For twenty-four years, John Gruber has built Daring Fireball on the premise that careful attention to truth is its own form of integrity. Yesterday, that premise was tested when a developer he trusted led him to publish a criticism of Apple that turned out to be unfounded — the App Store had correctly rejected an astrology app, not wrongly rejected an astronomy one. Gruber's first retraction in a quarter century is less a story about a mistake than about how trust, once extended, can be weaponized through silence as much as through lies.
Daring Fireball Retracts App Store Rejection Story After Discovering Astrology App Deception
He offered not a word of caution, only gratitude for my drawing attention to the matter.
Mark
How does a developer convince someone like you—someone who's been doing this for twenty-four years—to publish something that turns out to be false?
Mimi
By being credible on other things first. I had linked to Godier's work multiple times. I respected his thinking. When he told me the app had no astrology content, I believed him because I had no reason not to.
Mark
But you showed him the draft. He could have corrected you then.
Mimi
Exactly. He didn't. He thanked me instead. That silence was a choice. It's harder to forgive than an outright lie would have been.
Mark
Do you think he was deliberately deceiving you, or just hoping the story would go away?
Mimi
I don't know. What I know is that he submitted an astrology app with tarot features to Apple, Apple rejected it correctly, and then he rebranded it as astronomy without telling me the history. Whether that was calculated or just convenient, the result is the same.
Mark
What changes for you now?
Mimi
I'm more careful about what I assume I know. And I'm more aware that credibility in one area doesn't guarantee honesty in another. Godier wrote genuinely good things about RSS readers. That doesn't mean he was truthful about this.
Mark
Is a retraction enough?
Mimi
It has to be. I can't undo publishing the post. But I can be transparent about why I was wrong, and I can make sure the original is still available so people can see what happened. That's the best accountability I can offer.
El Pulso
- A developer rebranded a rejected astrology app as an astronomy project and published an essay framing Apple's correct decision as arbitrary overreach.
- Gruber, primed by genuine respect for the developer's prior work, published a criticism of Apple without discovering the original app's name, content, or rejection history.
- The developer saw a draft of the post before publication and said nothing to correct it — a silence that functioned as active deception.
- A separate naming collision with an open-source astrophotography project exposed the story's contradictions publicly, accelerating the unraveling.
- Gruber retracted the post fully, preserved it in plain text and PDF for the record, and accepted editorial responsibility without deflecting blame onto the developer's deception.
For twenty-four years, John Gruber has built Daring Fireball on the premise that careful attention to truth is its own form of integrity. Yesterday, that premise was tested when a developer he trusted led him to publish a criticism of Apple that turned out to be unfounded — the App Store had correctly rejected an astrology app, not wrongly rejected an astronomy one. Gruber's first retraction in a quarter century is less a story about a mistake than about how trust, once extended, can be weaponized through silence as much as through lies.
John Gruber has been writing Daring Fireball for twenty-four years. Yesterday marked his first retraction.
The story began with Terry Godier, a developer Gruber had followed since February after Godier published a well-regarded essay on RSS design alongside his app Current. David Pierce at The Verge had praised Current as one of the few iOS-exclusive apps worth staying on the platform for. Gruber linked to Godier's subsequent work, struck up a correspondence, and came to respect his thinking — context that would prove consequential.
When Godier published an essay claiming Apple had rejected his app Dark Hours for being astrology despite containing no such content, Gruber saw what looked like a textbook case of the App Store's review process misfiring. He wrote a post criticizing the rejection and showed Godier a draft before publishing. Godier offered no correction — only thanks.
Then Godier updated his essay. The app Apple had actually rejected was called Asterly, was dedicated entirely to astrology, and included a tarot card feature. Dark Hours was a web-only astronomy app Godier had built afterward, out of frustration. Apple had never reviewed it. The rejection Gruber criticized had been entirely justified.
The situation compounded when Hacker News amplified the original post, drawing in Miguel Beher — creator of an open-source astrophotography project that had been living at darkhours.app for some time. Beher noted on Bluesky that Godier's new app shared a distinctive bug with his own project. Godier quietly took his web app down and redirected his domain to Beher's.
Gruber's retraction is unsparing. He preserved the original post in plain text and PDF rather than deleting it, redirected its URL to the retraction, and accepted full editorial responsibility. He had been misled both by false framing and by strategic silence — Godier's failure to correct the draft was its own form of deception. At the end of the original post, Gruber had written that mistakes should be corrected quickly and with apology. He followed his own instruction.
John Gruber, who has been writing Daring Fireball for twenty-four years, published a post yesterday morning titled "App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours." By evening, he had retracted it entirely. This is his first retraction in nearly a quarter century of publishing, and the circumstances that forced it reveal how thoroughly a developer can mislead a journalist—even one with strong editorial instincts and a track record of careful work.
Gruber had been following Terry Godier's work since February, when Godier published an interactive essay on RSS feed design called "Phantom Obligation," which introduced Current, Godier's new RSS reader. The app gained real traction; David Pierce at The Verge cited it as one of the few iOS-exclusive apps keeping him from switching to Android. Gruber linked to Godier's subsequent essays in March and April, struck up a correspondence with him, and developed genuine respect for his thinking. This context matters because it shaped what Gruber was willing to believe.
Yesterday, Godier posted an essay titled "Browsers Have Standards, the App Store Has Judgment." In it, he described submitting an iOS app called Dark Hours to the App Store, claiming it was rejected on the grounds that it was astrology—despite containing no tarot functions, no horoscopes, and nothing that would reasonably be called astrology at all. Gruber read this, saw what appeared to be a clear case of Apple's review process misfiring, and published a post criticizing the rejection. He even showed Godier a draft before publication. Godier offered no correction, only thanks.
Then Godier updated his essay. The new version revealed that the app he had originally submitted to the App Store was called "Asterly," not "Dark Hours," and that it had in fact been entirely dedicated to astrology. It included a "Tarot card of the day" feature and other occultist content. When the App Review Board upheld the rejection in April, the app was still called Asterly. Frustrated, Godier ported an astronomy-only version to the web and launched it last week under the name Dark Hours. Apple had never rejected an app called Dark Hours. They had correctly rejected an astrology app called Asterly.
Gruber's disdain for astrology runs deep, and his esteem for Godier's previous work ran high. The combination made it impossible for him to imagine that Godier might have actually built and submitted an astrology app to the App Store, then feigned surprise when it was rejected for being exactly what it was. Gruber took Godier at his word in both the public post and in private messages. He showed Godier the draft. Godier said nothing to correct the record.
The mess deepened when Hacker News amplified Gruber's post, which then drew the attention of Miguel Beher, creator of an open-source astrophotography project also called DarkHours. Beher's version had been freely available for some time at darkhours.app. On Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier's newly launched Dark Hours contained the same bug as his own project—one that routed users to random fields in Mexico. Godier took his web app down and redirected his domain to Beher's.
Gruber's retraction is thorough. He has not deleted the original post but instead made it available in plain text and PDF, with a preface linking to the retraction. The URL now redirects here. He acknowledges that what he publishes is his responsibility, regardless of how he was misled. He was misled both through explicit false statements and through strategic omissions—Godier's silence when shown the draft amounted to a form of deception. Gruber apologizes for the error. At the end of his original post, he had written about how mistakes should be corrected quickly and with apology. The irony is not lost.
Citas Notables
My disdain for astrology is so utter, and my esteem for Godier's previous work so high, that it simply never occurred to me that he might have actually made and submitted to the App Store an astrology app.— John Gruber, Daring Fireball
What I publish is my responsibility, and I apologize for the error.— John Gruber, in his retraction
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