Tag: ios

Two graphic novels were rejected from the iPad due to sexual content, Ulysses “Seen” and a graphic novel version of The Importance of Being Earnest (Amazon link, no affiliate info).

One thing I’ll emphasize, first, is that Apple does have every right to control content that they distribute.

However, the content in both of these graphic novels wasn’t intended to be pornographic in nature.

The publishers were willing to work with Apple, to get their novels published. In the case of Ulysses “Seen”, some panels had to be completely redrawn – even pixelation or fig leaves weren’t sufficient. As for the The Importance of Being Earnest graphic novel, one entire page had major parts of the story blacked out, involving partial nudity (but no genitalia shown) of two male characters together.

Again, Apple has the right to control content they distribute.

However, a heterosexual sex scene was preserved in an approved comic, Kick-Ass. So that doesn’t fly. (The content in Ulysses “Seen” was completely non-sexual in nature, and less was shown in The Importance of Being Earnest.)

Apple did ultimately reverse their decision, and asked both publishers to resubmit their apps, but only after the uproar about their actions. (Yes, I’m slow to post this, sue me.)

Sources (possibly NSFW): Boing Boing, Gizmodo

It appears that Reddit has abandoned their iPhone app.

Apparently, when Reddit has released bugfixes for approval, an approver happened to stumble upon some user-submitted content that was bad, and rejected the app. Multiple times.

So, Reddit gave up on the iPhone app, is making a new web interface, and is open sourcing the app.

This is why the approval process needs some serious work, or better yet, a way to break out of the walled garden.

Source: App Rejections

This has gotta suck.

You develop an app, and submit it to the app store. Normally, apps are fairly quickly either approved or rejected, and sometimes they’re pulled after the fact.

But sometimes, apparently, they sit in limbo.

A newer version of an app that had previously been approved, AppsFire, sat in limbo for 56 days, with no response to AppsFire’s inquiries to Apple. So, AppsFire decided to pull the existing version out (they claim that it was having trouble with the number of apps that it was searching anyway, so it wasn’t ENTIRELY out of spite, it seems.)

Good job pissing off a developer for your platform, Apple.

Source: App Rejections

Apple claims to have a walled garden to maintain a high quality of applications in the App Store and to maintain the image of the iPhone.

I’m not sure that’s a good idea – there are arguments both for and against a walled garden, my personal opinion that a walled garden that has an option to disable it if you know what you’re doing (jailbreaking doesn’t count – something like WebOS’s “webos20090606” or Maemo’s Red Pill mode or rootsh do count) is what’s best. Keeps the users that don’t know what they’re doing safe (and even allows much tighter restrictions on the quality of content,) but lets people run unapproved apps without having to run afoul of various agreements.

But, my opinions on walled gardens notwithstanding, Apple does claim they do it to maintain high quality.

So, why are they approving completely useless applications, such as a mirror app, that just take up space, and reduce the signal to noise ratio of the App Store?

Source: App Rejections

Double posting today, it’ll take a while to catch up to where I’m supposed to be on these.

And, it’s a common theme, but…

Apple’s changed the rules again, in a vague manner. Now, they’ve decided that “widget-like apps” aren’t OK, and that apps can’t “create their own desktops,” and pulled an app that multiple revisions of had previously been approved of.

Great way to treat your developers and your users, Apple.

Source: Slashdot

Apple’s removed GNU Go from the App Store, as the GPL (which it is licensed under) conflicts with some of Apple’s requirements for the App Store.

I’ll note that this is completely legal, and in fact, to keep distributing it, Apple would have had to change their policies.

I’ll also note that I generally dislike the GPL, and even more so the zealots that think the GPL should be mandatory. The GPL does take choice away.

However, that doesn’t mean that writing restrictions that prevent GPL software from being used on the iPhone isn’t evil. If people want to use the GPL for their software, they should be allowed to.

Source: The Register