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GoodReader Downgraded, Drops Features at Request of Apple

GoodReader[1]The best PDF app for the iPad and iPhone  was updated yesterday and both gained and lost features.

GoodReader v4.8.0 adds VoiceOver compatibility, making the app more useful to the visually disabled, but the developer has also desiabled a couple iCloud features.

In what is only the latest example of Apple deciding post facto what iOS 8 integration is allowed, the GoodReader developers announced in the changelog that:

To ensure the compliance to Apple’s iCloud usage policy, the following operations have been disabled: creation of new folders inside iCloud, deletion of folders inside iCloud, moving of files and folders inside iCloud. We apologize for the inconvenience, but the iCloud usage policy is mandatory.

I have not yet confirmed the report, but I do know that this is not the first developer to report friction with Apple over iCloud integration. AppAdvice notes that the  Transmit file transfer app for iOS lost the option to send a file to iCloud at the demand, only to regain it later after Apple reversed their decision.

In addition to having trouble deciding what iCloud integration is allowed, Apple also reportedly demanding that developers remove widgets from certain apps:

Apple, over the past few months since the release of iOS 8, has also demanded the after-the-fact removal of extensions, particularly Today widgets, from certain apps, including the calculator app PCalc, the notepad app Neato, the text capture app Drafts 4, and now, the quick keyboard app Nintype.

What is particularly frustrating to developers is that those apps had first been approved by Apple with the widgets , only to have Apple later decide that the widgets have to go, and then even later changing their minds again.

iTunes via AppAdvice

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Comments


Tim F. January 7, 2015 um 4:55 pm

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goodreader/id777310222?mt=8

GoodReader removed the features on their own and the features were restored once the issue with Transmit was resolved.

In fact, I’m unsure of the timing of this report since this update (4.8.1) was on Dec 31st and likely could have been done so earlier since the Transmit issue was resolved on 12/11. That is, did GoodReader release 4.8.0 and 4.8.1 both on 12/31 or were you reporting on 4.8.0 several days after its release?

Either way, non-story.


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