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frewsxcv

Related to App Store removals: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/30/apple-remo...

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> Related to App Store removals: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/30/apple-remo...

That seems completely unrelated, but it also seems a whole lot shittier.

Why would Apple remove an app for reporting casualties of US Drone strikes? It's basically a very specialized news app.

Either the personal politics of one of the app store reviewers, or they've been told to by the US government. Neither is particularly brilliant.

The reason is right there in the article - excessively crude or objectionable content.

If a porn website released their own video player as an app, you could call it a "very specialized web browser", but it would still obviously violate the app store ToS.

That is the stated reason but it doesn't make any sense. There are games in the app store where you actually pilot a drone and blow people up and Apple has let them be. Are we to believe that graphically simulating drone strikes is not crude or objectionable, while textually reporting on real drone strikes is?

You can believe what you want. Personally, I believe that either nobody has bothered to report the apps that are still up, or Apple doesn't give a shit about games because those are in their own bucket.

I think what it boils down to is that Apple shouldn't be deciding if newsworth facts are too obscene to be published. Should news apps be removed if they report on murders?

There's a huge difference between a news app that happens to cover murders and a "murder news" app that only covers that specific subset. The app in question is clearly much closer to the latter.

So, software that only provides reports on firearm-related-homicides in a neighborhood is a "murder news" app and should be banned?

I've been deliberately avoiding talking about what should be banned. I would expect Apple to remove such an app from their store once they found out about it, yes.

> I've been deliberately avoiding talking about what should be banned.

Given that Apple's de-listing rationale is arbitrary and capricious, restricting one's comments to attempts to predict what Apple might ban provides zero value to any conversation.

If you wanted to call their app removal criteria arbitrary or capricious, you sure picked some bad examples.

Their offensiveness meter seems pretty obvious to me. The only thing I'd really worry about is "apps that duplicate OS features" since you really can't predict that without insider knowledge.

The content was not "crude". And what's objectionable about it? It's a list of locations.

Locations where people were murdered.

What's specifically objectionable about that? If the NYT app mentions the location where someone was murdered, would that be grounds for removal?

No, just as Safari isn't removed because you can visit porn sites with it, but an app that was dedicated only to porn would be. Are you being intentionally obtuse?

No, I'm arguing that there should be a clear boundary between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" and trying to find out why a list of locations where people have been killed is objectionable to anyone.

What about the list of V2 target sites from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10302576 ? Would that be banned?

The more likely case is that nobody will know or care about it and it will remain unnoticed forever.

OK, what about one of the crime mapping apps? Random example:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crimemapping/id452856454?mt=...

Should that be pulled too?

No clue. You could report it and find out.

In what sense is reporting on the government's foreign policy the same as pornography?

In the sense that they're both considered obscene by Apple.

Serious question: so what? The case you seem to be making in your comments is that it's irrational for all of us to be looking askance at this definition of "obscenity," but it's always been subjective, legally speaking. If we accept "controversial and potentially offensive" as obscene, that's a really broad definition, and I think it's worth pushing back on.

Obscenity is always going to be subjective. When it comes to what Apple is willing to sell in their store, it is their idea of obscenity that applies. At this point, I think they have made their stance clear enough that both you and I understand what gets apps banned.

I suspect what you and the others really want is for Apple to be bound by some kind of common carrier status that prohibits them from exercising their own judgment in what apps they publish. If you actually want that, you should say so. Arguing that Apple should have to publish apps it finds obscene just because the apps don't match your own definition of obscenity IS irrational. Well, strictly speaking, perhaps not irrational. Let's say shitty.

> I suspect what you and the others really want is for Apple to be bound by some kind of common carrier status...

Not just no, but "Hell no". What folks want from Apple is for their reviewers to behave like professionals. Professionals would provide a reasonably consistent, non-capricious application of the App Store rules. The current situation can be described roughly as:

"Your app will be de-listed if some app reviewer got up on the wrong side of the bed. The reviewer will point to a randomly selected clause in the TOU as the justification for the removal. You will be unable to get your app back in the App Store unless you have a large amount of social clout, or another reviewer who really dislikes the first one decides to override their decision. There are no guarantees that this process will not recur an unlimited number of times in the future."

This is not a good foundation on which to build a business relationship.

Could you attempt to use all the apps that aren't pulled, and the $X,XXX raked in monthly by folks from App Store revenues as counterexamples? Yes. Do those things negate my point? No.

They are consistent enough that I and most other developers have no trouble telling whether something is likely to get removed for being too offensive. The people that find their criteria capricious and unprofessional do things like ask "what about the New York Times app? They report on bad stuff!"

I'll fold up my reply to both of your replies to my comments here.

> They are consistent enough that I and most other developers have no trouble telling...

You and your cohort must have some pretty powerful psychic powers. :) You should sell Apple App Store Guideline Compliance services. You'd make a mint.

Because the kind of person who makes a drone strike tracker app is going to pay $5k for us to tell them "no, Apple will probably remove your app"?

Why charge $5k? Charge $50->$100 a pop, since it'll obviously be like -at most- three minutes of work. :)

Because that's how much I'd need to charge to actually do that instead of my current job.

Given the amount of time it apparently took you to figure this app would be approved, this works out to like a million an hour.

Do you normally handle contracts by someone coming into your office and slamming a pile of money on your desk, and you start work immediately?

My point, exactly. :)

Nothing obliges you or I to accept their judgment without question. Why do you consider this a meaningful definition of obscene? (Also you're getting close to arguing by tautology here.)

I don't accept or agree with their judgment, but that's irrelevant, because I respect that it is their judgment, and Apple has the right to carry what they want in their own store.

Safari doesn't create the content its users view with the app; the New York Times does. They aren't the same thing.

Most distinct entities aren't.

The wonderful post-PC world we live in. Where a central authority censors applications, sometimes for political reasons, in the devices we paid for.

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