Monroe confirmed: “When I woke up this morning, I found that my inbox was full of complaints from users. My application could not be launched, and it would crash upon launch.
Editor’s note: This article is from Tencent Technology, reviewing Golden Deer.
On August 5, as Apple continues to face disputes over app store policies and commissions, software developer Charlie Monroe recently revealed that The company banned all his applications without warning. Although his ten MacOS applications and two iOS applications can continue to be purchased on the App Store, Apple has stopped their launch.
Monroe confirmed: “When I woke up this morning, I found that my inbox was full of complaints from users. My application failed to start and crashed when I started. After investigation, I found that Apple had suspended me Distribution certificate, which usually causes the application to be banned remotely. When I log in to my developer account, it will ask me to register for the Apple Developer Program. I don’t seem to participate in this program anymore. However, I’m on the App Store ‘S applications are still available.”
Monroe said that since then, Apple has not issued any prior warnings or provided any explanation. He said: “No one wrote me to explain any reason, no one called me, and no one warned me before the certificate was revoked.”
Monroe has tried all the methods of contacting Apple that are open to developers, but none of them have worked, including telephone support, which is usually the fastest. He explained: “They provide phone calls. You can fill in your own phone number. They said they would call you back within a minute, but nothing happened and no one called, and more than six hours have passed. “
Monroe said: “One day, when you woke up, you found that your business was blocked without any explanation or warning. This is abnormal.” Until about eight and a half hours later, Monroe finally managed Contacted Apple. But he said: “The people who received said that they didn’t know anything about it and would report this to their internal team, and they would contact me further.”
One week before this incident, Apple CEO Tim Cook and his colleagues at Google, Facebook, and Amazon were required to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives on antitrust issues. Although the question of the House of Representatives does not seem to have much effect, the issues involved in the hearing are crucial. In Apple’s case, it is mainly related to the company’s app store policy and its relationship with sales through the app store.It is related to the way the app developer works. According to reports, these allegations include arbitrary changes to the rules and whether Apple has effectively created a monopoly.
Starting with MacOS Catalina, Apple has implemented a security process that requires all applications to be notarized. The purpose is to make it more difficult for malware to install on the Mac, even if it is purchased outside the Mac App Store.
Apple said in a statement on improving its Gatekeeper security features: “Mac applications, installation packages and kernel extensions signed with a developer ID must also be notarized by Apple before they can run on MacOS Catalina. This will By displaying a more streamlined Gatekeeper interface, it helps users to trust the software they download and run. No matter where they get it, they are not malware.”
Apple can revoke such certificates at any time, as the company did in the Charlie Monroe case. However, the purpose of this is to give the company the ability to shut down rogue applications, and it has had similar problems before.
In 2017, a change made by Apple, coupled with certificate expiration restrictions, caused high-profile applications such as 1Password to crash. Prior to this, developers only needed to renew their visa certificates when releasing new versions of applications, so few people paid attention to this before MacOS began to stop rolling out existing applications. Apple declined to comment.