I've been consistently saying this online - "app stores" and "developer programs" are all about control (and exploitation) and we developers need to consistently boycott it. There is a real need for us developers to form a Union and lobby for regulations to prevent such kind of abuse and exploitation by the BigTech. If we don't act now, it is going to be too late to do so. The onslaught against our rights and freedoms, by BigTech, is the beginning of a new form "digital imperialism" where we are only seen as "labour" and "consumer".
"I've been consistently saying this online - "app stores" and "developer programs" are all about control ..."
Good
When I choose "DIY" I am not making the choice for "security", "privacy", speed, resource conservation (e.g., program size, memory usage, etc.), convenience, "features" or cost.^1 I am interested in control. Specifically, control over the operation of the computer hardware I purchased
I am willing to make sacrifices to get as much control as I can
But every user is different; some might not care about control. Clearly "Big Tech" cares; perhaps there are advantages to having control
1. Although it's possible the choice may affect these concerns, either positively or negatively. Arguably these concerns are ultimately addressed with finality by whomever has control, whether that's the computer owner or some trillion dollar company
While android also has this problem (requiring a Developer account), it is not that bad, because you can still publish apps outside of the app store.
Sadly Google is hard at work to remove this functionality.
Is the device you used for signing up previously used with another dev account? Is your payment method something that can be considered shady(i.e. single use or anonymous payment cards)?
If you call them, they will reset your status so you can try again but they will not tell you the reason. Try doing it on an Apple device that hasn't been used before with a dev account and make sure you are using a credit card on your name.
It's probably Apple trying to fight malicious developers but ending up blocking you.
Apple’s terms explicitly prohibit using automated tools to scrape or analyze App Store data, even if it’s done outside an app. When they flag something like that, they usually don’t explain the reason — partly because they don’t want to expose how they evaluate developer activity or link accounts to external projects.
Not saying it’s definitely the cause, but it’s one plausible explanation the author was denied.
> When they flag something like that, they usually don’t explain the reason — partly because they don’t want to expose how they evaluate developer activity or link accounts to external projects.
Well, this is unacceptable considering the market power Apple has. It's basically an occupational ban for mobile app development. Imagine, if GitHub won't let you join (maybe) because you criticized Microsoft on Twitter 10 years ago, or (maybe) it's because they don't like the way you dress.
"What's your greatest weakness?"
"Well, I can't develop your app for half the market, because Apple unexpectedly challenged me with a self-improvement journey. But I am well on my way, really introspecting to find out where I failed in life, where I may have misspoken. I am confident I can soon regain Apple's trust and approval for my life decision, and become a full-market developer!"
> It’s not that uncommon for a 3rd party to report a developer for violating Apple ToS. Frequently, it’s out of spite towards the offending party and not out of love for Apple. Also, Apple employees sometimes report stuff they stumble upon too.
What evidence do you have for these claims?
Unless you work for Apple—indeed, unless you work specifically for Apple legal—it's unclear how in the world you would know how common this is or what Apple employees do.
I bought a new SIM to have a new phone number, create a new email, registered a new Apple ID from a different IP, got to the step where I have to pay for the dev account and all of the cards I used got me an error. Banks saying Apple did not even try charging them.
What do you think is flagged here, your name, or banking info? Name pattern matching seems a bit unlikely/incompetent since sometimes people got identical names. Same phone? Maybe the IMEI part is flagged. Have you tried a residential IP?
Just in case you are on some greater shit-list (maybe by accident, by someone else's doing), I would take a moment to make sure you know how to behave when searched, got nothing too incriminating at home/your car (i.e. illegal drugs), your drives/backups are encrypted and your master password isn't pinned on a post-it. If your existence is bound to local data, make sure to have remote backups anticipating your devices getting confiscated.
Sure, yes, eventually your name will likely be published somewhere on some government site and their downstream scrapers -- but at least your personal address and phone number can be kept private.
As someone learning Japanese, that seems very much like an app I would want and love. I hope you are able to sort this out soon so I can buy it!
Also Igor, if you are reading this, your GitHub and LinkedIn icons in your sites header link to GitHub and LinkedIn's homepages rather than your profiles. Probably want to fix that ;)
You may be right. His name sounds Russian or Slavic. Even then, another country's law shouldn't trump your own country's law. If he is on a blacklist of some country, ban him only there.
If you look at the about page, there are telltale signs that he is from Slovakia, which is an EU country, just like a bunch of other Slavic countries, such as Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria.
>Even then, another country's law shouldn't trump your own country's law. If he is on a blacklist of some country, ban him only there.
But Apple is an American company? If he's sanctioned for being a Putin affiliate or whatever, Apple has to abide those sanctions, even if he's not sanctioned in whatever country he lives in.
> If he's sanctioned for being a Putin affiliate or whatever
Unless you have specific incriminating evidence, please don't present this hypothetical nonsense as if it's a real possibility. Here's more information about the author: https://blog.kulman.sk/about/
What a shame that comments keep mentioning Russia just because the author's name is not "John Smith" or something.
Couldn't that potentially cause problems for the person whose name you're using? I imagine it would likely violate Apple's terms of service and that person might risk losing access to whatever Apple services they rely on.
I bought a new SIM to have a new phone number, create a new email, registered a new Apple ID from a clean VM and different IP, got to the step where I have to pay for the dev account and all of the cards I used got me an error. Banks saying Apple did not even try charging them.
Could be. Long ago I tried to sign up for an Apple Dev account, having bought a cheap used Mac mini just for the purpose, but learned in the process that they were only allowing signups from Intel Macs and not Power PC Macs, much to my chagrin.
I got the same thing trying to sign up for Oracle Cloud.
Thankfully Oracle aren't the only cloud platform, of course. Which makes it even more fun telling my friends and colleagues how shit Oracle Cloud are whenever the topic of cloud providers comes up even funnier.
On the other hand, Apple's position of dominance here makes their refusal to answer a GDPR subject access request all the more galling.
I've been consistently saying this online - "app stores" and "developer programs" are all about control (and exploitation) and we developers need to consistently boycott it. There is a real need for us developers to form a Union and lobby for regulations to prevent such kind of abuse and exploitation by the BigTech. If we don't act now, it is going to be too late to do so. The onslaught against our rights and freedoms, by BigTech, is the beginning of a new form "digital imperialism" where we are only seen as "labour" and "consumer".
"I've been consistently saying this online - "app stores" and "developer programs" are all about control ..."
Good
When I choose "DIY" I am not making the choice for "security", "privacy", speed, resource conservation (e.g., program size, memory usage, etc.), convenience, "features" or cost.^1 I am interested in control. Specifically, control over the operation of the computer hardware I purchased
I am willing to make sacrifices to get as much control as I can
But every user is different; some might not care about control. Clearly "Big Tech" cares; perhaps there are advantages to having control
1. Although it's possible the choice may affect these concerns, either positively or negatively. Arguably these concerns are ultimately addressed with finality by whomever has control, whether that's the computer owner or some trillion dollar company
Very true, and it's done under the guise of safety, when it's actually just a war on general computing.
developers of the world, unite !
[dead]
While android also has this problem (requiring a Developer account), it is not that bad, because you can still publish apps outside of the app store. Sadly Google is hard at work to remove this functionality.
Is the device you used for signing up previously used with another dev account? Is your payment method something that can be considered shady(i.e. single use or anonymous payment cards)?
If you call them, they will reset your status so you can try again but they will not tell you the reason. Try doing it on an Apple device that hasn't been used before with a dev account and make sure you are using a credit card on your name.
It's probably Apple trying to fight malicious developers but ending up blocking you.
It might be related to this repo: https://github.com/igorkulman/AppStoreCrawler
Apple’s terms explicitly prohibit using automated tools to scrape or analyze App Store data, even if it’s done outside an app. When they flag something like that, they usually don’t explain the reason — partly because they don’t want to expose how they evaluate developer activity or link accounts to external projects.
Not saying it’s definitely the cause, but it’s one plausible explanation the author was denied.
> When they flag something like that, they usually don’t explain the reason — partly because they don’t want to expose how they evaluate developer activity or link accounts to external projects.
Well, this is unacceptable considering the market power Apple has. It's basically an occupational ban for mobile app development. Imagine, if GitHub won't let you join (maybe) because you criticized Microsoft on Twitter 10 years ago, or (maybe) it's because they don't like the way you dress.
"What's your greatest weakness?"
"Well, I can't develop your app for half the market, because Apple unexpectedly challenged me with a self-improvement journey. But I am well on my way, really introspecting to find out where I failed in life, where I may have misspoken. I am confident I can soon regain Apple's trust and approval for my life decision, and become a full-market developer!"
That was a decade ago, used on a single project and I kind of doubt Apple would link my Github account to my Apple Id.
If a corporation really doesn't like you, they really don't like you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/03/31/facial-reco...
very likely they would. have you heard about a corporation named Axiom?
[flagged]
> It’s not that uncommon for a 3rd party to report a developer for violating Apple ToS. Frequently, it’s out of spite towards the offending party and not out of love for Apple. Also, Apple employees sometimes report stuff they stumble upon too.
What evidence do you have for these claims?
Unless you work for Apple—indeed, unless you work specifically for Apple legal—it's unclear how in the world you would know how common this is or what Apple employees do.
[flagged]
I also have hard feelings against the apple developer program. They prove to be incompetent and evil at all levels.
Register a company/business.
Get a business phone number, mailing address, and credit card.
You're going to have to publish your name, address, phone number, etc when you have an app published on the app store
If you want to get around the individual privacy issue of this, you'll need a business anyway.
I bought a new SIM to have a new phone number, create a new email, registered a new Apple ID from a different IP, got to the step where I have to pay for the dev account and all of the cards I used got me an error. Banks saying Apple did not even try charging them.
What do you think is flagged here, your name, or banking info? Name pattern matching seems a bit unlikely/incompetent since sometimes people got identical names. Same phone? Maybe the IMEI part is flagged. Have you tried a residential IP?
Just in case you are on some greater shit-list (maybe by accident, by someone else's doing), I would take a moment to make sure you know how to behave when searched, got nothing too incriminating at home/your car (i.e. illegal drugs), your drives/backups are encrypted and your master password isn't pinned on a post-it. If your existence is bound to local data, make sure to have remote backups anticipating your devices getting confiscated.
>If you want to get around the individual privacy issue of this, you'll need a business anyway.
Unless the country in which the business is registered makes corporate registrations (and officers) public.
Sure, yes, eventually your name will likely be published somewhere on some government site and their downstream scrapers -- but at least your personal address and phone number can be kept private.
As someone learning Japanese, that seems very much like an app I would want and love. I hope you are able to sort this out soon so I can buy it!
Also Igor, if you are reading this, your GitHub and LinkedIn icons in your sites header link to GitHub and LinkedIn's homepages rather than your profiles. Probably want to fix that ;)
Thanks for noticing, I fixed the links.
That’s got to be something legal or regulatory. Some sort of sanction like black list
You may be right. His name sounds Russian or Slavic. Even then, another country's law shouldn't trump your own country's law. If he is on a blacklist of some country, ban him only there.
If you look at the about page, there are telltale signs that he is from Slovakia, which is an EU country, just like a bunch of other Slavic countries, such as Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria.
It's almost certainly fraud or AML concerns. Companies are not allowed to explain this stuff.
Please do not call me a Russian .. I am Slovak.
Have you considered filing a complaint with your local data protection agency? Perhaps they could escalate your GDPR request.
>Even then, another country's law shouldn't trump your own country's law. If he is on a blacklist of some country, ban him only there.
But Apple is an American company? If he's sanctioned for being a Putin affiliate or whatever, Apple has to abide those sanctions, even if he's not sanctioned in whatever country he lives in.
> If he's sanctioned for being a Putin affiliate or whatever
Unless you have specific incriminating evidence, please don't present this hypothetical nonsense as if it's a real possibility. Here's more information about the author: https://blog.kulman.sk/about/
What a shame that comments keep mentioning Russia just because the author's name is not "John Smith" or something.
That’s not how US secondary sanctions work.
I don't think the issue at hand is coming up with plausible reasons, but the guessing.
Nothing should be less controversial for Apple to specify, than legal reasons beyond their control.
Just sign up with someone else's name.
Had this all the time before I changed my name.
Couldn't that potentially cause problems for the person whose name you're using? I imagine it would likely violate Apple's terms of service and that person might risk losing access to whatever Apple services they rely on.
I bought a new SIM to have a new phone number, create a new email, registered a new Apple ID from a clean VM and different IP, got to the step where I have to pay for the dev account and all of the cards I used got me an error. Banks saying Apple did not even try charging them.
Maybe the VM is the problem - not sure if they let you sign up from emulated osx.
Could be. Long ago I tried to sign up for an Apple Dev account, having bought a cheap used Mac mini just for the purpose, but learned in the process that they were only allowing signups from Intel Macs and not Power PC Macs, much to my chagrin.
Not macOS, Linux to be competently different that my main machine.
I got the same thing trying to sign up for Oracle Cloud.
Thankfully Oracle aren't the only cloud platform, of course. Which makes it even more fun telling my friends and colleagues how shit Oracle Cloud are whenever the topic of cloud providers comes up even funnier.
On the other hand, Apple's position of dominance here makes their refusal to answer a GDPR subject access request all the more galling.
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