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.
Podcaster was the first high-profile application that got rejected. Podcaster allowed its users to download and stream podcasts directly, instead of having to download them through iTunes first, and according to Apple, this duplicated functionality of Apple’s own iTunes. The author of the application defended himself by stating that it offers several features that Apple does not offer. In addition, loads of other applications in the App Store also duplicate functionality of default applications. Obviously, Apple is rejecting Podcaster because the company plans to add similar functionality in future iPhone/iTunes updates.
The case of MailWrangler is similarly odd, since the rejection email didn’t make an awful lot of sense. MailWrangler allowed you to be logged in to multiple GMail accounts at the same time, and switch between them without having to log out, like you had to do when using mobile Safari. Apple rejected the application because it deemed it too similar to the included mobile Mail application, even though they are both rather dissimilar.
These rejections caused a tidal wave of criticism, because they appeared to be completely random. The applications didn’t break any of the rules set forth by the iPhone’s SDK agreement, so how are developers to know – beforehand – if their application is accepted or not? In an attempt to stop these criticisms, Apple has added an NDA clause to its rejection notices:
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE
In other words, if you’re an iPhone application developer, the process of designing and writing an application goes more or less like this. You spend quite some time thinking of an idea, and then you set out to design your application. After weeks and months of painstakingly implementing your idea as a working iPhone application, you submit it to the App Store, and cross your fingers hoping all your work hasn’t been in vain. Sadly, it appears that you broke some invisible rule, or you duplicated default functionality even though you didn’t, or you inadvertently came up with an idea Apple was already working on for a future iPhone revision – and your application is rejected. And you’re not allowed to talk about it. Your wife (or husband) is really going to wonder what you’ve been doing all those weeks in your basement.
These policies from Cupertino are devastating for developer confidence, and one high-profile developer (of Exposure) has already stopped developing applications for the current App Store. I’m out, he says. “‘I’m out’ doesn’t mean I’m pulling Exposure from the store. All it means is I’m not going to invest time and money into new ideas for the iPhone until this mess is resolved.”
The difference in approach between the Google and Apple when it comes to their mobile platforms is blatantly obvious. Google encourages anybody to write for their Android platform while Apple tries to maintain an iron grip on what runs on their iPhone.
Both approaches have their merit of course. Should be interesting to see how the users react to these two approaches. While I’m a Mac user, I’m rooting for Google on this one.
I hope Apple meets their history here – would serve them right. So, Apple phone, please go the way of Firewire, which co-coincidently is the way of the dodo, too… Apple really learns its lessons harder than a retarded child and you guys are no help in buying their crap
I get your sentiment; but I don’t understand the Firewire dig?
I love Firewire. It freakin’ works. USB hard disks are painfully, woefully slow. Firewire is a really good standard, and it only didn’t catch on [in the PC world] because of cheapo PC manufacturers not wanting to pay the licencing cost.
My 2003, 40GB 3G Firewire iPod transfers songs 2~4x faster than my 2006 5G USB2 iPod.
Sorta agreed. Without firewire, my job would involve an awful lot of waiting (firewire has some pretty slick special affordances for kernel debugging and is hundreds of times faster than the RS-232 Null Modem alternative).
Not really – heaps of PC motherboards have Firewire. Both my computers (a cheapie and an expensive one) have Firewire ports.
Firewire is a bit of a white elephant. For ordinary consumer-level devices there’s USB. For ultra-fast external hard disks there’s eSATA. Firewire is the domain of Mini-DV-camera owners, kernel programmers, and black hats.
Typical Apple BTW – encouraging a standard with a showstopper security problem.
Are you under the impression that eSATA doesn’t have DMA? Seriously, DMA is the only way to have high-performance data transfers on any computer architecture, which is why any bus designed for performance supports it. DMA is a security hole, definitely, but until most PCs start shipping with IOMMUs that’s just something you have to live with. Physical access to a machine typically leads to all sorts of possible exploits…
Cheapo PCs… like the MacBook Air?
Oh get a grip. You sound as if you weren’t born before the MacBook Air. Try going back to 1995 please.
I sound like someone who is less than a year old? And you know this based all of the other 1 year-olds you’ve met online?
So I’m an infant… with a time machine that will allow me to travel 13 years into the past?
This is what passes for an insult amongst Mac users?
Well, there are two ways to spin this story – one is to say that PC manufacturers were too cheap to pay the royalty fees that Apple wanted. The other is to say that Apple set their royalty price too high for component manufacturers (who were already operating under tight margins). See these stories for more details
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990115S0019
http://news.com.com/2100-1040_3-220209.html
Intel offered component makers the USB technology royalty-free which no doubt helped USB gain ascendancy despite its initial inferiority in terms of speed.
Somehow, somewhere, in your mind a highspeed serial transport that is taking over the auto, aerospace and other fields that already has the DV camcorder industry and it’s commercial breathren is not successful because your freakin’ external drives, music players and cheap digital cameras don’t come with Firewire?
Firewire is so successful that even Apple has been phasing it out.
Yup, phasing it out by including Firewire 800 ports on MacBook Pros, 2×800 & 2×400 ports on Mac Pros – and developing the Firewire 3200 standard to boot.
…which almost no one uses, because Apple didn’t have the sense to keep the cables / connectors compatible.
So where can I find a MacBook Air with Firewire? Or an iPod? Apple’s not one of them “cheapo PC manufacturers not wanting to pay the licencing cost” now, are they?
At the same time I hardly think that the majority need to have their phone restricted because there are a small number of idiots out there who load their phone with dodgy garbage.
If there are troublesome phones that are being used as ‘spam bots’ because some idiot has loaded their phone with crap – boot them off the network! when I was at an ISP and we had idiots infected with virus’s, we would boot them off the network – when they wanted to know why they couldn’t log in we would tell them that they were sending virus’s out from their computer and needed to install updates and update their virus checker.
This is the same guy who loves DRM, Securepath and Microsoft’s totalitarian autocratic authoritarian government-colluding monopolistic oligarchical collectivist illegal anti-individual anti-libertarian thug-like strong arm tactics.
Seems you need to brush up on what individual liberty is and re-read 1984 a for more times. You more or less parrot for the oligarchs while telling everyone how stupid they are.
On what evidence do you make that accusation? you do realise that I wasn’t defending DRM or SecurePath – if you are going to debate the issues, stick to the facts and stop trying to resort to lies to back up your case. Lying only makes you look like hypocrites.
Pardon, again, the law is the law. You raging against the machine makes people who advocate civil liberties look like a pack of jack asses. DRM is a mess, it is a nightmare, but if you want people to back you – stop resorting to half truths.
The part I disagree with Apples lockdown is a lot of their reasons arn’t for technical problems more the just don’t want them.
Java, Flash, Other Web Browsers. Anything that competes with what is currently there. However there is about 100 flashlight applications (Aka a white screen)
I’m more curious to see how the Maemo platform continues to develop. Apple was never an option for me with it’s closed OS and non-removable batteries. Google, well, they’re realy open on the software side but I just don’t want that much of my life blindly handed over too there databases. There is nothing compelling from the Maemo competitors right now.
I just hope Nokia and the Maemo developer community can stand up to the Cult of Mac consumers and freight train that is the Google brand.
The first rule of rejections: you don’t talk about rejections?
Apple AppStore becomes more and more hostile, won’t the scare developers?
I would say the majority of of iphone developers have either been pretty spineless or just don’t care.
The fact that everything so far related to programming for the iphone has been nda and developers just suck it up and continue developing (despite complaining about it) says a lot.
However as android starts ramping up, the iphone will bleed lots of developers if this state remains the same…
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
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?
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.
Lets see how you can spin this (again) into Apple’s greater greatness and Apple critic’s lower lowness. I’m sure you can.
Someone call me?
There’s no spinning. This is a thoroughly disgusting act of contempt for the hand that feeds them.
Apple are painting the lines such that developers have to literally gamble with their livelihood. You can spend months developing an app, with the hope of making a rapid and sizable income by being part of the App Store crowd; but you could be rejected and all your time and effort be wasted, and you not even be allowed to talk about it.
Nobody is going to bother producing a highly polished app in that case. Apple have made it clear that only shovelware and large corporate back-handers (like EA) are welcome on the App Store.
If the lack of features didn’t put me off the iPhone already, this certainly seals the deal.
I’m sure MacDailyNews and RoughlyDrafted (also known as RDF extension and amplification stations Alfa and Beta) will weigh in with some story on how this is all a conspiracy against Apple.
That was an unnecessary and empty comment. Why don’t you let those sites speak for themselves? it would be slander otherwise.
In fact, since you’ve invited them, maybe they could write some disparaging things about OSNews to return the favour.
Well .. when Thom is right, he is right (or will be.)
Those sites are most extreme fanboy sites there are ( for anything. )
Just one example:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/18564/
You don’t know what slander is, do you?
“Verb [ trans. ]
make false and damaging statements about (someone)”
Keyword: false.
Stating the bloody obvious can never be slander. It’s no secret to anyone that MDN and RD are run by the worst kind of Apple fanatic there is.
Libel and slander are legal terms and not the same. Get a better dictionary.
Here you go:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91301
Spin or no spin that is not a mod 6 quote reply. —
It is flame bait
But more to the point Anyone who has used the Mac OS for more than a few years OR been to any Apple conference OR calls themselves a Developer should know what happens there will be regarded as ‘confidential’ at the very least.
I do not recall the iPhone being an ‘open’ or ‘free’ platform. You can develop for it you can test your app on your own phone you can release your app. But when you are told that Apple is working on something similar (And by implication any further development is a waste of time) well how you act is your choice.
In the 10.2 days I was trying to build a font browser that worked like iTunes. Apple beat me to the punch with font book.app I could at that point have ranted and pitched a bitch or moved on to the next project. It was just something that I was doing for fun. SO that is what a GROWN MAN does. Besides most of my good ideas came from the Aaron Hillegas book.
The economy of scale says that if you build an app that even 1% or 0.1% of the iPhone community would pay 10 dollars for that you will make a killing so that is a good reason to be chafed. But if Apple gets to that good idea first then it is not because all roads lead to Rome (Cupertino) it is because all roads come from Cupertino.
also note that several GROWN MEN who have made high quality shareware work for Apple now. It is a good chance that if you can write something that the Company can use now that you can in the future write something that the company can use. Unless you bite the hand that feeds you. (and then piss on it. And then tell everyone how sad you feel)
Lastly I user the term GROWN MEN without knowing if the developers are Men or Women. It is not a matter of ignorance to my female friends and programmers it is to say ‘bad dog!’ to the whiners
And did Apple prevent from releasing your application? Or did the prevent end users from running it?
For a self-proclaimed “GROWN MAN,” you’re having a bit of trouble grasping the concept of analogy.
I still like Apple, somehow, but I shudder just to think how the computing landscape would be if they had a bigger market quota.
A Microsoft like company with Apple NDA’s policies, no thanks!
With the current market, there would still be BSDs, Linux based distros and a handful of other OS to choose from. Apple can only control those who choose it’s products.
If Apple and MS had swapped market share percentages back in the day, I think Unix like platforms would still have developed to provide an alternative choice. After all, osX is a fork of a Unix like platform that came before it.
I’d shudder for those who think they have only the choice of two brand names. The rest of us would be just fine either way.
I think apple is being a little over protective over the apps being allowed on the app store.
The idea is a solid one, ensure that only good apps are allowed onto the store.
However apps which crash have been allowed onto the store, apps which are in competition with the supplied iPhone apps are being rejected for no reason (podcast app).
NDA’s on rejections is getting a little harsh now, and as many have said this is not going to give apple a very good image.
However it’s worth bearing in mind that the app store is in it’s infantsy, so hopefully apple will grow and learn from it’s mistakes, as will competitors.
However the iPhone is still a very innovative product and has brought a breath of fresh air to the whole mobile phone platform. We now have Android so things are looking really good to the consumer and business consumer.
I still love my iPhone it is the first phone which does everything i need incredibly well, surfing the net, receiving emails, sms, pictures and a variety of other things are done so well with the iPhone.
On a side note it is slightly annoying that anyone wishing to defend or produce an argument for apple is instantly labeled a fanboi. Where comments even pre-empt this by suggesting that if anyone has anything good to say about apple then instantly you must be a blind fanboi. There is a reason why a lot of people use Apple products, as there is windows and linux products, it comes down to that they work the best for us. As ive said i use an iPhone and obsolutley love it, my mum has an iphone and loves it also, in fact everyone i know (real life, not on the internet) loves their iphone. I use Mac OSX because it works well with me at home, i use Windows at work as it works best.
Im all up for constructive discussion’s but without the name calling and with the chance for some people to provide a for argument, not just an against.
I think that’s one big reason rigth there. It’s not rejected for no reason, it’s rejected for competitive reasons. I’d much rather Apple allow competitive programs provided they met the quality standards required. It would push Apple to maintain truly competitive products of there own. Either the end user gets some great third party program or they get a better Apple program; end user wins both ways.
I wonder where is the A of NDA, i.e. agreement, from your side, in a letter you could or could not receive. Does the original SDK NDA allow for such an extension without modification?
Atleast far as I know putting ND clause in e-mail without otherside approval doesn’t make it legiment. Example: Lawyer sends e-mail to me and demands something, in the end of message lawyer puts ND clause. Now I can freely post that message since I never agreed on that NDA. Atleast in Finland, dunno America. Does Apple demand NDA when you post them applications?
If your app is rejected, then you have no more contract with the apple store for this app. am I mistaken?
If so, the NDA is not legitimate because NDAs apply in the context of a contract.
Your “contract” was with the development of the application via the SDK and whether or not it is allowed on the App Store is irrelevant.
I’m pretty sure the first agreement you have to acknowledge and agree to states that you’ll follow any rules they make up after the fact.
>Sadly, it appears that you broke some invisible rule, or you duplicated default functionality even though you didn’t, or you inadvertently came up with an idea Apple was already working on for a future iPhone revision – and your application is rejected. And you’re not allowed to talk about it.
Or, this way: you have developped an interesting concept that Apple could integrate into the iPhone to increase its value… So they can simply refuse your application, develop their new application, and include it, saying “now you can do that with your iPhone”, and you can’t say a word about it !
You’ve been stolen, you wasted time and money, and all, I mean *all* the benefit goes to Apple.
Actually they already did that with several MacOSX components, but now this is going even further…
But that’s ok, it’s not like if it was Microsoft, it’s Apple… So we shouldn’t say anything about that, and stick to the “Vista sucks” and “Microsoft is evil” instead
Question: how do I quote text ? seems like bbcode doesn’t work, and the FAQ of the site doesn’t say anything about that..
Edited 2008-09-24 12:04 UTC
What company/person would knowingly make a gamble and invest money and time in the iPhone platform not knowing whether or not Apple will allow them to sell their products. Outside of game developers, this will almost certainly kill off lots of 3rd party productivity applications. Hopefully somebody can make a real competitor to the iPhone (sorry, but the first android phone kind of sucks).
The Bad News — Apple is increasing its death-grip on power, growing ever more paranoid and power hungry. The iron fist is squeezing tightly.
The Good News — They are doing it to save the empire from the rebel alliance.
If you want to develop for the iPhone, Please sign on the dotted line to surrender your rights. Thank you.
developper, continue to program for iphone… it like you
Do All Evil
I object to your use of the term “new”.
Once upon a time, they were an awesome company
http://folklore.org/index.py
Once upon a time, I had an Apple II+.
That photo from back when they were awesome looks like something out of the Ottawa Linux Symposium or something. Coincidence?
Edited 2008-09-24 17:17 UTC
Ok, I’ve been an Apple user off and on for a few years now, and my workflow is centered around the OS X way of doing things. I tried the iPhone back in March, and it was great until the 2.0 software came out and caused stability issues, so I sold it and I’m now on a BlackBerry Pearl which is working out well.
During this time I also parted with my beloved eMac and built what I intended to be a Hackintosh. However, I am appalled at Apple’s recent treatment of the iPhone developers and I’m not so sure I want to use their OS anymore, especially in a quasi-legal capacity; seeing how they treat good-intentioned users, I doubt I’d fare any better if caught in their radar.
Slackware runs exceptionally well on the new hardware, and given time I may be able to approach the same level of productivity as on the Mac. I’ll miss the ease of use, the tight integration (Linux is sadly lacking in this) and most of all the great apps. I won’t miss the UNIX backend as this is present in Slack, nor will I miss the few proprietary traps inherent in a closed OS. Besides, I’ll save the cost of buying a Leopard license which is always nice.
As a developer publishing on appstore, Apple’s policy is IMHO not a real issue because the ‘moderation’ is not a surprise. We are concious that our apps could be banned, that’s the game from day 1.
Refused apps are about 0.1% (3 / 3000 apps?).
The biggest problem is how to find or how to promote appplications, in our case, a quick and dirty screensaver-like we did is our best seller, but our game (and IMHO not a bad one, called ‘White Letters’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY0VNiPI9uA ) is cursed.
The behaviour of the ‘in the news’ and ‘staff favorites’ sections is a bigger issue, it impacts all the small developer teams (maybe 80% of the developers).
It may only be three out of thousands of apps, but the issue is why those apps were pulled, combined with the speech suppressing “NDA”. I really like Apple’s products but their business practices of late have left a bad taste in my mouth. They are treading dangerous ground here, and as a user I’m disgusted by their anticonsumer attitude.
I agree with you, it’s a not the right attitude from Apple, but it’s far from being a major issue for developers. Developers care about the number of apps they sell and how they could finish their app ASAP (and without bugs too).
99.9% of the developers are not concerned by a kind of censorship and are aware of the risk
99.9% of the users are very happy with Spore and iBeer
and half of user’s comments are about price (0.99$ is always too much…)
That’s life.
I’m right there with you on users’ perceptions of “high priced” apps. I guarantee you at least a few of these same users who balk at paying $1 for a functional, useful iPhone app were paying $2 or more for a single animated .GIF file from Jamster on their previous phone.
Now that I’ve had a BlackBerry for a little while, I’ve found that there are very few free or even cheap (under $10) apps worth having on that platform. This stands in stark contrast to my past experience with the iPhone and PalmOS based phones. Given that the BlackBerry uses Java apps almost exclusively, I don’t see why there aren’t more good ports. I guess the advantage to this is that there is no central clearing-house for apps; RIM isn’t going to delete my third party address book app next time I sync just because it’s better than the inbuilt version.
The people defending Apple’s actions here need to have their head examined.
If MS disallowed a competing product to Pocket Word on Windows CE/Windows Mobile/Whatever people would be calling for their heads on pitchforks even though they CLEARLY have no monopoly in the mobile space. ZOMGWTFBBQ ANTITRUST ANTITRUST ANTITRUST ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
*BTW WinCE really does suck monkey nuts and is quite a joke, I’ve owned several CE PDA’s and they all ended up running NetBSD/hpcmips or embedded Linux eventually*
I’ll be damned if I wasted hours of my life banging my head against the wall to learn YET ANOTHER development environment to be treated like writing software for their platform is a privilege and I better toe the party line or ELSE. THEN I spend months writing my cool little app only to have them say it might remotely compete with an Apple app on the phone and it will never see the light of day.
I find this behavior disgusting and really shows how much Apple cares about the people who keep them in business. If it weren’t for the handful of people willing to develop software for Apple products, Apple would be irrelevant. It also shows how much love they have for consumers who may like the other app better than the Apple offering.
In most people’s eyes, bundled software=crapware. Who cares if an app duplicates the functionality of a built-in app? What if it does the job….*gasp*….BETTER?! Oh wait, the fanboys will come in saying no one could POSSIBLY be more talented than divinely-inspired Apple developers even though most of the initial heavy lifting developing OS X was done in the 80’s by talented NeXT developers when Apple struggled and failed to bring a modern competitive OS to market during the 90’s.
I love MacOS X and I loved NeXTstep. I will continue to use MacOS X (both on my PPC macs and generic PC’s) and will happily develop software for it as it is fairly open to a degree. But this BS with the iPhone is appalling.
I will wholeheartedly recommend to all of my students I teach in my IT courses and anyone I know to buy an HTC phone based on Android and just ignore the iPhone altogether if they value their rights and freedom.
I think they have some neat toys but as a company, Apple is twice as evil as Microsoft and they really don’t care about the people who help make them great. Including their customers.
Jobs can suck it.
Hardly suprising behavior from Apple. When it comes to third party ANYTHING or user side innovation, their motto has always been their way or the highway. The app store and restricting users to only using programs from it is a wet dream for corporate and I’d not put it past them to implement something similar for the Mac if they thought they could get away with it.
Their monopolistic business practices are what continues to keep them squarely in the category of ‘also ran’ when it comes to computers, and very soon the iPhone looks to be headed down that same road. The only reason the iPod doesn’t face these issues is it’s too primitive a device to do a whole lot with. (not that it stops many people from saying **** apple and installing Rockbox on them)
… and people complain about Microsoft.
Edited 2008-09-24 21:08 UTC
Has anyone bothered to get to the bottom of this or is this just a big game of telephone?
http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_rejections
DF has some interesting side notes on this after getting responses from developers on the issue…
EDIT: Post not intended as an apple defense in any way, just want to know what’s really going on…
Edited 2008-09-24 23:03 UTC
and I’ll say it again. Only a few business decisions made 20+ years ago separates us from calling Apple the Evil Empire, instead of Microsoft.
Way to go Apple, once again showing the world how “progressive” your ethics and business practices are.
I am guessing that they were asking for $$$ for the app, but if the app was for free would it have been still rejected … i guess the developers don’t know at this point.
-BDH
The ignorance over Firewire in this discussion is astounding. It must be PC users knocking it since they don’t have a Firewire “culture”. Firewire is freaking everywhere and it’s one of the best available buses.
A drobo on Firewire-800 just smokes. If you PC users think that just because you don’t see a lot of devices around that Firewire is dead, you’re quite wrong, because you’re not looking over the fence where the grass is greener.
Apple is ruining their chances for good developers to write applications on the iPhone. Not many good programmers are going to want to write an application if Apple is going to play this communist business tactic.