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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

Apple had I think such requirements for not mentioning any other products...

They have a line about not mentioning other mobile platforms. The latest version of SeaNav is 3.2.6, so it's been there for a while, with Apple happily accepting it and its description. What appears to have changed is Apple have decided that Pebble is a "mobile platform" only since the launch of the Apple Watch.

That is arguably change to their rules to unfairly misuse their position as gatekeepers of the Apple ecosystem - they're abusing their market to negatively impact Pebble.

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>> "...unfairly misuse their position as gatekeepers of the Apple ecosystem..."

The point of building the Apple ecosystem was to exploit their position as its gatekeeper. This is the expected result. I would never expect anything else from a walled garden.

Exploiting your position as gatekeeper by selling lots of apps inside that ecosystem is one thing, unfairly misusing that position to imply the support for a rival product in a different market is lacking by rejecting apps in your ecosystem because they mention the rival product so you can take a share of that different market is entirely another rather more illegal thing.

The OP title is " Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support" Sorry but no Apple is not rejecting such apps... It just doesn't want other product name mentioned. And yes Apple is the gatekeeper of the Apple ecosystem... It is just the way it is. I am not saying that what Apple is doing is right, but the OP statement is wrong

It's not just they're the gatekeeper, it's that as gatekeeper they're acting against users' interest in this case.

But there are apps in the App Store that their only purpose is as a companion for a Pebble app, not to mention the main Pebble app itself. It will be impossible for such apps to change their metadata to avoid mentioning Pebble. Therefore it appears that in the future Apple will be de-facto rejecting such apps.

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