen a Discourse forum that doesn't look like another Discourse forum, have you? They all look the same! I had a pre-launch landing page up where something like 75% was on desktop. Discourse seems to have a mobile first, desktop never approach to its design and appears to be difficult to customise. I felt it was a sub-optimal experience suited better to communities centered around a single topic or perhaps support.

Vanilla is the most mature of these new style options but just wasn't doing it for me.

I don't think going a bit "retro" is a bad thing. I thought XenForo had a great balance between retaining that classic, nostalgic, familiar vibe while still providing lots of nice QoL features to go with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another silo I can't know how it works, contribute to, nor host it myself.

No thanks!

<comment><USER14> Tbf this is a prime case of software that is justifiable as a service as it's inherently non-local.

Aside from that isn't HN also a silo like that by your definition?

<comment><USER15> HN source is available and there are some hosted clones out there.

<comment><USER14> Nice, I didn't know that. Makes me wonder, is there anything like HN but for more niche communities? Like subreddits but with a greater focus on link sharing and discussion and less original posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A sad reminder of the Geeklist old days. I'll give it a spin, congrats on the launch Adam!

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks really nice, but so did Medium when it started, and look at them now.

On one hand I'm excited, on the other, I'm cautious not to funnel too much time into something that may _Mediumify_ (i.e. turn into absolute garbage).

<comment><AUTHOR> I _hate_ Medium with a passion! I totally understand your reservations and I would be the same. Running costs are low and I've enjoyed the forum world for 10+ years so I don't foresee there being any need to undertake any of those awful tactics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What makes your community inclusive?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like inclusive in many senses of the word. No matter your background, technology, skill-level, etc. Inclusive to those who share our values that is. Trying to achieve this by:

\- Clear messaging from the start setting this tone to hopefully attract people who share those values

\- An enforced Code of Conduct with zero tolerance on hate speech and growing enforcement team

\- Spaces for people using any and all technologies including code-free

\- No areas off limits to free users

I anticipate there being many lessons learned along the way but very excited to see where we can go with it. Thanks for checking it out! :)

<comment> the-dude Do examples of communities which are not inclusive to those who share their values exist?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, I see what you are saying. I'll look at how I can word that better. Thanks for your feedback!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Care to share the tech stack behind the forum?

<comment><USER19> Nvm, I see that it is a forum using xenforo.com. I was gonna say I was pretty impressed if it was built from scratch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Redacted

<comment><USER18> You should post this in a separate Show HN.</comment></comment>


Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps - rising-sky https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/31/18205795/apple-google-blocked-internal-ios-apps-developer-certificate <comment><AUTHOR> Let's say you're using a Google API like Maps, and you violate terms by snapshotting sections of their maps and storing them on your severs so you can serve static maps without making API calls. They'd shut down your API access immediately

Google and Facebook both knew the terms. They both knew that the Enterprise Distribution Program was for internal use only. They still put ads out in the wild to recruit regular consumers to use internal apps which is beyond the scope of the program. Why would the certificates not be revoked?

I don't understand people who are acting offended that Apple is enforcing the clear terms of service it laid out.

<comment><USER2> Because lots of people still think that if you own a piece of hardware, you should be able to run whatever code you want on it.

<comment><USER3> You're not wrong, you're just in the wrong place. Apple is the sysadmin and the phone holders are the users. They WANT apple looking out for them. Anyone who says otherwise stupidly wasted $1000 when they could have bought any number of unlockable devices for that money.

I say this with an unlocked and de-googled android phone next to me, and several hacked arm devices at home. I OWN THEM, with no doubt, so I agree with you in a different world.

<comment><USER4> Is this true of people who voluntarily signed up to be paid for data collection? It's like saying that Nielsen panelists need to be protected from Nielsen by Vizio. (Insert standard caveat about the degree to which kids' autonomy is in the hands of their parents).

<comment><USER5> An important difference that Nielsen doesn't have an agreement with Vizio that they broke and the "protection" being Vizio terminating their end of that agreement as a response.

<comment><USER4> As much as I dislike Apple, its amorality, its attitude towards it users, its effect on the markets it's in, etc, I don't have any disagreements with Apple's actions here: Facebook/Google violated their license, so Apple revoked them.

But the terms of this license are by no means "protecting" users who voluntarily chose to install these apps for payment. A license can have multiple legitimate purposes, including protecting the business interests of the licenser. There's no need to pretend that Apple is protecting users in order to defend their actions here.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. The violation here really has nothing to do with protecting users, as you say, it's more of a positive side-effect. On the other hand, if it weren't for that aspect, the press-coverage that sparked Apple's revokal would most likely not have happened.

Apple found themselves in a position were doing "the good thing" aligned with business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah, this is pretty clear cut. Apple has rule. Facebook and Google agree to rule. Facebook and Google violate rule. Apple enforces rule.

This isn't some grey area where the details are difficult to ascertain. Everything is pretty clear; the enterprise app distribution service is most assuredly _not_ for distributing apps that break the App Store rules to _customers_. This isn't difficult to understand, so I'm struggling to see where people are trying to find some sort of detail to exonerate two well- known, repeated rule breakers, violators of personal privacy, and altogether companies who think their size puts them above reproach.

I mean, when Apple makes a big screw up, everybody leaps on it, even when it's just based on unconfirmed (and sometimes fabricated, like the journalist reporting on conditions in the Foxconn factories) reports; but if it's Facebook or Google, somehow they're underdogs with clean records, deserving of the benefit of the doubt? I don't swallow it.

How about we all just pass judgement equally upon the big companies, Apple included, for their foibles? But let's also take into account when these companies have been caught red-handed before, and if the best punishment we could muster was a slap with a wet bus ticket, let's not umm and ahh about why they think they can get away with their behaviour, and not be at all surprised when finally someone takes a stand on their own territory.

<comment><USER7> If you're Facebook or Google you're used to being able to dictate terms to others. But there's always a bigger fish and in this case it's Apple.

They're outraged because they have no recourse. What they usually do to users or partners, dictate take-it-or-leave-it terms, is being done to them. They can't even complain to antitrust regulators because Apple is only lord of its own kingdom (which doesn't have market dominance).

<comment><USER8> If anything Google should be grateful Apple's support isn't as deliberately- shit as their own fake support system, they may yet resolve this instead of being banned for life.

<comment><USER9> Company-on-company support is an entirely different thing from customer support. These are developers with direct lines to one another. Google isn't filing a support ticket at an Apple Store.

<comment><USER10> Tell that to GSuite customers. The service can be... spotty.

<comment><USER9> I am one of said customers.

I think our support that we get is probably quite different than the support Apple gives to the developers of Google and Facebook, who make most of the top 10 apps downloaded from the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Google immediately admitted that they were aware that what they had done violated those terms.

>A Google spokesperson told The Verge, "The Screenwise Meter iOS app should not have operated under Apple's developer enterprise program — this was a mistake, and we apologize.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18204064/apple-google- mon...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18204064/apple-google-monitoring- phone-usage-screenwise-meter)

<comment><USER12> And so they should be fully understanding why Apple enforced them. Furthermore, the terrifying level of abuse of the Screenwise program has been going on a really, really long time: [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/02/google-paying- users-...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/02/google-paying-users-to- track-100-of-their-web-usage-via-little-black-box/)

It's hard to tell exactly how long the iOS app has been available, but I found version 7.x of the Android app all the way back in 2015 on APKmirror (it's archive only goes back so far). So presumably the mobile app strategy has been around a long time.

<comment><USER13> How is that "terribly abusive"? People are getting paid to participate, to me that seems like a higher level of informed consent and more ethical than other forms of user tracking.

<comment><USER14> I believe the parent was referring to Google having "abused" Apple's Enterprise Cert program - which is the central crux of both this article and the majority of commentary here on HN.

<comment><USER15> I don't think so, the article linked talks about the other ways the program worked. That specific one refers to the free router they would send users. That has nothing to do with Apple whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel less vengeful satisfaction from this one, but I respect that they're applying their rules consistently. I just hope it doesn't backfire. On a totally personal level, I'd rather Facebook feel the hurt for its audacity than Apple be forced to backtrack because they made too many enemies.

<comment><USER17> It's worth bearing in mind that Google pay Apple billions of dollars a year to be the default search engine on iOS. To my eyes, Apple clearly have the upper hand in this relationship.

[https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3063669/google- is-...](https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3063669/google-is-paying- over-gbp16bn-to-apple-for-two-years-as-safaris-primary-search-engine)

<comment><USER18> Android has 85% of the worldwide smartphone market. Apple doesn't exactly have the upper hand in the relationship, but they have enough leverage to make it sting if they decide not to cooperate and to force a reasonable settlement.

In my mind, a reasonable settlement includes not installing spyware on users' iPhones through the enterprise development program, so it looks like they're doing precisely that.

<comment><USER6> > Android has 85% of the worldwide smartphone market

I think a mistake to make here is thinking that Apple gives a toss.

<comment><USER19> In fact, one could reasonably say Apple actively tries not to obtain too large of a market percentage to avoid laws affecting monopolies.

<comment><USER20> > In fact, one could reasonably say Apple actively tries not to obtain too > large of a market percentage to avoid laws affecting monopolies.

I would say rather to avoid laws it's to avoid appearing as a commodity and losing its "fashion" or "hip" status. If everyone has an iPhone suddenly it is less desirable to own an iPhone.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I feel that way about my microwave too. Your analogy may have applied at one point in time but not now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't want to pass judgment on whether Google (or in the previous case, Facebook) was in the wrong, but it doesn't sit well with me that Apple wields so much power on what software their phones can run _after_ it sells them. You may very well think that they're using their power sparingly and benevolently, but who is to say that will be the case next time around?

<comment><USER16> I used to feel that way, and I used Android for years for that reason. But since switching to an iPhone, I've found that what I really want from my phone is not a totally open platform, but a tool that's simple, secure, and effective. Something I don't have to mess with, something I can trust to do its job and respect my privacy and be pleasant to interact with. They tried going that direction a bit with macOS when they launched its App Store, and there's a reason that pretty much failed. Workstations need to be totally user-controlled, but phones don't.

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure I quite understand your complaint about the Mac's App Store. I want to have free reign on my workstation, but part of that is I want to be able to limit the amount of access that programs have. The big difference with the App Store, from my perspective, is that I know that the applications are sandboxed, signed, and someone out there can revoke the code signing certificate.

This is basically what I want, most of the time, and it's hard to achieve it outside the App Store.

<comment><USER24> Fun fact: not all apps on the App Store are sandboxed. Some older apps, that were released before sandboxing was a requirement, were "grandfathered" in.

<comment><USER25> Any examples?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Extremely happy with my decision to get an iPhone. Events like these are what is going to keep me as a customer moving forward, too.

I unplugged[0] from Google Last year - went DDG for search, went to iOS, dropped gmail for fastmail, etc. As time goes on I'm continually reaffirmed that I made the right decisions.

[0] I still use some Google services, like YouTube, frequently, some of my mail still goes through Gmail, albeit forwarded to my Fastmail account, and I occasionally use Maps.

<comment><USER27> Is getting an iPhone the only reasonable path? I tried this briefly on Android, but various other apps started complaining that Play was not installed.

<comment><USER26> It's not the only reasonable path, of course. There are heavily de-Googled versions of Android out there as well.

In this case I'm voting with my dollars and paying a premium for a device made by a company that is, at least overtly, pushing for a bare minimum level of support for their customers.

It certainly doesn't hurt that they're nice phones too, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't get how everyone working on these apps thought there would be no issues doing this.

"Yup, getting consumers to bypass the app store and side-load our app is perfectly reasonable, no issues here. No way this could possibly backfire."

Only thing I could see is the PM's didn't actually understand what the enterprise certificate program was supposed to be for.

<comment> basil-rash I very much doubt it was a PM in charge of reading the TOS for the enterprise certificate program. When you need to sign a contract on behalf of your (multinational, FAANG) company, you get your legal team to go over it.

<comment><USER29> The legal team would have reviewed the TOS but they probably weren't looped in when some PM got the idea to use the certificate for this purpose.

In my own experience people often avoid consulting legal when they think they can get away with it (or don't realize they need to), although I'm sure it varies a LOT based on company culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It isn't relevant here if Apple is justified or not, if Google is trustworthy or not or if terms of service are enforceable or not.

This is what might be called a classic Stallman effect, where it has been pointed out since the mid-90s that if you don't have a few basic freedoms [0] then at some point an external party will shut you down for reasons you don't like. Google is in a lousy strategic position on this one because they gave up software freedom because Apple didn't seem like a threat at the time. They are lucky their internal apps were not being particularly targeted, I suppose.

This is why a good military plans on capabilities, not intents.

[0] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free- sw.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> Got to give Apple credit for staying consistent.

One thing is to break the rules Apple put down to keep iOS users safe and secure which is what Apple is targeting here, but another thing is just being stupid and unethical.

Regardless of their (FB+G) cries of "they consented to it", who really thinks a 13 year old understand the technical implications of installing a root certificate on their iPhone?

<comment><USER32> No root cert was involved. Apps built with an enterprise distribution profile, once correctly signed, can be installed on _any_ device. The limit is that it must be an employee's device. This last rule, broken by GOOG and FB, is exclusively enforced through legal actions.

<comment><USER24> The root certificate was for intercepting traffic, not installing the app.

<comment><USER32> Sorry! Missed the point entirely

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Big companies should be treated the same way as small developers. I'm glad Apple applies the rules to everyone :-)

<comment><USER34> Wouldn't Apple close the developer account for a violation by a small developer rather than just revoking their enterprise certificate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I called it last thread ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038328)), but I'm legit impressed Apple went through with it.

This might open the floodgates for Apple to shut down even more certs.

<comment><USER36> More than that, I think this will result in Apple being a bit less laissez faire about what companies do with their certificates. I think they may even look to change the system, maybe make it so that enterprise certificates have to register the devices they are installed on.

<comment><USER37> Exactly.

I expect in future you'll need to push these apps to the official app store, but have the ability to restrict who downloads them (to registered devices, or accounts - like with the Play Store beta program).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> IF you really want to get scared about content theft, you should read the terms of service for Grammerly. Their plug in scans everything data input window and by using the service you agree to the following:

"By uploading or entering any User Content, you give Grammarly (and those it works with) a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully-paid, transferable and sublicensable, perpetual, and irrevocable license to copy, store and use your User Content (and, if you are an Authorized User, your Enterprise Subscriber's User Content) in connection with the provision of the Software and the Services and to improve the algorithms underlying the Software and the Services."

If you were to write a book online using Grammerly they would have the full rights to what you wrote, and they could sell it themselves and not pay you a cent.

If you work for a company that uses Grammerly any IP typed into a windowd monitored by Grammerly also becomes their property.

Two years ago I looked into an enterprise license because I had so many employees using it, after reading the terms of service and speaking with their General Counsesl where he essentially gave the "my way or the highway speech","we own it all, and we can do what we want with it" I scrubbed the software and plugins from all our company computers.

Run from Grammerly

</comment><comment><USER39> There are over 100,000 Google and Facebook employees, just a small percentage of them with good old fashion loyalty to their companies could explain the amount offended here.

<comment><USER40> As a googler, I'm not offended. "Abide by the terms of your agreements," or, as Stranger Things would put it, "friends don't lie." That being said, I am in popcorn mode to see what act of contrition apple will demand.

I would also loooove to know how this clusterfuck came about. But I guess we will never know that. I doubt this crosses Sundar's desk, but I would be curious to know where the buck did stop. Was counsel involved or did a couple of teams just adopt a better to seek forgiveness stance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I shocked and surprised that Apple went this route. At least they're enforcing the rules consistently. My company uses enterprise certs for internal beta/QA builds and I'd hate to see Apple change this program to make things harder for those who have been following the rules.

<comment><USER24> > My company uses enterprise certs for internal beta/QA builds

That's exactly how they're supposed to be used, so barring rule changes you should be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Still, no story or commenter is quoting the exact terms that Facebook/Google are alleged to have violated. (There's an attempt here – [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19044643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19044643) – but without necessary definitions of key terms which would make all the difference.)

Of course, Apple has immense discretion here. Even if FB/Google lawyers can make a good case that their usage was technically compliant, Apple can still just unilaterally change the terms in short order. Public & regulatory sentiment would support them.

But I'd really like to know if Facebook's and Google's actions were plausibly compliant, under the actual language of the Enterprise agreement, at the time Facebook and Google (and likely others) pursued this strategy.

<comment><USER29> They weren't. See the terms at [https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/193060](https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/193060) "solely for internal use by Your Employees or Permitted Users, or as otherwise expressly permitted in Section 2.1(f)."

[https://github.com/nicwise/apple- agreements/blob/master/appl...](https://github.com/nicwise/apple- agreements/blob/master/apple-developer-program-enterprise-agreement.txt)

2.1(f) Allow Your Customers to use Your Internal Use Applications on Deployment Devices, but only (i) on Your physical premises and/or on Your Permitted Entity's physical premises, or (ii) in other locations, provided all such use is under the direct supervision and physical control of Your Employees or Permitted Users (e.g., a sales presentation to a Customer); and

<comment><USER42> Thank you for a link to a readable version of the agreement!

It looks to me like "Permitted Users" includes "contractors" like those in a compensated research panel, and thus the Facebook/Google uses are plausibly enabled under the program.

<comment><USER43> Can you call a 9 year old getting $20 gift cards a contractor?

<comment><USER42> If that $20 card was delivered pursuant to a signed contract, and that contract had the parental consent required for under-18-year-olds, then yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Looks like Google has a taste of it's own medicine. It's been deplatformed.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is a godsend for Apple's PR, now that attention is no longer focused on Group FaceTime.

</comment><comment><USER46> Apple is likely going to be sued by FB and Google and eventually they will lose the control over their platform. Yes the terms are in the TOS. Those terms should be illegal. Same as say non-competes are illegal in some places. No company should have that kind of power.

And, before you say it's the same as some company turning off your net based account, no it is not. For example if you upload porn to flickr and they delete your account in that case you're using flickr's servers. In this case Google is using phones owned by Googlers and other customers to run software by Google. Apple is not involved at all here unlike the example flickr case above. Apple should not be allowed to reach into another company and kill it.

AFAICT Google and FB did nothing wrong here. Those apps were test apps. How else are you supposed to beta test something? Tons of software does this. You build an app, you offer beta program. You had out codes for the beta users. Beta testing with direct employees is not useful because employees are no representative of actual users.

<comment><USER47> Apple offers a program for doing public betas: [https://developer.apple.com/testflight/](https://developer.apple.com/testflight/)

Google and Facebook appear to have used a different method of distribution than this and thus violated their terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> What I want to know is why these companies are using the same cert to sign apps with widely differing uses and security profiles. It seems to me that they should have a number of enterprise signing certs for each use case such as internal beta, external beta, internal utility, external utility, whatever.

If the companies are signing all of their apps under the same cert then it's kind of on them for being stupid to sign critical internal apps with the same cert they use to sign these privacy violating apps; but if Apple is globally disabling all enterprise distribution certificates under the guise that the companies violated their developer agreements and NOT disabling their user- facing apps then it still seems to me they are engaging in selective enforcement.

Regardless of how I feel about the ethical questions involved, I don't think this skirmish will end well.

<comment><USER49> There are terms and conditions that apply to the enterprise cert which are different than those of the standard developer cert. Some of the conditions are relaxed (e.g. wrt the lack of oversight on what you are pushing to your enterprise users) but your enterprise only gets one cert that covers all apps you distribute with these relaxed terms and conditions. If one of your developers pisses in the pool by using the cert to distribute an app outside of the enterprise, particularly an app that violates app store policies and therefore could only be distributed via the enterprise cert, then your cert gets yanked.

This revocation only applies to the apps that are signed with the enterprise cert, so, for example, the Facebook app or Google Maps app in the app store are not affected.

<comment><USER48> OK I did not understand they only issued one cert.

Still, with a company the size of Google you'd still think they would have multiple certs under different legal entities even if they werent doing anything wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> So now it comes out that Apple is working to "quickly reinstate Google's enterprise certificates" but won't work with Facebook?

By now it should be fairly obvious that Apple hates Facebook for a very good reason- Facebook is Apple's single biggest threat. I'm completely convinced this has nothing to do with privacy or protecting users, it just makes for a convenient excuse.

If people slowly start replacing iMessage with WhatsApp or messenger, that creates a bridge to leave iOS for Android since Apple's software is one of the main features of the phone. If you become less reliant on the software the hardware suddenly becomes a commodity.

This whole episode is giving me pause about staying in the iOS ecosystem. Beyond that I think some antitrust litigation is going to hit Apple soon.

<comment><USER51> I doubt Apple sees Facebook as any kind of threat. There is already a far more plausible messaging bridge from iOS to Android called Hangouts and it hasn't really been effective for that. People aren't staying with iPhone because they're trapped by imessage.

<comment><USER50> Agree to disagree. Messenger and WhatsApp are more advanced and combine the social dynamic to chats. They've also made a lot of headway in competing with FaceTime. Which apps would Apple have a distinct advantage of it loses iMessage and FaceTime?

Edit: to elaborate I don't mean a direct bridge to android, rather a substitute for iMessage that's available on iOS and Android which makes switching relatively painless.

<comment><USER51> In my experience, it is not a tech problem. Equivalents absolutely exist. They may even be superior, although us tech folk tend to focus on features and not usability, and then we are surprised why regular folk don't like what we've built. In any case, when I switch out of the iPhone world, a solid half my contacts are unavailable to chat with except by old-school texts, and no equivalent for FaceTime. Some family members I switched over to Hangouts, but since they only use it for me, they forget about it, or how it works.

Every iPhone can do iMessage and FaceTime out of the box. That is a meaningful advantage for Apple, I think. Making something good enough that your users don't want to go find something 'better' and then making it 100% universal makes a strong ecosystem.

<comment><USER50> No question that iMessage and FaceTime are advantages for Apple out of the box.

But what happens when Facebook continues to enhance its messaging platform and people slowly find themselves in a hybrid situation where they are communicating with a mixture of WhatsApp, iMessage, and Instagram?

Anecdotally, I probably use iMessage for 80% of my texts with my girlfriend but we still regularly use Instagram and WhatsApp for chatting, depending on the situation. I could foresee us ending up swinging the other way and using Whatsapp for texting and then getting used to it. Sound unlikely?

Suppose we are discussing what we want to order for dinner and WhatsApp has our favorite delivery places and their menus available and we can order and pay through the app. Now instead of texting back and forth and then opening Grubhub to look at a menu and order and pay we can do it all in one place. Pretty soon we are using WhatsApp to communicate and haven't used iMessage in months. I find myself using WhatsApp so much I replace iMessage in the dock with WhatsApp.

Six months later I'm in the market for a new phone. Since I use third party software for just about everything now, all these devices are on a level playing field and maybe I try a Pixel this time and find I like it just as much as my iPhone. This may sound far fetched but this is how disruption happens and is pretty much how Facebook destroyed MySpace- users finding themselves using two services for the same purpose and eventually scrapping the one they use the least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Positive PR hit for Apple vs minor inconvenience for competitor/client...easy decision by Apple.

<comment><USER53> Unless Google takes action against Apple.

<comment><USER54> On what basis? They clearly violated the rules.

<comment><USER55> "The rules" were not given by God, government or the people. The rules were written by the same company that enforces them and Google, Facebook or anyone else can make the same type of "Rules".

<comment><USER56> The rules were mutually agreed upon in their enterprise account legal contract someone signed. That legal structure is acknowledged by the government and implicitly the people.

If you've done business with Google or Facebook, they behave _exactly_ the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> From: [https://www.axios.com/google-also-finds-itself-unable-to- use...](https://www.axios.com/google-also-finds-itself-unable-to-use- internal-1548971518-9bbd477c-90b9-4d30-a405-8a4e7282c38b.html)

"What they're saying: Google confirmed it is being impacted: "We're working with Apple to fix a temporary disruption to some of our corporate iOS apps, which we expect will be resolved soon."

In a statement, Apple said "We are working together with Google to help them reinstate their enterprise certificates very quickly."

</comment><comment><USER58> "Banning spree" is a bit much, isn't it? If two instances of something constitute a spree, I guess I went on a "handwashing spree" on my last trip to the bathroom earlier.

</comment><comment><USER59> I wouldn't be surprised if Apple gave Google a heads up to let them know they have to be consistent. Especially given that Google basically apologized.

</comment><comment><USER60> "Google is correct, there does not appear to be any Root Certificate install for their app. pretty substantial difference. I also notice a phrase completely absent from Facebook's replies: 'We apologize'"

[https://twitter.com/chronic/status/1090761957194502150?s=21](https://twitter.com/chronic/status/1090761957194502150?s=21)

</comment><comment><USER61> > Apple's move to block Google's developer certificate comes just a day after > Google disabled its Screenwise Meter app following press coverage

So Apple got to know it's terms are being violated after the press attention? Did they already know/is there a way they can detect this is happening? If not, then there could certainly be smaller players who have been routinely abusing this contract? I am trying to understand if Apple knew of this beforehand and are trying to avoid a PR disaster, or were caught off guard(which is scarier imo).

<comment><USER62> Good question. I use an Apple agreement like this to push apps via MDM, and I don't remember seeing anything about Apple monitoring for this. At the same time what would apple monitor for? How would they know if iPhone serial #75346345346 doesn't belong to an employee and how would they know what BusinessApp401 is, that doesn't get sent to their headquarters.

<comment><USER61> If these internal apps use a corporate certificate, I would imagine their Apple ID needs to be on a company domain email in order to download/use the app?

<comment><USER62> Um, no, pretty sure it doesn't. Many companies use BYOD with MDM certs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Apple seems to have restored both FB and Google certificates:

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/31/apple-ban-google-data- app/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/31/apple-ban-google-data-app/)

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/31/mess-with-the- cook/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/31/mess-with-the-cook/)

</comment><comment><USER64> On the one hand, I get what Apple is doing. On the other hand, the walled garden's walls are showing.

I'm curious what the TOS actually says, is there a link?

</comment><comment><USER65> Googlers should be asking: did the folks who did this go through privacy and security review, because I'm really surprised this was approved.

</comment><comment><USER66> At least with Google it doesn't look like they were hiding anything (e.g. the app is clearly from Google and not some random intermediary).

</comment><comment><USER67> On the one hand it sounds like it was legitimate enforcement of their policies. On the other hand, it might be stupid for Apple to do it because it highlights that they are running a walled garden and any fortune 500 could - rightly or wrongly - find their line of business application shut down arbitrarily by Apple on any given day. Who wants to be in that position?

</comment><comment><USER63> If Google does this on iOS, what does it do on Android? I get jitters even thinking about it. Anyone knows about this?

</comment><comment><USER68> So Does that mean that you currently cannot write an app for yourself on iOS without first getting it approved by apple?

<comment><USER69> No, why would it mean that?

<comment><USER68> Ah ok. I don't do iOS development so I don't know how it works.

So if I just write an app for myself I can run it for my own phone indefinitely without going through the app store is that right? Seems like if you could do that, Facebook and Google could just do that for their internal apps?

I am genuinely just curious how it works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> UPDATE: "Facebook's internal iOS apps have since resumed functioning, as the social network said this afternoon that Apple had restored its enterprise certificate. Similarly, both Apple and Google's statements make it clear that the companies are working together to fix Google's issues."

[siggghhh]

<comment><USER70> What else would you expect? They removed the app that was viotating tos, the other apps were in line w apples terms.

<comment><USER16> They revoked Google's certificate after they'd already taken down their app. This was supposed to be punishment for crossing the line; apparently it was just a fluffy PR move.

<comment><USER71> Revoking the certificate deals with the apps that have already been signed with that certificate. Google taking it down doesn't remove it from the devices where it has already been installed or prevent it being distributed by other means. Revoking the certificate does.

In both cases Apple has reached an agreement to issue new enterprise certs for both companies. They can now use those certs for their approved purposes. If Apple finds that those certs are being used for disallowed activity they can revoke them again.

I don't really see any issue with that.

<comment><USER16> Ah. Thanks for clarifying. I thought they were just un-revoking the other one, which would've made this a pretty empty wrist-slap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> FB, G clearly violated the ToS of the Enterprise Acc (no public distribution of such Apps) and Apple has rightly suspended their enterprise distribution cert.

But Apple has been selective in enforcing this rule. If I recall, for many years Uber's driver App was distributed as an enterprise app. Uber has always claimed that drivers are not employees and so this was in clear violation of the ToS.

Imo, Uber's use case was legit. During early days Uber probably did not wish to have 2 Apps in the App Store to avoid customer confusion. Or maybe they were actively updating the Driver App and did not want to add days of App review holding up every update.

Apple should change their ToS and allow such use cases in some form. At times this would get misused (like FB/G) but opening up the walled garden to enable such "private" apps to be easily distributed can make iOS a more interesting platform. In any case they always have the final kill switch of revoking an Enterprise Cert for malicious use.

</comment><comment><USER73> Thinking back on history, interesting that Apple's old nemesis MS is _not_ one of the names involved here. Not a 'friend' of any of them, but on my intuitive ethic-ometer Apple (barely) retains the top position.

<comment><USER74> Apple and Microsoft are practically buddies in this stuff, they both make money primarily by selling products and services to customers, and have relatively less overlap in their target markets than they ever have. Meanwhile FB and Google make money by mining users for data and selling ads. It's a pretty different business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I've never published an iOS app before. What exactly does a "developer certificate" do and why does it affect their ability to distribute internal apps in particular?

<comment><USER24> There are two certificates that are important here, with different requirements and capabilities. First, you have normal developer certificates, which you can use to submit apps to the App Store. On the other hand, you have enterprise certificates, which can be used to distribute apps outside of the App Store (and without Apple's review), and these are supposed to only be used for company use (such as internal beta testing or apps). Google and Facebook used their enterprise certificate to distribute an app to external users, most likely because the app would be rejected from the App Store, so Apple revoked their enterprise certificate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Regardless of the reason behind the move, the fact that Apple is MAKING the moves against the 2 largest ad companies seems a bit like a war declaration. They could have told Google "Get rid of this app or we kill your cert" but the fact that they did so without any negotiations means its past a shot across the bow, its a full attack.

I expect we'll see a LOT of Apple Vs Google/FB in the near future - Google/FB's business model is what is under attack here, and I'd bet it'll be fought in terms of public privacy breaches, bugs, and other embarrassments rather than direct marketing. Welcome to politics silicon valley, its gonna suck.

</comment><comment><USER77> Now I'm really curious if they're going to casually shut down doordash (afaik the doordash app for the dashers uses enterprise certs).

<comment><USER43> It's fine, dashers are contractors and contractors are expressly allowed.

<comment><USER77> I have a hard time seeing the distinction between people paid by Google or Facebook to share their phone usage data vs people paid by DoorDash to deliver food. You're probably right though.

<comment><USER78> "Here's a $20 Amazon gift card for taking a survey" vs. "Here's a 1099 for the $1,200 you earned driving food around last year."

One is a consumer, one is a contractor.

<comment><USER77> Do they really get 1099s? TIL

Seems like this doesn't apply then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I understand that Google and Facebook both violated Apple terms, but does it not seem a tad bit anti-competitive in the same vein?

</comment><comment><USER80> If you play on Apple's territory then you must follow Apple's rules. Seems pretty clear cut.

</comment><comment><USER81> Hilarious! Good on Apple, I hope they continue doing this for all the other companies doing the same.

</comment><comment><USER82> I wonder if Apple will ban their own internal apps that they use in Apple Park and Apple Stores.

</comment><comment><USER83> It's so entertaining to watch this unfold. Very exciting!

</comment><comment><USER84> Congrats to Apple for having a pair and taking a stance.

</comment><comment><USER85> So what's the play here for Apple?

<comment><USER86> Trying to get corporations to respect the agreements they make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> It should be a user choice whether not to trust apps.

iOS should say "this app violates Apple agreements blah blah do you want to continue using it?"

</comment><comment><USER88> Begun, the Chrome war has.

</comment><comment><USER89> Applocalypse!

</comment><comment><USER90> The war has begun

</comment><comment><USER91> Rumor has it that Google's subsequent requests for clarification to Apple have gone entirely unanswered, save for automated messages stating that Apple's decision on this matter should be regarded as "final" and "binding", and that no further statement from Apple should be expected.

<comment><USER92> Maybe Google and Apple's "decision is final" bots can work it out between them.

<comment><USER93> I'd love to see the Google AI [1] automatically calling Apple customer support "Hello there my app is not starting. May you help me please?".

Is this the achievement of machine learning and speech recognition?

[1] [https://youtu.be/pKVppdt_-B4](https://youtu.be/pKVppdt_-B4)

<comment><USER92> Hall of mirrors tech support?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> sound like a war declaration who follows? amazon, miscrosoft...

<comment><USER86> If they're also baldly and maliciously breaking the rules? I'd hope so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Another horror story of Apple's totalitarian control. Some people say that what Big Apple is doing is necessary for their security and privacy needs. This sort of blind trust, while incurable, waits for a major scandal to kill itself.

<comment><USER96> Indeed. The authoritarianism in the comments here is rather disturbing. I am baffled at how everyone seems to be so keen on putting Apple's nooses around their own necks.

<comment><USER95> Guess that most of the HN audience are not hackers any more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> A real show of power would be Apple disabling all of Facebook and Google's public apps, and then bricking all of Facebook and Google's employees' phones.

<comment><USER98> And lose a couple of million in annual sales, for a cute little PR stunt, that would send ripples through trust in their ecosystem?

<comment><USER62> Million? Google pays apple 9 _billion_ a year to be the default browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> What I really like about both the Facebook and Google scenarios here is that Apple's response causes inconvenience for the developers (the party at fault) but not for end users. Facebook's app still works fine, it's just Facebook employees who are affected.

Before Apple's response, it seemed like Facebook might get away with it because their app is so big and important -- blocking the app would hurt a large fraction of Apple's own customers.

But Apple's response is a clever way to show that, hey, they're big and important too! A large fraction of Facebook's employees use iPhones, not just for developing the iPhone app, but for general work purposes, because the iPhone is a great product. (I wonder how many of those employees will now switch to Android, though...)

</comment><comment><USER100> Popcorn-time extended. 3 of the big 5 in a dispute about "lawful behaviour" and "ethical (ab)use of tech possibilities"

Kindergarden, at it's best. What everyone is still unclear about is: how will this play out for them - and for Apple especially, of course.

We can only speculate. And order another ton of popcorn.</comment>


Ask HN: Why build a project to selfhost? - <AUTHOR> Every so often, articles about projects, which allow selfhosting, are posted here and it seems they are more frequent now, than some time back. Often these are clones of popular services like mattermost and rocket chat as clones of slack. I would like to know whom those projects target and what their business model is (in case there is a company behind it).<p>Are these project using the open version as marketing to gain some initial traction for their eventual SaaS offering? <comment><USER2> On the topic of self-hosted solutions, "Awesome Self Hosted" was released today. [https://selfhosted.libhunt.com/](https://selfhosted.libhunt.com/) . You can find almost all self-hosted web apps and compare them by popularity and dev activity (maintenance).

The business model of most of those project is offering premium support, I think. Although, some of them will be using this strategy as a pure marketing channel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great link! I had no clue reddit allows selfhosting, but of course such projects only make sense with a large community...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you can self host you don't have to worry about the service dying and leaving you out to dry.</comment>


New WebKit Features in Safari 13.1 - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/10247/new-webkit-features-in-safari-13-1/ <comment><USER2> I do love browse with Safari from time to time, but it would not take long for me to notice a site's behaviour being "different" because of it. Use hn.algolia.com as an example, on Safari 13.1, the site currently renders differently to Chrome (black background?) and the time range filter (Past Year/Month etc) text are missing...

<comment><USER3> Is this a bug in WebKit or in the algolia site?

<comment><USER4> It's usually considered best, when styling a site, that if you set the background color, you have to set the text color. otherwise you run into site bugs like this. Dark Mode is one cause but there are other reason why text might not be the color you expect and your background color will conflict.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great improvements! It's comforting that Apple is still prioritizing the browser. Though I'd wish they'd focus even more resources on it. Given all they spend on iOS native it would be sound if a slice of that could be towards Safari.

The new hint values for the soft key enter is a small but very useful addition!

</comment><comment><USER6> > These improvements are available to users running watchOS 6.2 [...]

I would like more information about Safari being available on Apple Watch.

Normally I'd think it's inclusion was an accident or oversight, but it's mentioned at both the top and the bottom of the article.

<comment><USER7> Not a standalone browser app, but if I tap a link in say the watchOS Mail app, it'll display a web view. Developers can optimize their site for the watch display. It might sound crazy but it's useful for glancing at brief information on the web.

<comment><USER8> Siri can also show web results on watch. I believe the News app uses WebView as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Async Clipboard API

> The implementation is available through the navigator.clipboard API which > must be called within user gesture event handlers like pointerdown or > pointerup, and only works for content served in a secure context (e.g. > [https://](https://)). Instead of a permissions-based model for reading from > the clipboard, a native UI is displayed when the page calls into the > clipboard API; the clipboard can only be accessed if the user then > explicitly interacts with the platform UI.

that looks pretty cool... do other browsers implementation also work like ↑ that?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure who else has implemented this API so far, but I believe they mostly use explicit permissions instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> At least I think WebRTC was mentioned, been dying for more fixes to issues.

<comment><USER12> Apple has intentionally crippled WebRTC for years to stifle FaceTime competition and drive up dev costs by forcing native app development. The video chat startup I co-founded in 2015 was impacted.

[https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...](https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf)

<comment><USER13> Why pray tell would Apple want to "stifle" competition for FaceTime? It's not like Apple makes money from it.

And then they are stifling competition for their app - by "forcing" you to create an app that integrates with dialer and your call history?

Maybe your startup was "impacted" by not having the expertise or funding to create a native app like at least a dozen companies have done?

<comment><USER14> >It's not like Apple makes money from it.

Facetime is a feature that helps sell their devices. If they don't ultimately make money from it, why did they spent money to create it?

<comment><USER13> So how would stopping people from making web video chat apps but allowing them to make apps that integrate with the dialer and phone history help them sell more devices?

They want a robust third party ecosystem.

<comment><USER12> Devoting developer resources to building/extending native iOS apps to integrate with iOS-specific dialer/phone history increases costs and extends lock-in. Web apps that can perform all the functionality of native apps, such as video chat and games, erode the value of the App Store.

Integrating with the iOS dialer and phone history means not implementing something else that would provide value across platforms.

<comment><USER13> The attitude that a company shouldn't actually build features that are better for the consumer and instead are better for the developer is how we end up with crappy resource intensive, battery draining electron apps. If you can't make an app that is in the best interest of the customer, maybe your product doesn't deserve to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Still doing everything they can to hold back PWA's, I see.

Their browser monopoly on ios can only last so long. The same strategy backfired horribly for ms in the ie6 days.

(And no, you can't install an alternate browser on ios. It's just a crippled "skinned" shell on top of safari)

<comment><USER10> How is this large set of web platform improvements evidence of holding back PWAs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For folks who read the release notes for Safari Technology Preview releases, you'll find no surprises here:

> _Changes in this [13.1] release of Safari were included in the following > Safari Technology Preview releases: 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98._

</comment><comment><USER17> No Web Push API.

No fixes for SameSite Lax cookies under service worker routes.

No page lifecycle API so we better handle iOS PWAs.

<comment><USER10> We'd love your feedback on how you are looking to use these APIs. A lot of our work is driven by developer feedback.

Also, for the SameSite Lax thing, can you explain a bit more? That sounds like a bug. If you have a reproducible case, please file at bugs.webkit.org and let me know the Bug ID.

<comment><USER17> Regarding the bugs, please check this repro site: [https://samesite-pwa- demo.herokuapp.com/](https://samesite-pwa-demo.herokuapp.com/)

Also another bug, which is maybe related: [https://rocky- fjord-97287.herokuapp.com](https://rocky-fjord-97287.herokuapp.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Still no webp. Safari is holding web back.

<comment><USER19> Or you could actually use a standardized video format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Pointer Events, nearly one full decade after Microsoft implented them in IE10! Way to skate to the puck AAPL!

<comment><USER10> We actually shipped pointer events a while ago. What's new here is support for an external mouse or trackpad attached to an iPad generating real mouse events (and mouse type pointer events) instead of touch events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> On a side note, I find crazy this obsessive-compulsive behavior to use `const` everywhere in modern JS codebase (even in Webkit now).

It solves really no problem (I mean, Python, Ruby and almost all other programming languages are doing fine without preventing against variable reassignment, and we can still reassign function parameters and object properties in JS).

So much brain power wasted on this useless thing.

Also using `const` everywhere is semantically misleading and ugly. It's not what you would expect in 99% of other programming languages out there.

<comment><USER22> There are very few places where you ever need to use let or var. const is solving important issues

      - it has lexical scope instead var function scope
      - it does not hoist like var
      - it prevents accidental reassignment

Accidental reassignment happen more often in JS because of non-lexial scoping, weakly typed and async functions. Also, both Ruby and Python are "strongly typed" as opposed to weakly typed Javascript.

<comment><USER19> Let has lexical scope.

I've always thought const was something of a mid feature, as it doesn't generally do what people think. He'll back when Opera was an actual browser engine it just used const as an alias for var.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone on HN built their own Credit card transaction analyzer? - <AUTHOR> So many practitioners of personal finance on HN so I figured I would ask here. Has anyone built up their own credit card transaction analyzer?
I was thinking of something that would take the transaction downloads from a credit card portal in csv. And analyze the transactions by category. So for travel, airfare etc.
It could learn from categorizations (names of restaurants).
Hypothetically, what would you use for this? Something like NLTK paired with pandas?
Happy to listen to others who have tried something similar.
(Not using Mint, have tried it and didn't want to link my bank accounts, just my credit cards) <comment><USER2> I've done a few projects like this. I'd recommend checking out [https://plaid.com](https://plaid.com) for bank feeds if you're in America, otherwise something like nightmare.js for scraping your bank.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been thinking about setting up an app where I can autoforward emails I receive for credit card transactions to my app and it would parse them and show me categories/summaries of spending.

</comment><comment><USER4> GNUcash can learn categories for transactions, and seems to know merchant codes in bank statement exports.</comment>


Microsoft is having some serious issues - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/ro-ro/romania/home/ <comment><USER2> Looks like an Akamai caching problem, more then likely the user restricted options and actions will not work due to the clients browser missing client side authentication tokens set by the server unless properly authenticated.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clicking that link will automatically log you in as Viorel Alexandru (check out the top/right part of the page).

<comment><USER3> Oh shit.</comment></comment>


A Beautiful Algorithm? The Risks of Automating Online Transactions - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.virginia.edu/content/beautiful-algorithm-risks-automating-online-transactions

<comment><USER2> There is a newer version of the paper linked (pdf) in the article.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.00720](http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.00720)</comment>


The Bay Area Is Separating into Red and Green Zones - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/bay-area-separating-red-green-zones/ <comment><USER2> I have no idea what this article was about. Let's see. Somehow this individual drives from San Francisco to San Mateo and considers everything in between poor? Perhaps he should venture a little bit more ? How about driving around 280, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Milbrae up in the hills ? All of these are beautiful neighborhoods with houses > $2mn. Not sure what he is talking about. Somehow, he thinks the "stuff on water" is in San Mateo. It is actually Foster City.

Then he drives south from San Mateo down south and until he reaches Palo Alto, he thinks everything is working class poor. Interesting, because between San Mateo and Palo Alto you have Belmont, Redwood City, San Carlos, Atherton, and Menlo Park. Anybody who believes only working class poor lives in these cities, not sure how to take them seriously.

Then this person believes whole of San Jose is a slum. Obviously never been to Evergreen or the myriad of other neighborhoods in San Jose. Then he thinks Fremont has "promise". I actually live in Fremont and not sure if there is a working class neighborhood in Fremont. Fremont has beautiful parks and lakes and great schools.

Ok, Hayward and Oakland are bit rundown. But even Hayward Hills and Oakland Hills are amazing places to live.

My guess - this person drove down El Camino real in the Peninsula and concluded everything by driving down one street.

He also makes an incredible claim - only 2-3% have salaries that let them live comfortably. Others are working on 2-3 jobs. I guess people are working on 2-3 jobs and paying millions for their houses.

What a terrible article.

<comment><USER3> You're describing small pockets of wealth that are scattered all over, surrounded by poverty.

Look at the surface area and the percentages of the population. That's what the article is about.

It's pretty clear that it's hard to live on even 100K as a family in the Bay Area, and if you look at the median incomes for most of the cities around the Bay Area they're nowhere near that.

I don't see how you counter that by naming off a few more rich microclimates.

\--

Also, I wrote the article, and I'm born and raised here. I didn't drive down a street and come up with this. I've been here for four decades, watching it change, and this is what I'm seeing. Sorry you didn't like it. :)

<comment><USER4> When you make statements like

"The more I pay attention in the Bay Area the more I'm noticing that it's a place of absolute poverty."

"Much of the East Bay is extremely poor."

You really need to quantify absolute poverty and extremely poor. Without some numbers to back it up the article comes off as out of touch.

Also with you living in San Francisco when you write all these things about large areas of the Bay Area as being extremely poor the article feels a little like you are looking down your nose at the "rest of the people". Sorry but that's what it comes across as.

<comment><USER3> I mentioned I grew up in Newark, i.e., Fremont. That's my real hometown.

But I see your point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Jamie Dimon said it best, it's almost embarrassing to be an American these days. Homeless people everywhere, mentally insane people screaming on the streets, rude classless people (in the ghetto), failing infrastructure, a narcissistic demagogue trust fund kid as president. Every single major city in America has a ghetto not unlike a third world country - NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, etc. I've never understood why we tolerate this poverty in our own backyards.

There was a period when we were the model nation for the world, and that period is long gone. As long as America is ruled by the mindset of "everyone for themselves" and free market fundamentalism, nothing is going to improve - and in fact things are only going to get worse as the job market tightens due to technological automation.

<comment><USER6> Although you don't seem to like the president, you have made a lot of the same points as he did in his campaign. Maybe he will fix these issues and make America great again.

<comment><USER7> Not to get political, but the president doesn't have the power to change things at this level. It's up to congress and state and municipal governments to institute the kind of change you are thinking about.

<comment><USER8> Over the past month, I've started to consider that the people that support the president know this. They want him to champion the identity that they have and the policies don't matter nearly as much -- they just want to hear someone "defending" them.

I think it's far more about identity than it is any faith they have in him being able to actually change anything via policy or legislation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The parts I'm familiar with are painted a little more gloomy than reality.

Fremont has top rated schools and a median income above 80k. Combine income with college grad percentage and it's in the 81st percentile on the "superzip" metric.

Hayward has some run down areas but the median income is $54k. One the income/college grad metric it's 49th percentile. Basically average for the country. (When average is seen as a dominion of "sadness", that says something -- whether about the commentator, the state of the country, or both is up to you)

The problem, as is beaten to death yet still not enough, is housing costs. In "average" Hayward, a barely adequate home for a family will run you north of $600k. What you'd expect in most places as a middle class home closer to $750k+

</comment><comment><USER10> This article reminds me of my coworkers who think San Mateo is sketchy "On the other side of the tracks".

I've lived 90th and International in Oakland and have a pretty good idea of what "red" looks like. Speaking from personal experience, San Leandro and Hayward are nice places to live in, and the crime maps match my experience with the area [1]. I understand the article was talking about poverty and not crime, but poverty and crime are correlated [2], so a crime map is a valid proxy.

I agree that some areas are a bit run down, but overall I think its the opposite, pockets of "red" surrounded by "green".

[1] [https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Oakland- California/crime/](https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Oakland- California/crime/) [2] [https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137](https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137)

</comment><comment><USER11> This article shows the danger of going by surface appearances and statistics in areas that you don't know.

There are a lot of places that don't look like much (for someone used to rich areas) but are decent, stable communities. That run-down looking restaurant might be a stable business that serves great food.

<comment><USER12> I think there's two things that are true -- the author is kind of a glib poverty tourist, _and_ the Bay Area is becoming increasingly stratified in income, as illustrated by some of the things he notices. He'd be more credible if he was better informed about the people he's writing about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's always the pat answers of "housing is the government's job", "this situation was created by public policy" but at this point shouldn't those in tech, the most lucrative and largest industry in the region, at least allot a little thought to the problem of inequality? In discussions defending Silicon Valley, "the press never covers the startups working on hard problems like human longevity or heart disease, but REAL companies that aren't frivolous apps exist" always gets trotted out. Well, how about companies that work on problems that directly impact the Bay Area?

At the very least, earmark higher budgets for corporate philanthropy and community outreach.

<comment><USER14> Sounds like a coordination problem with a first-mover disadvantage. It's in the best interest of each individual company to keep profits coming back to improve the business and it's competitiveness, rather than earmarking some for philanthropy and community outreach. The first company to do so would suffer while the others continue improving their business.

This is exactly why it's a problem to solve at the government level; a higher authority, with teeth, is needed to solve these coordination problems and force market participants to all do the right thing.

<comment><USER13> Certainly it should be the government's job because it is both intended to and should be most effective/efficient to fix such a tragedy of the commons type situation.

But your comment is also sad because it shows how despite all of the iconoclast rhetoric, Silicon Valley companies are often far more risk-adverse, some could say, cowardly, in not willing to buck change. Not simply on matters involving social value or controversy, but more mundane topics that have been brought up before on HN such as willingness to embrace remote work, create better interview processes, etc.

And that of course, is also understandable. Tech companies are only willing to disrupt the economic markets and labor practices that would lead to maximum value extraction and shareholder value. No one sincerely disrupts to "make the world a better place."

<comment><USER15> Tech has absolutely nothing to gain from sky high real estate prices.

Casting it as an singular moral entity which you can then accuse of moral delinquency may not help in understanding or solving any particular problem. If it were in fact a hyper powerful agency that could change the landscape around itself merely through the commission of its moral will, why would it not have removed all of the anti-housing laws already? Tech workers don't want to pay millions for housing. It is not in the tech industry's best interest – therefore, the issue can't be due to tech having ill best interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Saying that construction is a 'basic job skill' is kind of an amazing way to say you don't understand what is going on there at all. Or that somehow it's just magic to you. Most jobs have a depth to them, and most people have to learn quite a bit to do them successfully.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. Based on the author's description, I think he basically is talking about what he sees from CalTrain or the 101 without actually looking into the areas he says are broken.

I live north of San Mateo in one of these "broken" areas. It is most definitely not broken, and nor are the people. But if you go down by the CalTrain line you'll see some trash strewn about and some houses that look run down. But go 200 feet away and it is no longer that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is fairly accurate, in my experience. I live on the border between Sunnyvale and Mountain View, and within a couple blocks is a gated street (closed to vehicular traffic) where a bunch of skateboarding teens hang out. On the Sunnyvale side of the gate are a bunch of small somewhat run-down apartment buildings, usually 4- or 8-plexes, and you can never find parking because each unit often has 3-4 working adults in it. On one side of the Mountain View street are 60s duplexes; on the other are 90s duplexes; and at the end of the street is a beautiful neighborhood with $3M homes.

The one caveat, as skybrian mentions, is that you can't really judge a family's financial status from where they live. A large number of residents in the run-down areas are immigrant bargain-hunters, often with tech jobs; even the run-down areas in Silicon Valley are better than many other countries, and so they'd rather save money than flash their social status. Oftentimes it turns out that they own 3 houses and are collecting serious rent money from young American techies who think they're top of the hill in Silicon Valley.

I'm curious whether this is different from other cities. When I lived in Boston, it wasn't all that different; you'd have gorgeous restored brownstones in the South End that were a few blocks away from homicides and drug deals in Dorchester and Roxbury.

<comment><USER19> To add to this, my wife and I explicitly chose to move in to a 'run-down' apartment building in order to save. Despite both of us having swanky tech jobs at the time. In fact, we conducted our apartment search mainly in spanish in order to get the best deal.

<comment><USER20> If you're living in run-down conditions when you are earning enough to still be saving and living in decent conditions somewhere else -- you're fooling yourself. Likely your swanky tech job is netting you relatively less than you think.

<comment><USER18> Curious about your logic there? My experience has been the opposite - it's the folks who live in run-down conditions and save 50-80% of their income for decades that end up with a $5-10M net worth, while folks who live comfortably all that time leave this world with maybe a couple hundred K.

<comment><USER20> Whats the point of dying with $10m?

What I meant is, if you are doing well you can both have nice place to live AND save. You aren't not doing well if you have to pick one or the other. Many techies seem to misunderstand their actual relative wealth in the area. Below $250k/y is lower middle, 500K/y+ is middle and 1M/y+ is upper. But everyone acts like their 300k/y makes them pocket rich while they live in a hovel.

<comment><USER18> 1.) Not ever having to worry about not having enough money.

2.) Living knowing that you produced more than you consumed.

3.) Passing it on to your kids.

Anyway, from personal experience - living below your means doesn't mean deprivation. It means deciding what you actually want and not buying into all of the messages society sends you about what you _should_ want. Usually you can get what you _actually_ want for a small fraction of a tech-worker's salary, and then once you do that, why give the rest to somebody else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Highly recommend watching: Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_uTsrxfYWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_uTsrxfYWQ)

Basically what the author (Daniel Miessler) is seeing is this suburban sprawl being selectively re-invented. Originally the Peninsula was sprawl for San Francisco in the 1940-70s. Then the housing stock slowly aged and the rich people moved on to Pleasanton, etc.

At some point Oracle, Google and the dot-com bubble and associated traffic jams on 880/101 made it make sense to re-examine and subsequently re- invent/re-invest in infill locations like San Mateo and Mountain View respectively. Usually the leading indicator for re-development is the school district.

Mountain View when I was growing up was were you went for well priced non- Italian/French restaurants. In fact there are some original still there on Castro street still hanging on if you look closely. It was most definitely not high end baked French goods (i.e. Alexander's Patisserie).

I would say with the arrival of Box in Redwood City, it's starting to happen there too.

I'd also add that in places that are not physically constrained (like in Texas or even Southern California), you just have more sprawl. It looks different but it doesn't seem any better (or any worse).

</comment><comment><USER7> I moved to the city for a few months a week ago and the poverty described in the article is apparent. Everyone you speak to is struggling to pay rent and afford more than subsistence. Perhaps it's fairer to equate San Francisco with London: most of the realestate is owned by the rich whereas everyone else is struggling to pay for inflated housing prices.

A separate note: I did enjoy San Jose. It's not wealthy but it's a quaint type of lifestyle that I did not dislike. To say that it's comfortable living, however, would be a stretch.

</comment><comment><USER22> If government had just a little more money, and controlled prices just a little more, this wouldn't be a problem anymore. . .

. . .said every public office-holder in this area for the last fifty years.

</comment><comment><USER6> From the article:

"Heading north from Fremont is basically sadness. Hayward, Oakland, San Leandro, Richmond, Vallejo. They're all poverty stricken and broken. The only green zones I see out in that area are maybe in Dublin, Pleasanton, Moraga, etc., but I honestly don't know much about those areas because I seldom get out there."

Oh no, what happened to Piedmont, Berkeley, Kensington and all the other lovely East Bay towns? Perhaps the author is only seeing poverty because that's what he's looking for.

To me, the suggestion that living in Dublin is preferable to living in Oakland sounds bizarre. A lot of people in these "broken" cities would rather be there than anywhere else, so they must have something going for them.</comment>


Entrepreneur builds solar bottle lights to help his impoverished community - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOl4vwhwkW8&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> In case you're interested, some discussion from one of the previous times this story was submitted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2842632>

I say "one of" because there are others, although they didn't get any discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2994086>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2816556>

I'm pretty sure there were more, but as promised, I've turned off all my automated duplicate detection, and I'm not going to spend the time searching.</comment>


New Apple Watch - sahin-boydas https://www.apple.com/watch/ <comment><AUTHOR> There is nothing new in this page.

<comment><USER2> Someone is trying to cheat at the internet :)</comment></comment>