Mandatory Apple sign-in for an app that needs to sync with Google

In response to the guideline that an app with Google login must also offer Apple login:


4.8 Sign in with Apple
Apps that exclusively use a third-party or social login service (such as Facebook Login, Google Sign-In, Sign in with Twitter, Sign In with LinkedIn, Login with Amazon, or WeChat Login) to set up or authenticate the user’s primary account with the app must also offer Sign in with Apple as an equivalent option. A user’s primary account is the account they establish with your app for the purposes of identifying themselves, signing in, and accessing your features and associated services.
Sign in with Apple is not required if:

  • Your app exclusively uses your company’s own account setup and sign-in systems.
  • Your app is an education, enterprise, or business app that requires the user to sign in with an existing education or enterprise account.
  • Your app uses a government or industry-backed citizen identification system or electronic ID to authenticate users.
  • Your app is a client for a specific third-party service and users are required to sign in to their mail, social media, or other third-party account directly to access their content.


Is there any way to ask for an exception to an app that's built on top of Google's service? My app is a Google Calendar client. Its only value is syncing with Google calendar, and adding certain features on top. Is any app that's an augmentation of Google services now disallowed on Apple's store? There are also Gmail apps that will be affected by this rule as well.

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cooloff
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>Is there any way to ask for an exception to an app that's built on top of Google's service?


You could specify in the app that they need to sign in only in order to access the Google service. Then indicate to App Review that the loggin is to access the Google service not to authenticate themselves to your app. Then this will not apply:


> ....to set up or authenticate the user’s primary account with the app must also offer Sign in with Apple as an equivalent option. A user’s primary account is the account they establish with your app for the purposes of identifying themselves, signing in, and accessing your features and associated services.


But if you are using the sign in to authenticate the user to your app (not just for the Google service) then you need to have two sign-ins - one for the app (that includes an Apple loggin) and, if they don't choose to use Goggle for that loggin, a second for the Google service.


IMHO

Posted by
PBK
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Thanks, this is good insight to differentiate authentication with service connection.

Although it is still a painful amount to build for...


What's tough is the app having no value if you sign in with Apple, in this example of a Google Calendar client.

You would log in with Apple, then have one screen that says log in with Google. The worry is that Apple will say the app has no useful functionality.


Curious if it would pass to offer all functionality locally without any login, and simply have a "sync with Google" option. Knowing an official response to this can save 100's of hours.

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cooloff
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> Knowing an official response to this can save 100's of hours.


Why not proceed with the 'sign in to use Google services' not the 'sign in to authenticate yourself' along with the note to App Review as stated above? That saves you the '100's of hours'. Tell us what the 'official response' is.

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PBK
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IMHO, this is totally useless as not everyone have an Apple account compared to Facebook or Twitter (just as an example) in the case of an app for both mobile platforms I consider a bad approach to have this sign in method for iOS users only. What if there's a user that have another device (or simply switch)?
Email address is quite frequently required for lots of backends and Apple Sign in gives you the option to not share it so this forces a not so good UX by having to ask email address on some point of your app flow. Any eCommerce platform uses email address for sending invoices and order statuses so that would be a problem if there's no email present on the user account.
This sign in method should be optional the same way the others are. IMHO
Posted by
mdc555
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  • Yeah sure there’s a lot of people with a Facebook or Google or Twitter login out there, but Sign in with Apple is exclusive to iOS and macOS, therefore, 100% of the users who see the Sign in w/ Apple button are going to be Apple users.

    Again; 100% of users who see the button are already able to use the button without second-guessing.

    It’s 100% optional to the user. If that’s what they prefer, let them prefer it, it safer and faster than any other services account creation and authentication.

    —
    austinsmith723
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