Apple Extends Non-Disclosure to App Store Rejection Letters | Hacker News Reader

Apple Extends Non-Disclosure to App Store Rejection Letters

macrumors.com

65 pointsjoshwa50 comments

They sure are getting harder and harder to defend in this whole debacle.

No kidding. In the past ~1 year, between Microsoft and Apple, Microsoft has been on significantly better behavior.

It's been a lot more than 1 year. It began with the iPod DRM. It's just been smacking everyone in the face for that long.

Apple had no control over the DRM: they needed it to get the companies. And they've been slowly reducing the DRM thanks to iTunes Plus. A few more of my albums converted themselves today, and they sound a bit better too.

This behavior is inexplicable, though. I can't recall Apple doing something so bullheaded in quite a little while.

"Apple had no control over the DRM: they needed it to get the companies."

True and false. Apple needed some sort of DRM. However, they didn't have to refuse to license their DRM. They had a competitive advantage and they leveraged it in a consumer-unfriendly manner. It's what they do now.

What did their refusing to license their DRM have to do with impacting the customers? I'm not being sarcastic: I don't quite understand what effect that had on users.

It makes it impossible to legally play Fairplay-encrypted files on non-Apple devices.

It also makes it impossible to DRM non-Apple provided files on Apple devices.

As much as I'd like to see DRM go away, if it has to exist, there had better be one spec that lets me buy from any store to play on any device.

Until you've burnt it to a cd and ripped it again :/

How many people actually use DRM on the iPod/iPhone? I'd say a negligible amount.

What percentage of people buy songs from iTunes? Probably more than half. Certainly not a negligible amount.

I think we're both taking this to extremes now :) Maybe 10-20% I'll give you that.

You think that only 10-20% of all iPod users buy tracks from iTunes? I don't think that would be enough to make it the #1 music store.

I have no actual data to back that up though.

Just anecdotal evidence - I know a lot of people with iPods, but not many who buy any music from iTunes.

Also, being the #1 music store is still not saying an awful lot compared with other sources of getting music.

Do you think more people use the store than already own CDs? or download music from p2p?

It seems like it was such from the very start. Apple had many restrictions on third party apps for the early Mac, meanwhile Microsoft embraced developers, and with the likes of AmiPro, Windows 3.1 flourished. I believe this is one of the major reasons why the Mac lost market share. Although probably better positioned than before, Apple may be making the same mistake.

All companies begin to act evil after they have a certain amount of control. No exceptions, some are just slower or have greater thresholds then others (google).

If I were a soulless lawyer, I might point out that this position is entirely consistent with Apple's strategy of disallowing apps that are similar to Apple's own apps. Inevitably, some of Apple's apps have been written but aren't yet released to the public. If Apple is planning to release, say, an official accounting app for the phone, they not only have an incentive to stifle your accounting app for the phone, but they also have an incentive to avoid tipping off the market too early by publicly rejecting your accounting app for the phone.

Fortunately, I'm not a soulless lawyer, so I'm also free to point out that this argument isn't so much a defense as an explanation, to opine that this sucks, and to observe that Apple's control-freak nature has now officially gone overboard. Of course, Microsoft acted like this for years, and it didn't hurt them much, so I guess it's not surprising that a company would try it again...

Microsoft didn't act like this at all. If they had, Windows would never have reached the market share it has today.

You don't have to ask Microsoft for permission to develop an app for Windows. You don't have to pay them to do so or sign an NDA. They don't have a kill switch to remove it.

They may include a free competitor in the next OS, and you can argue that that is an unfair abuse of a monopoly, but they at least allowed you to try. And Firefox's immense success shows that if your product provides enough value, you can still compete.

Not only has Microsoft acted like this, they're doing it right now. From the Wikipedia page for "XBox Development Kit":

Only developers that are licensed by Microsoft may compile code and release binaries (.XBEs)of their software with the XDK, any software released using the XDK by developers that aren't licensed is illegal.

Nintendo and Sony do this as well, yes? There's nothing particularly unusual about this model, alas.

Yeah, Microsoft never did this for Windows. I believe that much is true. Perhaps it's a testimony to the enduring influence of the early PC hackers, like Wozniak and the Homebrew Computer Club guys, that I don't think anybody ever really tried this trick in the PC industry. Though I'm probably forgetting several examples because they're, um, so forgettable.

I'm pretty sure that old mainframe hands would recognize this game, though.

Microsoft negotiates terms with licensed developers on a case by case basis. It is practically unheard of for an Xbox developer to deliver the game that was agreed upon and face rejection. Before a game is released to the market, Microsoft performs a battery of certification and pre-certification reviews to ensure quality and platform consistency. I can't comment on Nintendo or Sony's practices, but I'd assume they are similar.

Xbox Live Community Games is much more similar to Apple's App Store system in that anyone can sell a game. Unlike Apple, we'd happily allow anyone to produce a game which is a direct competitor to one of our games. Check it out when it launches with The New Xbox Experience later this fall.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft on XNA Game Studio, but do not have direct knowledge of or involvement in the developer relations or certification processes. Additionally, Community Games is currently in development, so anything I said above is subject to change.

That is a completely different case, XBox was never promoted as a universal device that anybody could program for.

Was the iPhone? I always thought they where building the same type of walled playground but that could have been my inner cynic talking.

The XBox is no playground, I think to be allowed to develop for it you need to be pre-approved and throw millions of $ in the ring. I haven't checked, though.

maybe you should check

OK, so I forgot about the LIVE marketplace. I was thinking about "real" games.

Read up on XBOX live it's a walled garden but it does not take much money mostly it's all about jumping though the right hoops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA

The XNA Framework provides support for both 2D and 3D game creation and allows use of the Xbox 360 controllers and vibrations. XNA framework games that target the Xbox platform can currently only be distributed to members of the Microsoft XNA Creator's Club which carries a $99/year subscription fee.[1] Desktop applications can be distributed free of charge under Microsoft's current licensing.

Edit: Xbox 360 games written in XNA Game Studio can be submitted to the Creators Club community[15] for peer review. Other Premium Creators will perform a peer review of the title. Creators can set a a price point – between 200 and 800 Points – that Xbox 360 owner can then choose to pay to download. The game is listed on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, the programmer will get an electronic payment every quarter. If the title sells exceptionally, it may be featured in advertisment on Xbox 360 and other Microsoft online properties.[2]

"mmense success shows that if your product provides enough value, you can still compete" ... iif u r backed by GOOG.

Yeah. It seems that certain departments in Microsoft have seen the light. IronPython, IronRuby, F#, PowerShell, supporting the Apache Foundation, all the cool stuff coming out of Microsoft Research. I think that cooler heads a prevailing at times. Perhaps Ray Ozzie is finally starting to have a bit of influence on the organization. Although there is still a long way to go.

I've always been fairly OS/tech agnostic over the years. But, Apple's attitude towards openness has really turned me off the past 5-6 years.

My antipathy started for me with their attitudes towards artists and Quicktime in the late 90's early 2000's, and it has continued with the transition to OSX, the ITunes handcuffs that come with any Apple product and now the issues that developers are having creating Apps for the iPhone.

Also, can someone please tell me why OSX is one of the few existing OS's that I can't install as a client OS on top of VMWare? I can have any flavor of x86 OS that I want, but now OSX.

I love Apple's design. It's the best in the industry. OSX is really shiny and pretty and I love me some good looking Unix. But, I really dislike their attitude towards openness, users and developers.

Not to contradict your overall point, but because you might find it useful - you can supposedly run OS X Server inside VMWare Fusion (itself running on top of OS X).

No, I appreciate it, I wasn't aware of that. I think that it makes my point even clearer, however. The only reason that Apple doesn't want to allow a VM of OSX to be able to run on top of Linux, BSD, Solaris or Windows is because they want a locked down system. They want to make more money selling the associated hardware. And, while that is certainly a choice they are entitled to make, it speaks fairly loudly to a culture of being closed and locked down.

Even Microsoft is releasing Open Source licensed software these days. Isn't OSX built on top of a Darwin Kernel? Any one know of Open Source releases the Apple has done? It would be nice if they returned the favor to the community.

</rant>

Ummm, well, LLVM and Bonjour come to mind, and then there's a little-known project known as WebKit for which Apple is the main sponsor :-).

They also do tons of smaller stuff - as a ruby programmer, I appreciate Apple's sponsorship of the RubyCocoa project, and the fact that they have hired Laurent (the main programmer for RubyCocoa) to develop the next-generation MacRuby implementation, which provides free bridging between ruby and Objective-C

They haven't been very easy to defend for about 4 or so years now. I've been saying that although Apple's products are technically nicer than Microsoft's at the moment, I'd rather see MS in a position of dominance than Apple, just based on the way that the companies have been behaving in relatively recent history.

Apple is trying to apply the same control to the App store that they did for so many years to their hardware. This is the mentality which is going to cause them lots of pain. In Corporate relationships this sort of control is allowed. But when you have a marketplace you need to be more... peaceful in your control.

To the user it looks like they're defending and removing the 'bad' apps.

To the developer they're just exerting too much control and not providing for an adequate system to save the developer the trouble.

The fact is developers would have much less worry or problems with this if it were an application pre-code rather than an evaluation after coding. Thus wasting their time with no solution for how to avoid wasting the time.

what users outside of the hacker and/or tech crowd will ever know/realize that apps are being removed (or in fact being restricted in the first place)?

agree with the policy you or I may not, but let's not kid ourselves and think that the users will revort (a la facebook) -- when they have not a clue the process for this phone/OS, nor android nor the typical carrier platforms.

Sorry, but do you really think Vista's slow uptake is caused by actual bad user experience? It's not.

It's because every techie will adamantly proclaim that Vista sucks, even though they might have never even tried it.

As far as I'm concerned Apple is a straw on the camel's back away from me doing the same to them.

Vista's slow uptake is due to immense corporate inertia and a lack of any apparent value to overcome it. Has nothing to do with techies.

Corporations keep using the same tech until the incentive to switch overcomes the considerable cost. Vista just hasn't given enough incentive yet. XP had a similar problem, though not as bad because the OS (especially once driver issues were ironed out) offered more relative to the previous one.

I believe that free choice actually leads to a better result for consumers. If you don't agree with this position then what you have said makes sense and you are probably a good fit for Mac products.

My belief is that over time consumers will notice the lack of available applications with respect to the other available platforms.

they are sacrificing long term strategy for short term gain.

not sure what the margins are now, but for iPhone 1.0 total end-end cost of the phone was something like $284 for the $600 phone. whatever the fuzzy math here, with Apple on projection to sell 10million + phones this year, they are making an absolute killing.

and thus, to the bottom line in the short term, it's not necessary at all to appease the developers -- they quality of some apps is very very high already, and will continue to do so while both independent devs and companies are also making a killing for arguably little work (a few months) and huge roi.

the long-term is that controlling the end-end solution with an iron fist will be just one of the many restraining factors that keeps them from gaining market dominance (single carrier, no keyboard, one phone model, et. al).

too bad so sad -- their way or the high way.

I disagree. I'll bet that the app store doesn't feature in their long term strategy at all. It's a temporary stop gap measure, until firstly wifi is everywhere, or at least good connectivity, and secondly, until browsers can do everything that installable apps can.

No. We're not close enough to universal wi-fi for that to make sense. Apple wants a monopoly over the mobile universe.

But, honestly, they're usually better than this. I don't know why they're acting like this. It's ridiculous.

Maybe in the US you're correct. The US is only 1 market though.

It's the one Apple has traditionally focused on, it's where Apple is located, and it just saw 100,000,000 downloads in a matter of months.

Thinking that the app store is just a stopgap is specious thinking. It's a big thing and its mistreatment is therefore a big matter. I know Hacker News has a segment of people who want the Internet to replace the desktop, but it simply isn't happening in the foreseeable future.

I don't think that they're knowingly sacrificing the long term.

I assume that they either don't consider apps as representing the selling point individually (hence a need to get maximum developers on board & developing) or don't think that this is harming them significantly.

Its rather ironic that this comes on the same day that Android launched with its fairly open approach.

What I don't understand is, why haven't all these clever people, kicked out of the app store on spurious grounds (Apple: "it kinda sorta almost looks like something we've already done or are about to unveil"), banded together to make a simple installer for their apps, something like a jailbreaking wrapper for their app: You make your "illegal" iPhone app, stuff it thru the wrapper which then creates a .dmg installer file. Users then double-click the .dmg, the wrapper searches for your iPhone, if its not jailbroken it asks you whether you want to jailbreak it (with an option to download the latest jailbreak version), then installs the app.

That would work... but only if you weren't making money off it. Once you start getting paid to do that, you can be sure Apple will sic their soulless lawyers on you and rend you unto hades.

Why bother? Boycott!

Doesn't seem like this should be very enforcable...

That depends on whether you ever want to be able to write a second iPhone app after your first one is rejected.

how much shit will you monkeys take?

gee i wonder how the fanbois are holding out...they cling to the faux cool of apple products like a bum clings to his malt liquor. what a quandry! now they have to make this jive with the relentless bad press apple is getting and deserves over this totalitarian horsehshit

Reply on news.ycombinator.com