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freehunter | 5 years ago

I download and use the app despite the name. I’m not okay with it, but I need the features it offers and there isn’t a better alternative with a better name. There used to be (called Caffeine) but it disappeared from the store and I’m not sure why.

Just because people use the app doesn’t mean they like the name.

discuss

order

webmobdev|5 years ago

But do you believe Apple should be the ultimate arbitrator of such silly things like the name of an app you create?

sbarre|5 years ago

In their environment that they clearly indicate is their environment from the outset? Yes..

They are not telling the author they can't call his app whatever they want. They are saying they will not sell it in their app store under that name.

And that's the bargain you enter into when you sell in a walled garden ecosystem.

rleigh|5 years ago

I'm going to say yes.

This isn't unique to Apple. Debian and other Linux distributions have also had similar discussions when considering the distribution of packages with obscene, morally repugnant or inappropriate names, as well as the package contents themselves.

Whether it's a commercial entity or a volunteer organisation, there are considerations regarding image and reputation. People can and will push the boundaries of what is acceptable, and somewhere you're going to have to draw a line.

0xEFF|5 years ago

The caffeinate command is built into macos.

Edit: This keeps the computer awake until 6 PM each day.

  caffeinate -u -i -s -t $(($(date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "$(date +"%a %b %d 18:00:00 %Z %Y")" "+%s") - $(date +%s)))

freehunter|5 years ago

That command makes me really glad Amphetamine exists.

blacksmith_tb|5 years ago

Handy, but not exactly easy on the eyes. I usually just us the -t flag to pass it seconds, like 'caffeinate -t 3600' to prevent sleep for the next hour.

sillysaurusx|5 years ago

Why aren’t you okay with Amphetamine?

freehunter|5 years ago

I use it on my work computer and it's not a word I'm comfortable showing to clients. You never know who may have had (or still does have) an addiction, and I also don't want them seeing it and thinking I have an addiction since that could be bad for business.

mcpherrinm|5 years ago

(edited due to inaccuracy)

There is a command line tool called caffeinate that ships with Mac OS. Maybe Apple didn’t like somebody using something so similar their system utility name.

Originally I thought it was the same name, so this seems much less likely now that they're merely similar.

htfu|5 years ago

No, that's called caffeinate.

tomasf|5 years ago

[Caffeine's original developer here]

I removed Caffeine from the App Store when Apple started complaining that a click on a menu bar icon for an app without a dock icon must always show a menu (offering a Quit option). I wanted it to toggle the active state instead and show the menu on right-click/cmd-click.

vestrigi|5 years ago

Did you just not feel like arguing with the app store review team or was it a clear decision between changing it or leaving the app store? The author of amphetamine told that there was a similar problem but apparently he could settle this.

> Amphetamine updates have been rejected by Apple on numerous occasions. One time, Apple’s App Review Team did not like my “Preview” screen shots. Another time, Apple objected to the default behavior when clicking Amphetamine’s menu bar icon, saying it must open the menu by default and not start a session.

webmobdev|5 years ago

> I removed Caffeine from the App Store when Apple started complaining

Good for you! That is exactly what everyone needs do when Apple starts being pointlessly petty. Yes, operating systems have UI guidelines. But they are guidelines - sometimes a developer may come up with something better, especially for power users, and no such developer should have to waste time trying to communicate and convince some committee of this, and worse, wait for an approval from them to launch the product.

shawnz|5 years ago

In my opinion they made the right choice here -- that is a much different behaviour than any other kind of menu bar icon has and it would be inconsistent with every other app and the OS itself.

It's a neat idea but that is just not the use case the menu bar was designed around and I don't think it makes sense for individual apps to go against the current in that way

bromonkey|5 years ago

This behavior design choice is exactly why I use caffeine :)