Clever Geek Handbook

DHH Interview: Discussed App Store Issues and New Mail Service Hey

I spoke with the technical director of Hey - David Hansson. He is known to the Russian audience as a Ruby on Rails developer and a co-founder of Basecamp. We talked about blocking Hey updates in the App Store ( about the situation ), the development of the service and data privacy.





@DHH on Twitter



What happened



The Hey.com email service from the developers of Basecamp hit the App Store on June 15 and made headlines in major media almost immediately . The fact is that shortly after the release, a corrective patch was released for the application, but Apple specialists rejected it .



They also threatened to remove the email client from the store. According to them, the Hey developers violated clause 3.1.1 of the rules and did not use the In-App Purchase API mechanism to sell subscriptions. In this case, the corporation receives 30% commission from each transaction.





The authors of the app - Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson - disagreed with this requirement. They insisted that the corresponding clause would not apply in their case, since Hey users pay for a subscription on the official website, and they use the mobile application only to log in. Spotify and Netflix work in a similar way.



What is the result



The proceedings went on for several weeks and ended at the end of June. Apple finally approved the update , but Hey had to add a new free service to get around the in-app purchases requirement. Users can now create a temporary email account for 14 days.



Representatives of the corporation (before WWDC ) also said that they will stop delaying security updates for applications and will allow them to appeal a specific violation of store rules.



Despite an interim victory, David Hansson was not happy with the decision. He believes that in the future, the "apple corporation" can continue to use its dominant position in the market to "put pressure" on application developers at its discretion.



We discussed the situation to clarify some points and plans for the development of Hey.



The App Store story is still widely discussed. Tell us what “workarounds” did you consider when Apple refused to publish the first update? How is the in-app purchases situation evolving after your update has been approved? Can we expect any changes in the area in terms of regulation?



We finally got the right to place the application in the App Store without in-app purchases and 30% commission. True, for this we were forced to offer an alternative free service, which I am not very happy with. But nothing can be done. Although now Apple practices are actively studying European and American regulators.



Question and answer: English
1. The App Store situation is still getting a lot of attention, so let's start there. What workarounds did you and your team consider when Apple first refused to publish the update? How has the IAP dispute progressed now that the update is approved? What regulatory developments should we expect in the near future?



We've finally won a definitive right to exist in the App Store without paying the 30% fee or offering IAP. We had to offer a different free service, which I do not love, but so it goes. Apple is facing intense scrutiny in both the EU and US right now.


Here DHH is referring to investigations by the US Department of Justice and the European Commission, which began at the end of June. Their task is to determine whether Apple's policies are “selective” and vary from company to company. The European regulator has already issued the first regulations. Stores were obliged to notify developers of their intention to remove the application 30 days in advance, indicating the reasons. They also have to rewrite the rules of the site in simple and understandable language.





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: English
2. Do you believe that Apple's pre-WWDC decision to overhaul the way they handle appeals is enough to level the playing field for smaller developers? Will products such as HEY finally get the chance to compete against the likes of Gmail (G Suite) and Netflix?



Absolutely not. It was a very small, almost token, step forward. But hopefully it's the start of actually doing the work to level the playing field.




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: English
3. Has this publicity impacted the morale of your engineering team? It's not every day that seemingly everyone is talking about your product… Could you tell me more about the engineering team? Does it in any way overlap with the team behind Basecamp? Are there people working on both products at once? Did you invite any of your former colleagues to work on HEY? How did you pick the initial members of this team and how did you approach expanding it?



It was a crushing first two weeks. Filled with anxiety and overwork. Not a happy time. I'm glad we're past it now. It's the same team that runs Basecamp. But now that HEY is a huge success we will be hiring quite a lot in the next few months. All postings appear on basecamp.com/jobs.




Basecamp believes that algorithmic and math problems in interviews do not help recruit developers. In particular, DHH is convinced that the best way to test an applicant's skills is to review the code they have written and discuss real and potential problems.





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: English
4. It is my understanding that HEY incorporates a greater number of native UI solutions compared to, say, Basecamp. Given the added complexity, has it been a challenge to keep development teams small? According to Sam Stephenson, you even built a library that generates native UI elements based on your web views' HTML. Has this decision helped reduce the number of staff?



Yes, we will reveal all our new tech later this year. We worked hard to ensure that HEY could be built by a small team, and maintained too.


During an interview at Railsconf 2020, DHH noted that there are only two teams of three people working on mobile apps for Hey. On the technology side , they use the Turbolinks library to speed up page rendering - it handles user -submitted forms and doesn't require rails-ujs . The developers have also put together a new library for the UI: it turns web views into menu items. In the future, they plan to bring it to open source.



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: English
5. HEY's focus on plain old HTML is surprising for a contemporary product. You stuck with server-side rendering while employing a number of tailor-made solutions to benefit from modern innovations. Are you keeping things ‘simple’ to make a statement about the standard-breaking practices of mainstream email providers?



We're keeping things simpler because it works! It allows a small team to do so much more. Making a point that modern complexity is not necessary is a nice bonus, but it's not the point. The point is to build a great product with a small team in a way where we can enjoy ourselves.


In a mid-June interview with Protocol, David said that modern email clients are recreating the situation from the television series Seinfeld. Supposedly they know better what you need, and if you don't like it, you can go elsewhere. The Hey developers strive to change this state of affairs, and if not to overcome the monopoly, then at least to take a step in this direction.





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: English
6. Let's talk about the recent controversy surrounding the email sharing feature. You promptly disabled it and promised to be more mindful of your services' potential for abuse. What choices have you already made to ensure the security of your users' data and what further actions are you planning on taking?



We hadn't thought that public link feature through from the abuse angle. So we're putting it back on the drawing board until we can do better. When something appears on hey.com, they have to be able to trust that it's done right and with consent.




At launch, Hey allowed you to generate email links and share them with other people. At the same time, its participants did not receive notifications about this. The developers have temporarily disabled the ability to share to prevent the facts of abuse. It will be returned when it meets the company's internal security standards.



Also, the authors of the mail service are already working on other security features - protection against flooding and " tracking pixels " that track the opening of letters. Also, the developers have implemented the Shield system, which protects the mailbox from messages containing aggressive speech and abuse.



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: English
7. You often talk about the importance of having good written communication skills, particularly for developers. During the IAP crisis you proved yourself to be more than capable of standing your ground on Twitter. How did you organise the written exchange of ideas that led to the development of HEY? How did the product conceptually evolve over these two years? Are you happy with the results or should we expect big changes in the near future?



I've been writing for the web for 25 years. I keep practicing! And we're a very writing-focused organization at Basecamp. Have been since the start. So all that came naturally. I think HEY's core vision is incredibly strong, but of course we'll expand and make things better.






Thanks for reading. If you find this format interesting, I will continue.



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