Apple shuts down Podcaster, again | Hacker News Reader

Apple shuts down Podcaster, again

almerica.blogspot.com

44 pointsnikils16 comments

I found the original post text just by putting their URL into Google Reader. Gotta love web-based RSS aggregators that cache. Here it is:

It seems that Apple has shut me down. I can no longer provision any more devices. The developers website that had a "remove device" link is now gone. I looked at the help tab but it still lists "removing a device" as one of the options. I guess Apple just shut my account down. I believe that all the copies of Podcaster I released will keep running. I will try to make an update and test it on my iPhone. If it works, I will release it to every user. I would recommend keeping version 1.0.8b around just in case.

On a more serious note, what does this mean for me? All I wanted was for someone from Apple to contact me and tell me how we can work it out so that I get into the app store. Instead, Apple took the cowards way out by simply disabling features in my developers portal. This seems like a childish move for a company that has been proving such high quality service and products in the past.

I plan to make Podcaster for the Android operating system. At least there, I will be welcomed instead of being walked all over. I will also try to port the app to a jailbroken iPhone.

So a final note to developers. Try to stay out of Apples grey area. Don't build anything that would compete with Apple. Don't spend too much time before you submit to the app store because it could be all for nothing.

P.S. Podcaster got a 4.3 our of 5 star from 63 reviews. You can read them at http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx

UPDATE: I just wanted to add that I am not surprised that Apple has stopped me. The application seems to still be working and can still be installed if you signed up before 9/22/08 Midnight EST. If you are one of these people and still want to try it, email almerica@gmail.com I will also be making updates to the application and will still fix a lot of the issues users have bene having. Give me about a week.

I think the most telling word in that post was "childish." Apple probably has legitimate concerns here, but by simply shutting him off instead of talking with him directly they are really missing an opportunity to develop loyalty with app developers.

Apple are doing this to a lot of people. Surely this is anti-competitive?

Seriously?

iPhone has 1% of the market, they've got another 79% to go before we're even in the ballpark of antitrust.

1% of what market? Last I checked the iPhone had a wee bit more than 1% of the smartphone market.

Hilarious. You're assuming the DOJ is actually trying to prevent monopolies; it seems to me their main motivation is responding to pressure from Congress and corporate lobbyists. If Apple were called into their offices to defend their market share, they would say something like "we have .001 percent of the mobile devices market. This market includes anything with a wireless connection, like laptops and all cellular phones." The DOJ would say "Ok, sounds good to us. No monopoly issues here." (Unless, of course, some powerful Congressperson was pounding on them, trying to cause headaches for Apple..)

As an example, the DOJ just let the only two satellite radio companies merge (Sirius and XM). They allowed them to define the market as "anything that can broadcast music". The market included all normal over-the-air radio stations, internet radio, and (for all I know) iTunes. By that definition, XM and Sirius only owned .01% of the "anything that can broadcast" market, so there were no antitrust issues.

I got a personal look at this when I sold my last company; we were bought by a competitor and the DOJ called us in to evaluate the merger and determine whether there were any anti-trust issues. We defined the market in the broadest terms possible and got absolutely no resistance from them. (Granted, even had we defined the market in narrow terms we still should have been ok.) To this day I'm amazed at how tractable they were.

The system is broken.

Actually, I think you meant to reply to my parent post. I don't disagree with you. I'm really seething mad over the Apple app store and iPhone bullshit (guess how many ignored/closed radars i have regarding iPhone and iPhone sdk right now?) and even moreso because a lot of my friends are worried about their future in iPhone development.

But I'm really curious as to 1% of what my parent post was talking about. Not ANYTHING ELSE related to monopolies and damned statistics.

They sell the iPhone in parts of the world with different legal systems, including Europe which has fairly tough competition laws. (WP quotes.)

- If a firm has a dominant position, because it has beyond a 39.7% market share then there is "a special responsibility not to allow its conduct to impair competition on the common market"

Apple has more than a 40% market share for iTunes and the iPod (estimated as high as 70%(1)). In it's class the iPod Touch is probably even higher than that. Since Podcaster would also have worked on the Touch then Apple is well within the realms of this particularly interesting requirement:

- A refusal to supply a facility which is essential for all businesses attempting to compete to use can constitute an abuse.

MS got hit with a $1.35bn fine for breaking the rules, and plenty of European companies have also been crucified.

(1) http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/01/29/beyond-the-i... estimates 70% units and 84% by $.

Agreed, while having good tech skills (and a degree), I still have my first phone, a Nokia 6310. It works pretty well as a phone and I let my Psion 3c do everything else. I note that the Psion 3c needs a battery change only every 8 months, noted because my phone's charge lasts about 3 days.

This is going to be a PR disaster for apple, from a developers point of view. He may have been asked to pull the blog post until they get time to talk to him about it.

You'd think it was a PR disaster a long time ago. Right now it's just tons of seething anger and frustration and stress. I have a fair number of friends worried about their current and future contract work because of the way Apple is handling things.

For anyone interested, the blog appears to have belonged to the author of Podcaster. The cached url is http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.b... .

It doesn't contain the last post, though.

I'm curious to see how this develops.

Did the author take down the post because of the NDA requirements or because it is a retraction or...? What?

Apple Do no Evil

They even removed the story about Podcaster being shut down!

So... Anyone have a mirror/cache or whatever handy? Google cache is failing on this one.

Yup, I can confirm, the blog isn't there as of 23 Sept 2008 21:10 GMT+1.

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