Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 24th Sep 2008 07:50 UTC
Apple The situation regarding Apple's App Store for the iPhone is getting weirder by the day. Several applications have been rejected from the App Store based on seemingly dubious claims such as duplication of functionality (even though they didn't duplicate anything), or alikeness to default applications. Two such cases made headline news over the past few days; Podcaster and MailWrangler. The developers of these applications openly protested against these rejections, and apparently, Apple doesn't really like that. Apple now reiterates that rejections fall under the NDA, prohibiting developers from speaking up about rejections.
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RE: First rule
by tyrione on Wed 24th Sep 2008 10:43 UTC in reply to "First rule"
tyrione
Member since:
2005-11-21

The first rule of rejections: you don't talk about rejections?

Apple AppStore becomes more and more hostile, won't the scare developers?


This NDA extension is a clarification that seems to have either been ignored or intentionally acted as if it didn't exist in the SDK and therefore, with the aide of the Blogosphere has this quasi notion of proclaiming that iPhone Developers are up in arms. It's a mutiny!

In fact, it was known by the thousands of iPhone Developers, accepted and moved onward and forward with the iPhone SDK.

What I'm interested in seeing are actually iPhone Developers clearing the airwaves with these "Death to the AppStore" Paul Revere wannabees and ending this crap.

Nothing in the NDA that Apple just announced wasn't already clear in their Tools and SDK.

Gawd the Blogs would proclaim the British are Coming if they could pull it off.

Imagine what Orwell could do with today's rumor whores.

Edited 2008-09-24 10:43 UTC

Reply Parent Score: -3

RE[2]: First rule
by Soulbender on Wed 24th Sep 2008 11:00 in reply to "RE: First rule"
Soulbender Member since:
2005-08-18

It's not about wether it was there or not, the questions is wether it's even valid.
Just because a clause is in a contract or license and you have agreed to it doesn't mean it's necessary valid.
What's the natural connection between licensing an SDK and not being able to talk about why your app was rejected from a store entirely unrelated to the SDK?
This is a stretch at best (perhaps even a violation of free speech) and a great example of how companies tries to avoid bad publicity by any means by putting insanely restricting clauses in contracts. Anyone else remember Oracle's license that stated that a review of their product could not be negative?

Reply Parent Score: 6

Valid contract in place?
by cjcoats on Wed 24th Sep 2008 16:36 in reply to "RE[2]: First rule"
cjcoats Member since:
2006-04-16

IANAL, but the first principle about contracts is that there must be an exchange. In the requests for Apple-store marketing of iPhone products, where is the exchange: what was given back to the developer in response to his request to have a product sold by the Apple store? Nothing! So there is no valid contract at all, hence Apple's NDA claim has no legal standing. Or so it looks to me... and that should be plain to anyone who has had the slightest exposure to either business-school or law.

Reply Parent Score: 3