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https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines

4.10:

You may not monetize built-in capabilities provided by the hardware or operating system, such as Push Notifications, the camera, or the gyroscope; or Apple services and technologies, such as Apple Music access, iCloud storage, or Screen Time APIs.


This only applies if the sole reason of the purchase is to gate an apple capability. If the purchase does more than that, literally anything, you can gate all the apple parts on an iPhone.

Where does it say that in the guidelines?

They don't restrict the App on the Phone to access Apple Health, just the synch between their Cloud and Apple.

Developers can only write data into Apple Health from the local phone SDK.

Cloud import is only supported from health providers and laboratories.


Nordictrack does this with iFit as well. Can’t sync to Apple Health without a paid account. Syncing is somewhat janky too.

I've always felt that YouTube is also breaking this rule by making background playback a Premium feature.

Know why you've always felt that way?

Because YouTube is breaking that rule by monetizing background operation.


I'm not seeing how that would be a violation. Youtube has never been a "download files to my device" service. It has always been a "stream video from our servers" service. I don't see how the fact that they added the ability to save a file and gated it by a subscription would be a violation.

Can you explain how you see it as one?


This isn’t about downloading videos for offline use but about background playback.

YouTube recently blocked the ability to play a video in the background (or with the screen turned off) unless you pay for premium. It just turns off the video if you leave the app, unlike other media on my iPhone.


I haven’t been able to do background play in YouTube without Premium for at least 4 years. I also recall finding Reddit threads of people having the same issue.

So… not exactly new for iPhone users.


Yep, and I'm saying that those four years ago (or whatever time it was) I was convinced that it is against this specific App Store guideline, but alas Apple has approved it.

Just because someone broke the rule in the past, persisted in breaking the rule and is still breaking the rule today doesn't mean they get a free pass to break the rule.

AFAIK you can open the video in Firefox, which allows you to stream in the background. of course not that seamless, but at least there's still a work-around.

Orion browser on iOS supports this very seamlessly, both pip and background.

> "download files to my device"

> they added the ability to save a file

Since when?

Oh, you mean pre-caching it and allowing the cache to play off-line?

It is not "downloading" or "saving" a file if I don't get an actual file on my file system I can use. I hate the abuse of this term.


Did you know that it's technically against the Apple TOS to use push notifications for advertising without allowing end users to opt out of the advertising part without removing functionality, even though it's never enforced and massive companies do it all the time?

Even Apple themselves do it, I see apple send me push notifications that are ads for Apple Arcade all the time.


The fee is to unlock something on their own back end, triggered by using a non Apple device. So Apple’s license probably doesn’t apply (the corner case that could cause it to apply is the app generating a key and sending it to the Withings infrastructure, I suppose).

But they are monetizing the export button you press before the api call is made.

I did exactly this with BirdNet-Go and my Unifi doorbell cam. Unifi exposes an RTSP feed for each camera so it was easy for the tool to just "listen" to the doorbell and start classifying.

I have a spare e-ink display and my next weekend project to follow onto this is to wire it up so it shows some faux "woodcut" images of birds detected, or something like that.


I did something similar with my BirdNET + e-ink screen, it's pulling images from wikipedia, dithering and rendering a summary with PIL.

https://i.imgur.com/5XbM6bb.png

Also if anyone is interested, here is the server for the e-ink screen https://github.com/koryk/inky-impression-server

and here is a MCP for birdnet that I've been using for a bit https://github.com/koryk/birdnetpi-mcp-local-server


Love your eink example! You’ve just sent me on a parts shopping trip :)

I’ve been unhappy with my little lcd board I’ve been using for the same here https://github.com/simonjgreen/OpenObservatory as the contrast is bad. I was considering using one of my trmnl displays, but it isn’t quite the right operating model for the frequency of updates I want.


I've also done basically the same this year, I just use a Raspberry pi + a usb mic. https://github.com/arnegiacomo/fugleramme

Its very popular with friends and family, especially with older people that dont enjoy traditional tech.


> Unifi exposes an RTSP feed for each camera

Do you mean an RTSP audio only stream separate from the video+audio feed you might ingest to an NVR, or combined audio/video RTSP stream? Most manufacturers of security cameras with ordinary RTSP stream functions support provide both video and audio together. 'Frigate' for instance will auto detect audio stream on a reolink camera and it "just works" in the latest versions of Frigate.


Unifi provides local RTSP streams in different resolutions, birdnet will happily take a rtsp and strip it's audio out for processing (ffmpeg?)


Have you had any difficulty with simultaneously retrieving >1 RTSP stream from the camera at a time, 24x7? Such as full resolution video/audio to a NVR for security purposes and then a second stream to birdnet?


Negative, you can always use go2rtc or scrypted to proxy them.


The e-ink display with woodcut birds sounds like the perfect final form of this project


just use trmnl it will make it super easy


I like my money to not go towards transphobes


i suspect ur talking about the founder ryan ckulp which is very active in his reddit /r/trmnl but cant seem to find any proof of transphobic stance


is there proof? i see that the founder ryan ckulp is active in /r/trmnl but dont see any proof of being misogyn or transphobe


I like my TRMLN it has been very solid.


It's a bummer that while Google Wallet on Android phones supports Suica, they only offer the feature if the device was sold originally in Japan. Presumably they didn't want to pay Sony the licensing fees for the technology on non-JP devices.

iPhones have it worldwide, so a visitor to Japan can use Apple Pay to stand up a card and fund it.


Apple Watches also support it, which can make it even more convenient in some circumstances (no need to fish anything out of pockets/bags/etc, can be used while holding other things).


Only if you’re left handed, or wear your watch on your right hand for whatever reason.

Or you have a contortionist spirit in you, whatever works :)


I'm right handed and wear my watch on my left wrist, never had an issue.


I've tried it once and found it very inconvenient, compared to pulling out my phone out of my pocket, but glad to hear it works for you!


The only annoying thing is, well at least in 2023 or so, was that you had to actually load the card with funds even if you had a payment method attached on the iPhone wallet. That got me once as I was tapping like normal throughout my time in Japan and ran out of funds and held up a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls (judging by their attire) who definitely laughed at me and I of course laughed at myself too.

If you’re in Japan here is a tip though. If you’re not super close to the main cities and you’re in an area without as many tourists and you see a group of Japanese school children and they all are eating something - the same thing or stuff from the same place, copy them. You won’t be disappointed. Probably. Had the best curry pan or whatever it’s called in my life following that trick.


That also happens with Clipper Card in the Bay Area. Happened to me a couple of weeks ago on BART. I wonder if all transit cards need to be loaded with money when used on iPhone. I remember having a Clipper Card with autoload and that would work just fine without balance.


You might be right. I like how NYC is set up with just tap to pay with your wallet app without needing to unlock or anything.


Yeah, I particularly like London’s implementation (I moved away just short of a decade ago - might have changed since) where if you just use the same card you don’t need a pass because there are daily/weekly/monthly maximums and you travel for free afterwards. Very good system. But it is slower that Suica/Pasmo.


Cringe. Cards are fun, collectable, and never run out of battery. Mine is a custom limited edition card from a Japanese chocolate factory.

https://matcha-jp.com/en/9482


Suica cards (and transit express payments in other regions) work after iPhone batteries die for a few hours.


Are you saying that an iphone can be used as a Suica card even with a dead battery? Or just that a discrete card still works when your phone is dead?


iPhones still let you use certain contactless features (like Suica) even when the battery has "run out" (ie., the main OS has shut off). The reserve battery power is enough to run Suica, CarKey support, and FindMy.


I imagine there are only maybe three people as stupid as me to try this, but just in case: it works fine when the battery runs out; but it does _not_ work during the OS update process.


Interestingly, but not exactly related - the OS update process will not start if you're connected to CarPlay. Probably to avoid automatic updates from triggering when you plug it in to charge in the car.


I don't know about the iPhone but the Apple Watch definitely doesn't work when the battery is dead.


It's not just a patent fee, IC-card support takes special hardware that enables the low latency of the transaction. Only Android phones sold in Japan (including Pixels) get it installed at manufacturing.


All Pixels have the hardware, it's only activated on Japan-based skus. You can root and change the sku to the japanese model and it works. Allegedly the Pixel 11 is only the US sku and the international sku, so all international 11s should have it activated unless they do some serious shenanigans.


This is unchanged from the upgrade program terms before. The phone is unlocked, but when you take delivery of the phone you have to activate it on a Big 3 carrier's postpaid plan.


So, the phones arrived locked? You can't use them with any carrier you want?


Phone is unlocked but you have to put in carrier info when you buy the phone. You have to activate a line from one of the big three carriers to use the program at all.


That was never actually enforced on iUP. You could choose T-Mobile and activate with an MVNO; that has worked for me as recently as August, 2025.


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