{"id":27315,"date":"2019-11-20T15:24:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T20:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=27315"},"modified":"2025-04-08T10:06:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T14:06:52","slug":"guilherme-rambo-locked-out-of-apple-developer-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/guilherme-rambo-locked-out-of-apple-developer-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Guilherme Rambo Locked Out of Apple Developer Account"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guilherme Rambo<\/a> (tweet<\/a>, Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

After about two weeks of waiting, I decided to call developer support, which sounds easy, but I couldn’t find any phone number to reach them anywhere on the public part of the developer site. The only way to get on the phone with developer support is to visit a page within the developer portal where you can enter your phone number for them to call you later. The problem is that I couldn’t even visit that page because it also redirected me to the aforementioned contact form.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Like I mentioned before, the problem began in August. So far I’ve tried every possible private communication channel before deciding to make this story public. It’s worth mentioning that I didn’t get any e-mail or call from Apple warning about any sort of action being taken against my developer account. Apple always says that “running to the press doesn’t help”. Unfortunately, they haven’t responded in any way, even when I tried reaching out through internal contacts that I have. So the only option I have left now is to “run to the press”.<\/p>\n

I’ve read about developers having their accounts shut down for all sorts of alleged reasons. The most recent case happened to my friend Ying, who got his account terminated for “fraud”, which he didn’t commit. After he shared his story publicly, Apple reinstated his account.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

With notarization required for Catalina, even distributing apps outside the App Store requires a developer account. Not stated: he’s probably violated the Apple Developer Agreement<\/a>. Personally, I don’t think publishing publicly available (though hidden) information should be grounds for banning. And, regardless, he should be able to get a straightforward and prompt answer about his account status.<\/p>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Rambo is extraordinarily talented at what I would describe as digital spelunking — he explores the internals of beta OS releases and pokes at beta APIs<\/a> and he finds things<\/a> that weren’t supposed to have been exposed<\/a>. And when he does, he publishes his findings<\/a>. It would be quite a coincidence if that’s not the conflict at the center of his account having been disabled — that someone at Apple got pissed off and impetuously ordered Rambo’s account disabled, and now they don’t want to explain it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Would be a real shame if Apple suspended his account because they don’t like that he’s smart enough to uncover things they’ve accidentally shipped publicly. That would be petty retaliation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Rob Lorenz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

It would be terrible, but I think it’s almost better than the alternative. They’ve locked him out for months and won’t tell him how to restore his account. If that isn’t retaliation, what is it? They’re just totally incompetent at account management and<\/em> developer relations?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n