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Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

(github.com)
946 points giuliomagnifico | 10 comments | 01 Jan 21 19:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.41s | source | bottom
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mmaunder ◴[01 Jan 21 19:42 UTC] No.25606123[source]▶
You’re angry. I’ve felt this in a trademark lawsuit. You think the world should get behind you and change the corrupt system.

My advice is to immediately rebrand as gracefully and effectively as possible and use all that activist energy to effect the transition.

They kind of have a point which doesn’t make them right, but they hold all the cards and you will lose this one and regret the wasted bandwidth.

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Bodell ◴[01 Jan 21 20:05 UTC] No.25606390[source]▶
Honestly if your name your product stupid things I would think that some of us might be choosing not to download your product as a result. And if a store decides not to sell your product because of this it’s really their prerogative. Saying you violated their terms with impunity for 6 years doesn’t mean they lose the right to correct the mistake.

This name is pretty rings rather badly in my ears, though I’m not offended by such things. I’d feel similarly if they had named it “fuck sleep”. I’m not offended by the word “fuck” but I don’t really want to buy products that are named that. Do apps need energy drink names to be successful? I’ve noticed a trend in talking about men’s balls in ads, manscaping, underwater fart jokes. It’s seems so much like idiocracy more then something offensive.

On the other hand a rose is still a rose. So I agree they should probably just rename it. I doubt there would be any major loss from doing so.

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1. wincy ◴[01 Jan 21 20:46 UTC] No.25606882[source]▶
I know a very intelligent software engineer who told me he had never used Exercism (despite him using other similar tools) simply because he’s a practicing Catholic and thought the name to be in poor taste. You definitely alienate people at the fringes by naming things something even slightly risqué.
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2. webmobdev ◴[01 Jan 21 21:16 UTC] No.25607252[source]▶
And do you really want Apple to be the arbitrator of such silly things?
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3. canjobear ◴[01 Jan 21 21:57 UTC] No.25607618[source]▶
For their own app store, of course.
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4. mbreese ◴[01 Jan 21 22:03 UTC] No.25607678[source]▶
You could argue that this is also why we now have system services instead of daemons.
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5. izacus ◴[01 Jan 21 22:27 UTC] No.25607890{3}[source]▶
Even when their AppStore is mandaded to all your hardware by DRM with you not having any choice of opting out? You want all your possible business speech, products and content you consume dictated by a corporate decree with no accountability?
6. tsm_sf ◴[01 Jan 21 22:45 UTC] No.25608063[source]▶
There are a surprising number of Christians in CS, but they're generally of the more contemplative kind. I definitely remember people being uncomfortable with that but big enough to not make much of a fuss about it.

I'm guessing it's been slowly changed by people big enough to realize the name doesn't matter.

7. webmobdev ◴[01 Jan 21 22:52 UTC] No.25608124{3}[source]▶
The app store is a closed environment where they can dictate some terms. But don't forget that the developers PAY THEM to use it, and as such their terms cannot trump the consumer laws that exist to protect against abuse.

(By the way, "my shop, my terms" have already faced legal scrutiny, some of which were found to be illegal - popular judgements include that shops cannot refuse to serve people of colour or gays.)

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8. saagarjha ◴[01 Jan 21 23:29 UTC] No.25608460[source]▶
/Library/LaunchDaemons disagrees ;)
9. yongjik ◴[01 Jan 21 23:59 UTC] No.25608676[source]▶
Twenty-something years ago, I've seen some Christians legit freaking out on Netscape's Book of Mozilla[1] easter egg.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla

10. colejohnson66 ◴[02 Jan 21 20:28 UTC] No.25616173{4}[source]▶
Those “popular judgements” were because the laws on discrimination say so. There’s no law saying a store has to sell what they don’t want to. If Target (for example) decides to stop selling Pampers because they don’t like the name (for whatever reason), that’s their choice.