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Comment by lt | Hacker News Reader

The application in question has not even been rejected, much less mass banning of apps that contain the word happened. They just suggested not to mention the competitor's platform:

While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to remove 'Finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge!' from the Application Description

I can understand why that would be appropriate. Most users would have no idea what Google's Android Developer's Challenge is: "How do I download the other finalist apps?" "I bought this application that says it's Android - how do I run it in my wife's Nexus One?".

Not to mention the courtesy of not promoting competitors products in one vendor's own turf.

This is a huge overreaction by the PCWorld editor to linkbait you all. Even the application author thought it was reasonable. I'm surprised no one had picked up on this yet.

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While I agree that the article title was linkbait, I think the author had a valid point in noting that mentioning that the app was a finalist in a big competition does help in vouching for the app's usefulness. This isn't something that Apple should be discouraging, and the fact that they do does make them seem, well, petty.

The app wasn't a finalist. You can't enter an iPhone app in an Android competition. Logic like this is what makes people think Microsoft Office for Mac is as full featured as Microsoft Office on Windows. They're too very different products with different codebases and functionality that attempt to mimic some behaviour between each other. Have you seen the frustration of an Office:Mac user when they realize, for instance, that they can't do something simple like get Entourage to work with an Exchange server or get Office to connect to Sharepoint?

Is that relevant? The point I was making is that Apple should not be discouraging it regardless. Be that as it may, you make an interesting one. Are you saying that Microsoft should be discouraged from marketing Office for Mac as Microsoft Office? That does not seem like a reasonable position to take.

Not to mention the courtesy of not promoting competitors products in one vendor's own turf.

I remember a time when it was widely believed that a large technology company being able to dictate what firms had access to its market was something akin to it being the bastard child of Ma Bell and Hitler.

Not to mention the courtesy of not promoting competitors products in one vendor's own turf.

It's weird, I thought that once I purchased a phone, the phone became my turf.

You didn't buy the app store, just the phone.

If I knew Apple's heavy-handed and capricious app store reviewers would have my business by the throat, I would treat even the most ridiculous and worthless "suggestions" as demands.

Mentioning a competitor's developer contest is not courteous and is confusing users? That has to be one of the weirdest excuses for abusing a dominant market position since Microsoft banned VARs from installing 3rd party software. In my view banning that software would be an illegal action that should land them in court.

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