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Forced App Store Logins

  • 15-02-2016 2:00pm
    #1
    Zillah
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭


    Funny one that I've never seen before. I use an app called Scrivener quite a bit. Yesterday I got a popup insisting that I log in to the App Store before Scrivener would launch. I tried turning off wifi but it still insisted I let it log in to the App Store. I did so and it worked fine - but what if I had been offline? What if I had taken my laptop away for the weekend to the country where I had no wifi?

    I contacted their support and they have said "Apple have just rolled over to a new set of certificates - the ones that confirm that software is the genuine version upon launch." Now that I have "reconfirmed my purchase" it will continue to run, apparently. Why on earth do I have to reconfirm a purchase made a year ago? Do App Store apps always phone home like this?

    This sort of stupidity is the reason I am tempted to pirate software that I've paid for - just so I can be free of idiotic DRM that does nothing but punish paying customers.


Comments

  • #2
    Eugene Norman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,191 ✭✭✭Eugene Norman


    Zillah wrote: »
    Funny one that I've never seen before. I use an app called Scrivener quite a bit. Yesterday I got a popup insisting that I log in to the App Store before Scrivener would launch. I tried turning off wifi but it still insisted I let it log in to the App Store. I did so and it worked fine - but what if I had been offline? What if I had taken my laptop away for the weekend to the country where I had no wifi?

    I contacted their support and they have said "Apple have just rolled over to a new set of certificates - the ones that confirm that software is the genuine version upon launch." Now that I have "reconfirmed my purchase" it will continue to run, apparently. Why on earth do I have to reconfirm a purchase made a year ago? Do App Store apps always phone home like this?

    This sort of stupidity is the reason I am tempted to pirate software that I've paid for - just so I can be free of idiotic DRM that does nothing but punish paying customers.

    I get this when I run something on a different machine than normal and have changed app stores on it. Not much of an inconvenience


  • #3
    Zillah
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Only machine it's ever been on, and has worked perfectly for months - nothing changed on my end.

    It's not a huge inconvenience if you're on wifi - what if I wasn't? Locking you out of apps you've paid for because you can't submit to a fresh inspection is an idiotic way to treat a customer.


  • #4
    Eugene Norman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,191 ✭✭✭Eugene Norman


    Zillah wrote: »
    Only machine it's ever been on, and has worked perfectly for months - nothing changed on my end.

    It's not a huge inconvenience if you're on wifi - what if I wasn't? Locking you out of apps you've paid for because you can't submit to a fresh inspection is an idiotic way to treat a customer.

    I'm pretty sure the test is to test the network connection first to see if the cert needs re-validation. There's a potential race condition here alright if you them go offline but it's rare.


  • #5
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,682 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    I assume this was due to the recent WWDR certificate expiry as I was also asked to login to the App Store before opening an app the other day.

    To be clear, this is App Store issue and the app isn't "phoning home" to anyone, rather the App Store is phoning home to Apple – not to the developer, who has none of your details. This is a selling point of the App Store from a user perspective. It also means no messing around with serial numbers. And for developers it means added security.

    Yes, this essentially means that the app only works as long as the App Store does. Software is impermanent. You've purchased a license to use it but you don't own it, and it's sort of assumed that you are running the latest system software (i.e. not some ancient Mac with a 5 year old OS). If you don't like this, many developers allow you to purchase the app from them directly. It's often cheaper this way and you get updates quicker, but you'll probably have to contend with their own DRM. And the app will be phoning home to the developer rather than Apple to check for new updates.

    App Store certificate renewal should be pretty seamless and once renewed will last several years. Having said that, Apple had a big screw-up with it last year due to a caching bug in OS X that caused a far bigger inconvenience for some users then what you experienced. I had to delete and reinstall several apps to get them working again.

    Apple do need need to work on the constant iCloud and iTunes login pop-ups though which can be infuriating when you trying to get work done. It's particularly bad on iOS. But the App Store isn't nearly as bad.


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