When it rains, it pours.
I’ve already covered that the US Department of Justice is investigating Apple for their practices in the online music and video sales markets, and that the Federal Trade Commission and the DoJ are deciding who gets to investigate Apple for their practices with iAd.
But now, it seems that the FTC is investigating Apple both for their iAd practices, and for their restrictions on how applications are written.
Source: Ars Technica
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
Sorry about the lack of updates, I’m trying not to make stuff up, and stick to the facts. Sometimes there’s less news, so I won’t post if there’s nothing to post. But, now there is something to post. And this one’s practically kicking puppies evil.
Steve Jobs has publicly expressed interest in something like HyperCard on the iPad, and calling for someone to write it.
So, the logical thing to do… would be to write it.
Right?
Wrong. Apple will reject it, even if you work with them. What a good way to ensure goodwill among your developers – publicly call for them to develop something, and then reject it.
Source: Slashdot
The rumor mill is churning out reports that the US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice are planning an antitrust probe, in response to Apple’s decision to restrict iPhone app development to certain languages, and locking out translation tools.
You know you screwed up somewhere when two US government organizations are fighting over the right to anal probe you.
Source: Ars Technica
I’ll admit that this one’s grey area, but Apple posts data (about apps on the iPhone) on the public Internet. A user may wish to use that data in a more efficient manner, so they install an app to do it for them.
Oh, wait, they can’t, because that app is banned, because it uses that data that Apple has posted on the public Internet.
As the App Rejections blog points out, this is kinda screwy. Apple can’t stop screen scraping on the public Internet (robots.txt is voluntary, too,) but they own the iPhone platform, and can control anything that goes on on it.
Screen scraping is a valuable tool for getting at data when a site gives it to you in a form that’s not really usable to filter on that data. Sure, it’s sometimes abused, but in this case, it can only benefit users, and can’t harm Apple.
Source: App Rejections
I’ve already mentioned Apple’s insane censorship before, but I’ll mention it again.
It seems to me that Steve Jobs wants to be the moral police of the app store, not allowing anything remotely titillating (unless it’s from major, reputable sources that make Apple a lot of money, of course) on the iPhone.
To his credit, he did suggest going to Android to view porn on a phone, but still.
The thing is, there’s parental controls on the iPhone. So, use them to lock the porn away from those who you don’t want to see it – don’t block porn altogether.
Source: Wired
This isn’t news either, but I’m posting it anyway.
Many have made the argument that it’s OK if Apple makes a walled garden, because there’s always other choices.
The problem is when Apple’s walled garden is wildly successful, competing platforms may switch to a walled garden model. And, Microsoft, which is quite often accused of copying Apple at every opportunity, well, they’re copying Apple on this one.
Windows Phone 7 will be a walled garden, too. Sure, there’s some Windows Mobile 6.5 devices out there, and they’ll continue past Windows Phone 7’s release, but let’s face it – 6.5 is crap.
And, AT&T’s first Android device, the Motorola Backflip, requires some hacking to get apps from outside of the Android Market installed. Granted, they didn’t do a good job of securing it, but they did try.
Arguably, this is more of a “why Microsoft and AT&T evil,” but this points out why Apple’s walled garden is dangerous for everyone, even if you’re not an Apple customer.
Source: Engadget