my 8yo daughter caught me playing and now she's hooked!

Been using since it came out over a month ago. The biggest annoyances are:

1. You cannot tap on any links in iMessage. You have to hold your thumb down on the link, copy it to clipboard, switch to Safari, paste

2. If someone posts a gif in an iMessage thread, it doesn't show up

3. All inbound requests for FaceTime calls seem to be automatically blocked, even when they are coming from people who are favorites in my contacts. I haven't looked into why yet. Maybe it's because I don't have their phone number saved with a `+1` prefix in my contacts?

Other than that it's hardly noticeable, and I think it's fantastic that we now have this option.

The linked article says

> Incoming FaceTime calls are blocked unless you have previously called that person or contact.

So you may have to call them first, even if they are a favorited contact.

Thank you! TIL that I never initiate calls with the most important people in my life.

Can meet in person, after all, right?

Seems well thought out. It prevents someone from maliciously adding their phone number to, say, your mom in Contacts.

It's more that there are plenty of people who have others in their contacts, who rarely or never want to receive facetime messages from said contacts.

This is a strange one. Presumably a few people in the target group for this would know a few people also in the target group - how do they intend to bootstrap trust? Or is it just a calls b, b's device reject call - b can now call a? Then after b call a, a can also call b?

If so, it sounds like a very complicated way of marking contacts as "super favorites"?

You can receive incoming calls from accounts you have called. Presumably, the bootstrap looks like two people try to call each other, one is rejected, one goes through. Then either can call the other in the future.

Is this really a feature people want? I can’t imagine any situation where I’d want to allow unsolicited FaceTime calls (99% of the time it’s some kind of spammer)

> 2. If someone posts a gif in an iMessage thread, it doesn't show up

This sounds like a positive for me. I disable animations in chat whenever it’s an option.

#1 sounds great. I hate how I can't open a link from iMessage directly in Firefox Focus, which is my normal practice. In the process of copying the link, I have to long press, which causes Messages to pre-load a preview of the page in a standard webview. I don't know what this does for privacy, but I wish there was a way to disable just this behavior.

It's possible to disable the preview, clicking somewhere on the grey bar IIRC.. at least when I used iOS.

I've found this developer to be trustworthy, has a good track record with his git app. I'd be surprised if he would make this claim if it were untrue... it could easily be proven wrong by anyone using Charles proxy.

I hope you enjoy it!

Great point.

Though I do wonder why many of the other apps that came up as a search result for "weight loss tracker" continue to do so, and mine was singled out. It's an important search term, because predictive text will suggest "weight loss tracker" when you start typing "weight." If tracker were being penalized as noise, then adjusting the predictive text would be a great way to handle the transition.

Thank you! Your framing is something I wish I had included in the article: users are legitimately searching for a weight loss tracker. Surely this app should be somewhere among the top 400 results, right? I’ve got years of built up reputation as a developer who’s trying to make a good app for users.

I assure you, I won’t be pulling this app anytime soon. I didn’t intend to communicate that. It’s just that I have three small kids at home, so I don’t get much nights and weekends time for the app anymore. If I have to go back to full time work because of this, I’ll just shift into maintenance mode for the app (like making sure it’s compatible with new versions of iOS).

Thank you! I will surely post an update if anything changes. I'm sure that no matter how this turns out, my family and I will all be fine.

Good to hear!

First off, yours is a great message to send out to anyone reading this. You can mitigate risks like this by having a more direct relationship to your users, and this was a wake-up call to me.

That said, a few counterpoints:

1. Something like 70% of all installs, for all apps, come from App Store search. It's the most popular way for users to find what they're looking for.

2. My business had to come alive before it could grow to be robust. I built this app from scratch. I didn't have an audience. I just built it, and App Store search connected me to people who were looking for an app like this, and it grew to the point where I could do it full-time.

Has the time come for me to take steps to make my business more robust? Yes. And your advice is great in that regard.

But a fledgling business must first survive before it can grow to be robust. This is a tale of me hitting an inflection point. I hope to learn from it, and grow.

Thanks for sharing that! Really nice to hear from a satisfied user amidst all of this.

Thanks for your support! Yes, it specifically seems like anything with the word "tracker" in it got axed. Maybe it's just a glitch?

I just bought your app – looks fantastic! I'm sorry this is how I discovered your app, and hope the issue gets resolved.

Thank you!

Maybe change "tracker" to "monitor" until they fix it? I usually search for both when it comes to fitness/diet and it might not be blacklisted.

I do have "monitor" as a keyword, too. The thing about "tracker" that makes it so valuable is that it comes up as predictive text. If you type "weight loss" in the search bar, "weight loss tracker" is suggested, and "weight loss monitor" is not. PS: Thank you for proffering a helpful suggestion!