Beware Developers: App Removed From App Store At Request of Competition | Hacker News Reader

Beware Developers: App Removed From App Store At Request of Competition

app-vault.com

71 pointsalex_c31 comments

I really don't understand why Apple would decide to do this. It would seem to make more sense for Apple to tell the complainant to sue the competitor directly and get a court order to remove the app from the store.

This is one of the big problems with the App store. If you develop for it, you are really at the mercy of Apple's decision process with regard to who can sell what in their store. It is their store, so they get to decide, but we as software developers need to decide if it is worth the risk for the potential reward you could see from having an app in their store. I personally am not developing for the app store because I do not like the decisions that I have seen Apple make.

This is one of the big problems with the App store. If you develop for it, you are really at the mercy of Apple's decision process

"Decision process?" I think you're really at the mercy of some mid-level manager or some clueless flunky.

If they have a "decision process" I would love to see the documentation they have on it, and the notes from this one!

Since apple have a 'review process', and the app store isn't a 'stuff gets put up, until it's taken down' deal, but a situation where apps have to be approved by apple's reviewers. Apple may well be legally liable for any infringing work that is sold on the app store, so taking a 'get a court order and take it up with the developer' MAY leave apple open to some liability of damages, whereas just yanking the app at the first sign of trouble will probably mitigate some of that.

The side-by-side screenshots http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/8122/comparisondw.jpg don't really help their cause. It does indeed look like they took another app and made a screen by screen rip-off of it. It's even been bitten by the same ugly bug that that bit the original.

Copy or not, I don't think Apple should remove them though.

It doesn't really matter if they made a copy of it - they didn't steal the code . They copied functionality ok, they may have done that but it's like : Let's pull OpenOffice because they copied MSOffice . It's ridiculous .

They definitely shouldn't have removed them.

This isn't a court of law, it's a court of What Apple Says Goes. Their garden, their rules.

I find it very easy to understand why Apple doesn't want to allow a culture of crappy rip-offs to take root. Basic quality control.

From what I saw of the screenshots, AppVault (removed) looked wayyy better. That's not a crappy rip-off, that's competition that is outdoing the predecessor. Facebook was a "rip-off" of MySpace yet society (mostly) has moved past MySpace.

Apple is defined as a culture of crappy rip-offs. Why would they care?

The simlarities are not that relevant. There is a finite number of ways you can create a usable, say, calculator. Or battery mete. Or calendar. Specially when Apple takes such a strong position on interface conventions.

It's like Ford asking the government to prohibit Toyota from building cars because their steering wheel is round too.

Non-iPhone user here to provide a more objective baseline:

At a glance of the comparisons, I saw a total of 3 screens that actually looked like direct copies of each other. The ruler, balancer, and battery stats. The rest share similar functions but are obviously different in design and even details. I also count a total of six apps that AppBox simply doesn't have. That's out of twenty-six apps in total, at least on AppVault's side.

It seems like bad business to keep others from doing competitive business. Not if you're running a market place like the app store. It'd be like a farmer getting his cart kicked out because his fiji apples - amongst a selection of oranges and melons - are in competition with his more senior neighbor's granny smiths.

Level is a direct copy of example code from Apple (similar graphics too)

Battery stats is very similar to earlier battery apps

Ruler is the only thing that AppBox has introduced that AppVault has copied (that I can tell; perhaps there's prior art here too)

I actually see more differences rather than similarities.

this.

Seriously, there are DOZENS of apps that are utterly identical in function and layout with minor differences here and there. As far as apps go, these weren't even that similar.

I agree that a lot of them do look like copies. Of course when you are doing the shotgun approach to developing utility apps I think you should be ready to compete on the rate that you can keep adding apps. I see it hard to claim the ownership idea on something like a level when it is a very common object in everyday use.

As far as I can tell, both apps are basically compilations of stand-alone utility apps. I'm sure with enough digging one could find screenshots that can make an equally convincing case that each feature from each app was "ripped off" from an earlier single purpose app.

I got the feeling that there's more to this issue than that has been posted in blogpost. I'd prefer to hear AppBox's side of the story before making a judgement.

For example, having the "same graphics, layouts" with " with different color" may be not just copying an idea, it migth mean copying the expression of the idea as well. Being loud != being right.

AppBox doesn't even mention which of their "copyrights" has been infringed, and when looking at the side by side comparison screenshot, and reading their complaint - I get the feeling they are acting like kids.

This is really getting a bit out of hand.

I request Bing be taken down because it's too similar to Google.

For that matter I request Google be taken down for being to much like altavista

I was about to say I want Altavista taken down for being too much like Altavista but then thought the joke may not be understood except by old timers.

I'm so glad you didn't post it anyway...

I remember some directory pages on Mosaic back in the days that seem very similar to a lot of pages on the web now. Maybe they need to take down all the web servers and replace with static html. :)

All these pages with the angle brackets -- I think I did some of that a dozen years ago. Where's the number for my lawyer?

One note: Copyright law is a bit broader than the blog thinks. It's entirely possible to create a derivative work even though the assets and code are 100% newly created.

That said, this is clearly not an infringing case. While the functionality is largely similar (although never really the same), the actual execution seems to be hugely different to me. Apple clearly just wants to avoid litigation.

I am not American, so I need to ask - why would Apple be worried about litigation? I don't see how a widget shop can be sued for selling a product when there is a dispute between two widget manufacturers.

Because apparently they (Apple) took sides by ejecting one manufacturer. This might even be a conspiracy.

And more generally, because here in America there is little downside risk in filing a lawsuit.

Thanks, but as I understand it, the reason they ejected one of the apps was because they were possibly afraid of getting sued - which seems strange to me.

Apple clearly just wants to avoid litigation.

I'm no lawyer, but there is another side to the litigation issue: What happens if Apple is deemed to be creating a de facto monopoly for some company? We have laws against stuff like that too.

I know someone who sued Microsoft because they didn't list his Excel add-on in one of their catalogs. It competed with MS Money. I have no idea how that went, though.

Microsoft did get taken to court for their business practices, in a much bigger way than what you are talking about.

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