NIN Reaction to iPhone App Store Rejection | Hacker News Reader

NIN Reaction to iPhone App Store Rejection

forum.nin.com

86 pointsironkeith45 comments

A better link:

http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?9,651569,651569#msg-651569

I was thinking the same thing especially with the tie in to walmart's music sales and the questionable safari application bundled with the iphone :)

I'm never, ever getting an iPhone.

Apropos: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694

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I'm sure Apple will miss you terribly. An app was denied. Big deal. No great loss.

If you really want to run the app, jailbreak your phone and run it.

While I don't think it's a major reason not buy an iPhone, it is actually a fairly big problem. I know of at least 3 high profile apps that have been rejected due to "objectionable content" which was nothing more than a few swear words on content loaded from the web.

My problem, aside from the censorship in the first place, is that they don't follow the same standards in their own apps. Search the YouTube app for any swear word and it will happily give you all the swearing you can handle.

The web browser is un-censored. That's pretty much all that matters in this day+age.

Yes, but there's the argument that the browser doesn't directly help you discover content, whereas YouTube app does.

Apple wants to make it illegal for you to jailbreak "your" iPhone.

There has been quite a few reports on this (even a patent?). But can this be legal? Wouldnt this be similar to car manufacturers outlawing fixing your own cd/mp3/casette players in your cars?

You think the Pre is going to be all right? I'm waiting on it, but I've never seen it. What do you suggest as an alternative, I'm about to get a new device.

The g1 running android is pretty great. I've been using it for four months and have very few complaints, plus it's a completely open-source system. The new software update provides an onscreen keyboard if you don't like to type on real keys, but I think having the choice to use a tactile keyboard is really nice. I'll also never own an iphone.

It claims to be a completely open-source system. Wasn't there a case where a tethering app was pulled out by Google from Market due to telco pressure?

Of course being Android, with a few more steps, you can add an alternative "market place". But that's besides the point, it is not completely open even though it claims to be.

At the moment, no, experience-wise for the consumer, it is almost always worse than the iPhone.

And yes, I have both phones.

> Wasn't there a case where a tethering app was pulled out by Google from Market due to telco pressure?

I own neither an iPhone or a G1, so can someone clarify this for me: On the iPhone, you can't get an app on there, except through the App store or jail-breaking? On Andriod, you can do both? So even if your app isn't in the market, you can distribute it separately, which you can't for the iPhone?

That's right. And jail-breaking is not officially supported (that's an understatement) but it works pretty well. So it's a minus for the iPhone.

But then, that's why I said for most consumers, the iPhone is much better. Because for them, the official distribution mechanism is what matters.

The reason why I mentioned the tethering app is that it is not totally open as advertised, although there's more than 1 valid way to work around it.

(You can still distribute apps to the iPhone via ad-hoc or enterprise distribution, but those don't matter here since we are talking about the mass market).

Yes, the Android Market is not open. But the Android OS nonetheless is. If you buy the Android Dev Phone 1, you can modify and compile the source as you wish and flash it onto that phone. No "hacking" necessary.

If you buy a locked-in version from t-mobile you kinda have to "hack" it to flash what you want.

But either way you can install apps without the Android Market.

You can get that tethering app here: http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/

Just thought I clarify:

I'm not saying the Android Market is not an open market. In fact I think it is. It is just not completely open as advertised, if there is such a phrase. And it is definitely more open than Apple App store.

What I am saying is that the App Store along with the iPhone as of now is much better for the majority of consumers. And by that definition, they exclude people who can modify and compile from source :) There are easier ways of course, to distribute/install apps for Android other than through Android Market. You can install from flash drive or even through the browser. But remember, majority of consumers.

I have this thought after developing for the iPhone and investigating Android (I have the Dev Phone and I decided not to) - if you look at the current mobile landscape, it is a new battle ground for Apple. It is like the OS wars again. Instead of Windows/OS X/Linux, we have WM/iPhone OS/Android/Palm Pre. The other platforms may have existing market share (Symbian and BlackBerry), but personally I think these are the ones that will dominate. But instead of how things worked out the last 2 decades which almost killed Apple (and I think on the desktop Macs will continue to be a minority), the iPhone platform has a fresh chance to fight again, and this time, being proprietary, in the sense of the OS not being licensed for other hardware, allows it to have a very distinct advantage over other platforms like WM and Android.

Having said that, while I believe the iPhone platform is the leader now, hopefully it will work out to be more or less evenly spread out, with WM/iPhone/Android/Palm all having significant market share, providing choices, competition and encouraging innovation.

For what it's worth, if NIN submitted the same thing to the Android Market and someone complained, Google could pull it just like Apple did. While I don't think there's anyone actively reviewing the Android apps, there is a wonderfully vague clause in the Android market agreement that says you can't display (or link to!) content unsuitable for people under 18. (Anyone under 18? Everyone under 18? Is Alien Bloodbath really suitable for 3-year-olds? etc.)

http://www.android.com/market/terms/developer-content-policy...

But at least with Android you can still serve the app on your own server.

It was pulled by T-Mobile, not Google. You can still get the app if you aren't on T-Mobile.

And of course, you can install any .apk you like.

How did T-Mobile do it without Google doing it for them?

I don't think this is so bad really. Apple's brand is affected by the kind of material it sells and it wants to protect its brand.

It's just like Facebook has porn patrol.

Being a vendor of a product isn't just about moving product, it's about moving product in a direction that you believe makes the world a better place for you to live. Apple has the right to choose how to let people use their platform.

Imagine a world where you have no right who you can and cannot sell your hard work to. Those signs that say, "We have the right to refuse service to anyone" -- all those would have to come down, by law!

I think, right now, that I would prefer a world where a vendor of a service can decide who it does and does not provide that service to than a world where the builder of a product or provider of a service does not have that right.

You're missing the point. Apple sells The Downward Spiral in the iTunes store. Not allowing the same content in the App store is just absurd. In fact, the app doesn't even contain the content, it's just accessible through it.

I believe the reason for the apparent contradiction is this: Apple acts as a publicizer for the apps in the app store by letting them into the top-N lists and recent releases. When an "objectionable" app becomes popular, users hold Apple to account. They don't do this with the music store.

As the app store gets more and more crowded, Apple will most likely loosen up. Or maybe they will do the really intelligent thing: allow everything in, but only allow "non-objectionable" material into the top-N and recent releases sections.

Apple has a top-N list for songs, albums, audiobooks, movies, tv shows, etc. on the front page of the itunes store. How is advertising questionable material in those lists any different than advertising apps with questionable content?

With iTunes, Apple is a distributor. With the app store, it's a publisher. It's reasonable to assume that most people who are likely to get angry about content in a song/app recognise and understand the difference. And perhaps many of them don't understand that Apple is merely a publisher, and don't actually create most of the apps.

Creators and publishers are (usually) considered to have more responsibility than distributors when it comes to objectionable content. I think that's an important difference for Apple's image.

what do you suggest is their rationale? Is that the point of this? to point out an irrational decision in the world?

Well, considering most of the people here write software, and this has to do with a (currently) popular software platform, I think it's worth pointing out.

Who cares about Apple's brand? If you buy a device it should be YOUR device. No one should be able to dictate what content you put on YOUR device.

Under the same line of reasoning: if I own a brick and mortar store, it should be MY store. I should be able to dictate what I stock on my shelves. If customers don't like it, they can shop elsewhere.

But you can't shop elsewhere. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the app store the only way to get applications for the iphone short of jailbreaking? Don't you think if there was a competing app store that was completely open people would flock to it?

I'm pretty sure people wouldn't "flock" to it, for the same reason iTunes is still doing well selling music despite a better selection on Amazon MP3. Don't underestimate the importance of convenience to most people.

The iPhone has a web browser! Welcome to the world of webapps. Where you can run anything you like. Much of it is even free!

Except if you own all the brick and mortar stores you have a monopoly. Even if you just own a large chunk of them (like Walmart), you end up having way too much control over what form free expression can take. That is closer to the situation with Apple and it doesn't seem too healthy for society as a whole.

And technically speaking, that isn't even true. Try to allow smoking at your place of business in most states, for instance.

Huh? Are you serious? The cellphone is the new PC. Let me run whatever applications I want on my computer. Can you imagine in Microsoft said you can only buy software for your computer via our App Store and oh we are going to take a cut of all Windows software.

Also, do you really weep for those poor shop owners that can't refuse service to black people and gays anymore?

What if Apple did this for it's PCs and laptops? It's just making the world a better place right?

Can anyone chime in on the app store review procedure? Is each app assigned an individual review monkey, or is it passed through multiple hands? Methinks Apple needs better screening and performance evaluation of their app store employees. All it takes is a few jackasses in the mix for this to happen. Their rejection policy clearly leaves certain things open for interpretation.

As far as I am aware from reading around the subject after reading the millionth "the app store sux" article. The best indication we have is from this article: http://www.marco.org/98546611

  "In all cases, the reviewers don’t touch the app until the
  day before approval or rejection. And they don’t seem to
  interact with the app for more than a few minutes.

  The app just sits there for 6-8 days, untouched, then goes
  through an approval or rejection process that, as far as I
  can tell, takes less than 20 minutes for a complex app (and
  probably much less time for a simple one)."

Based on my server logs, it appears there are multiple levels of review. The pattern I usually see is a little interaction after a few days of submitting, then a little more interaction right before approval. In one case, my app got rejected for an interface issue, and it looked like more people were involved. So it seems to be a "red-flag" kind of system.

Yes, for some apps, the first-stage approval is clearly done by someone fairly non-technical, just reading from a list of things they need to deny apps for. I've had first-level reviewers deny apps for really silly things, in some cases where the problem was the reviewer's command of the english language, rather than the app itself. Resubmitted with no changes and it went through 6 days later.

Oh and there are no appeals at this stage. This isn't a democracy. Resubmit the binary and get to the back of the line, scruffy.

But if you do get forwarded on, it seems to take about 2x as long, and get you to someone inside Apple who knows a thing or two.

It's sad that Apple can get away with this. Somehow competition is not working like it should in this market.

That's how Apple has always set it out to be. They lock everything down so that competition can't grow properly..

Yeah, but that was the other person's point. Apple is still successful. Therefore, competition is not the panacea to solve all the worlds ills, since Apple is behaving so poorly yet we all just pony up the cash for iPhones anyway. :)

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