Yesterday evening, Apple started cracking down on apps that use third-party services to update without App Store approval. The majority of the affected apps seemed to use Rollout.io, an SDK that allows developers to modify their app in “real-time.”
Yesterday evening, Apple started cracking down on apps that use third-party services to update without App Store approval. The majority of the affected apps seemed to use Rollout.io, an SDK that allows developers to modify their app in “real-time.”
Now, Rollout’s CEO and co-founder, Erez Rusovsky, has issued a statement on Apple’s policy shift…
In a statement posted on the Rollout.io website, Rusovsky explained that the central purpose of the service is to allow developers to quickly fix bugs after an app has been released. In response to security concerns, Rusovsky also explains that Rollout is secured from any man-in-the-middle attacks and furthermore allows developers to patch vulnerabilities as they are discovered.
Our platform has been used by hundreds of developers to improve the quality of their apps by fixing thousands of bugs after release. This benefits developers and end-users alike and has prevented – by a conservative estimate – millions of crashes.
Also, Rollout is safe, secured from any MiTM attacks, and allows developers to immediately patch vulnerabilities as they are discovered, without requiring users to download a new version.
Rusovsky also explains in the blog post that Apple’s attitude shift doesn’t seem to be because of a new policy, but rather because of a more narrow interpretation of existing guidelines. Rollout was not aware of the policy shift ahead of time and has reached out to Apple to discuss.
While Apple has not modified its guidelines , it appears that these guidelines are now being interpreted in a more narrow way. We are disappointed that Apple has made this change before we have had an opportunity to address any concerns.
We have already reached out to Apple to discuss and are committed to adjusting our offering as needed to remain in compliance under the more narrow interpretation of the guidelines.
Rollout also continues to argue that it remains within Apple’s guidelines:
We want to reiterate that we have always been careful to remain within Apple’s guidelines (as detailed here); specifically the clause in its guidelines that allows developers to push Javascript to live apps as long as features and functionality are not changed.
Rusovsky says that Rollout will continue to move forward, with Apple’s new policy looming. He also teases the company’s upcoming service that “addresses the entire app development process, not only post-production.”
The full blog post can be read here.