Why AnyList Won’t Be Supporting Sign in With Apple
We agree with Apple that privacy is a fundamental human right, and understand that the “Hide My Email” option in Sign in with Apple is well-intentioned, but it feels like Apple didn’t really think through all of the implications for basic user experience, customer support, and collaboration.
[…]
Finally, from a policy perspective, Apple explicitly states in their usage guidelines, “Apple reserves the right to disable Sign in with Apple on a website or app for any reason at any time.” If customers cannot log into their accounts, then they can’t use our service. Giving a third-party such powerful control over a core part of our service when it’s not absolutely required is unnecessarily risky, in our view.
Because of the App Store Guidelines and other problems with Facebook, they will no longer be supporting Facebook login, either.
Creating an account will still be fast and easy, though, because we’ve implemented support for iCloud Keychain and strong password AutoFill, which is a nice enhancement made by Apple in iOS 12 (and improved in iOS 13).
Previously:
Update (2020-07-03): Matt Birchler:
The App Store has done tons of good for the world of software, and more people buy software today than ever before, and the App Store gets tons of credit for making that possible, but I think that ignoring the costs to merchant/customer relationships is unwise.
We’re now moving closer to the big big retailer model we had 20 years ago. The rules are less restrictive, but merchants must still work out deals with Apple and make software the way Apple dictates it should be made.
[…]
Putting Apple between the merchant and the consumer has benefits, but it’s disingenuous to ignore its costs. And while things today are far better for merchants and developers than they were in the big box retail days, I think the “at least it’s better than 20 years ago” argument is pretty weak.
I think, for the most part, AnyList’s concerns are well-founded for their particular offering.
