That's true. But if you read Schiller's comments, that is not why the application was rejected.
I was responding to a comment about dictionary apps in general.
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Phil Schiller Comments on 'Ninjawords Dictionary' iPhone App Rejection
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That's true. But if you read Schiller's comments, that is not why the application was rejected.
I was responding to a comment about dictionary apps in general.
So, then what about the other Wiktionary applications, like Wikipanion, Dictionary!, Wiki, and mDictionary? None of them have a mature rating.
I mean, some unsuspecting user could pull out Wikipanion, look up "penis", and be treated to graphic self-shot photos of Wikipedia users' penises. And it was approved after Ninjawords.
I mean, some unsuspecting user could pull out Wikipanion, look up "penis", and be treated to graphic self-shot photos of Wikipedia users' penises. And it was approved after Ninjawords.
From the posts and press reviews, Apple has had an ongoing problem with little to no communication with Developers. I think Apple was slammed so hard with the number of Applications hitting the store for authorization, they were simply overwhelmed.
Lets face it, would you spend 300 man hours reading word for word through a book, or dictionary that may sell for $.99. You can see from that why Apple may not have read everything.
Lets face it, would you spend 300 man hours reading word for word through a book, or dictionary that may sell for $.99. You can see from that why Apple may not have read everything.
The people who think the article was wrong are mistaken or misleading.
The way I see it, this is still a major Apple problem.
If the developer misunderstood the situation, it was Apple's fault they misunderstood. Apple should have been clearer about the reason for the rejection. They were not. Apple can only blame themselves here.
This is a common theme between Apple and developers -- a lack of clear communication and an inability to question decisions to find out more information.
arn
The way I see it, this is still a major Apple problem.
If the developer misunderstood the situation, it was Apple's fault they misunderstood. Apple should have been clearer about the reason for the rejection. They were not. Apple can only blame themselves here.
This is a common theme between Apple and developers -- a lack of clear communication and an inability to question decisions to find out more information.
arn
People love to bash Apple in the press because it is a guarantee for lots of publicity. Apple has not been perfect, but it is good to see that they have the right goals in mind and are trying to make the experience as best as possible.
Yes and No, but i do agree with one thing "It's A Mess".
Also the miscommunication was in fact Gruber's fault, do to Gruber not having someone to pull him back when he goes off half cocked causing him to lose any final credibility he has left is a big problem for most Single Run Bloggers without "Pre & Post" Checks.
No One to Pull him Back and Say "WTF, You can't Write This without more info"
Check out the Headline at 9to5Mac, The problem here is that to many people jump the gun on believing that a developer was treated wrong, just to have a reason to, and nothing else.
Facts are Gruber's constant criticism of the app store for months has blinded him to the point that he picked up this story and flew off thinking he had something to back up his 2-3 month long rant.
He not only made himself look bad, But now he is being looked at as a fool and with little credibility left.
I do agree with you, and respect your personal take on it also.
So I guess we can agree to disagree with the way it was handled and the reasons why it is what it is.
This is the way I personally see it and I am sure allot of others see it differently then the way I do .
And thats ok, But I think we all agree that it is a Mess that needs to be fixed.
Good Post.
I must confess that I didn't actually bother to read all of Gruber's drivel on this occasion. My mind can only process so much pointless crap - this usually means I have to finish reading Gruber's posts way before the end.
However, it really doesn't matter; assuming I have got that far, I know that any subsequent paragraphs will contain nothing new or of any value. He'll simply repeat himself, but in a slightly different way, presumably to try and make himself look more credible as he's therefore producing a longer article.
The real story is nothing to do with the AppStore, Apple, or how their policies are applied (inconsistently or otherwise). The story is that for some God-only-known reason, a self-deluded, self-important, faux journalist - yes, Gruber - has managed to get a rise out of Schiller. You can bet your bottom dollar that Schiller and co (including Jobs) absolutely hate the idea of having to respond to Gruber. I bet Schiller is throwing chairs around his office as we type! And with good reason. After all, who the **** is Gruber? What are his credentials? Who are his sources? If this were a real journalist we'd know... but then, a real journalist would actually produce content worthy of reading, too.
So I guess we can agree to disagree with the way it was handled and the reasons why it is what it is.
The problem is that we judge a reporter on their ability to get their facts right.
But the problem being reported on here is a situation where the facts are being hidden and then are confusing and contridict themselves even when they do come out.
I'm just saying, I agree with you that it may be impossible to really have one correct way of viewing this whole affair. It does make sense that even amongst the people who understand it, there are a variety of opinions.
SG1, Arn, and myself have all read the article. I think it's fair to say that all 3 of us disagree slightly with each other. There's not one way of looking at this.
But what we all have in common is that our thoughts seem to have nothing to do with yours. It seems that actually reading the article at least puts us all on the same side of the room, even if we then have differences between us.
My point is, I can barely understand why you'd watse time to write about things you haven't read, but I certainly can't understand why you'd come back to brag about your own ignorance!
I don't care anymore.
I downloaded the Dictionary.com App a long time ago. It doesn't even need an internet connection; it stores the whole dictionary on my phone and doesn't take that much memory. Why do I need more than one dictionary???
I downloaded the Dictionary.com App a long time ago. It doesn't even need an internet connection; it stores the whole dictionary on my phone and doesn't take that much memory. Why do I need more than one dictionary???
There is so much misinformation that distracts from the real debate, which is the app review process. Let's talk about that, not about this nonsense:
There ARE parental controls for Safari. Get your facts before posting meaningless rants.
That's like saying Ford has a monopoly on the Ford Mustang. Absurd.
You guys need to do some reading up on monopolies. Apple is not a monopoly.
Apple allowed them to have the full content, but the result was a particular rating. Or did you read the article?
The real problem seems to relate to transparency: The actual requirements from Apple are sometimes vague. The app review process is inconsistently applied. When apps are rejected, the reason is not always clear.
Phil communicating on this matter cleared up a lot. If the review folks always communicated, it would probably clear up a lot too. And (because there is inconsistency) there ought to be some sort of appeal process.
There ARE parental controls for Safari. Get your facts before posting meaningless rants.
That's like saying Ford has a monopoly on the Ford Mustang. Absurd.
You guys need to do some reading up on monopolies. Apple is not a monopoly.
Apple allowed them to have the full content, but the result was a particular rating. Or did you read the article?
The real problem seems to relate to transparency: The actual requirements from Apple are sometimes vague. The app review process is inconsistently applied. When apps are rejected, the reason is not always clear.
Phil communicating on this matter cleared up a lot. If the review folks always communicated, it would probably clear up a lot too. And (because there is inconsistency) there ought to be some sort of appeal process.
Well I'm misunderstanding your statement that I'm wrong - what exactly do you mean by that? When you say I'm wrong does that mean I should change something?
I read Phil's statement and it's exceptionally quite clear to me exactly what the developer should have done - maybe I've got some amazing ability to read english but I suspect that's not the case. There were words in there they didn't want in there - they said you should wait until 3.0 to release, they didn't, deleted a few words, Apple found a few more and all in the process they never applied for a new age rating for their newly censored app.
Just because you don't understand something someone says that doesn't inherently mean it's their fault - that's asinine! Come on arn...
EDIT: Yes, there are many instances where the wording from Apple is vague but as it's presented here this is not one of those cases - it's clear. Apple does need to shore up their approval/rejection policy but not because this developer couldn't understand clearly written english.
I don't care anymore.
I downloaded the Dictionary.com App a long time ago. It doesn't even need an internet connection; it stores the whole dictionary on my phone and doesn't take that much memory. Why do I need more than one dictionary???
you paid for a dictionary? I didn't even realize people did that anymore unless it was for a paper one.
Um... the developer was treated wrong.
Here's the short version who can't be bother to read it all.
Dev: submits a dictionary app
Apple: You can't have offensive words in it, here are some examples AAA, BBB, CCC
Dev: removes those words, resubmits
Apple: This one's offensive too DDD, and it'll have to be 17+ rated
Dev: removes that word, resubmits as 17+
Apple approves it
after the article appears
Schiller: AAA, BBB, CCC, DDD were not the words that got his app rejected or 17+ rated. It's these other secret words that we never told you about.
arn
Um... the developer was treated wrong.
Here's the short version who can't be bother to read it all.
Dev: submits a dictionary app
Apple: You can't have offensives words in it, here are some examples AAA, BBB, CCC
Dev: removes those words, resubmits
Apple: This one's offensive too DDD, and it'll have to be 17+ rated
Dev: removes that word, resubmits as 17+
Apple approves it
after the article appears
Schiller: AAA, BBB, CCC were not the words that got his app rejected or 17+ rated. It's these other secret words that we never told you about.
arn
You're skipping the "you should wait until parental controls" part - ya know, the part where they could have just left the application exactly as is.
EDIT: "You are correct that the Ninjawords application should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a 17+ rating, but that was a result of the developers' actions, not Apple's. I believe that the Apple app review team's original recommendation to the developer to submit the Ninjawords application, without censoring it, to the App Store once parental controls was implemented would have been the best course of action for all; Wiktionary.org is an open, ever-changing resource and filtering the content does not seem reasonable or necessary."
You mean "you should wait until parental controls which will come at some point but we haven't announced a release date yet".
arn
Contextually, Apple does have a monopoly on the AppStore. Technically the AppStore as an entity is a monopoly. A small one at that.
Everything's awesome after all! The review process is still confusing and inconsistent, and apps are seemingly approved or yanked arbitrarily, but Schiller wrote Gruber an email with additional information! Problem solved!
Where's Schiller's email explaining exactly why Apple yanked those Google Voice apps that had been available for months, and why he thinks it's fair to expect the developers to pick up the entire tab for the refunds?
Where's Schiller's email explaining exactly why Apple yanked those Google Voice apps that had been available for months, and why he thinks it's fair to expect the developers to pick up the entire tab for the refunds?
I'll go out on a limb here and say developers knew to a 3-4 week certainty when 3.0 would get pushed out and by "know" I mean can be easily deduced. I'll also go WAY out on a limb here and say there'll be a new iPhone in the June/July time frame next year. Apple is a creature of habit - it's really not that hard to have a pretty accurate guesstimate of when something will happen (assuming you know about it).
So, great, 3.0 has been out for over a month and they finally got their app in - it would seem as tho, shockingly, the App store approval team recommendation was the right one.
EDIT: BaldiMac has done the date math for me and realized they knew when the 3.0 software was coming when they submitted the revised version - so, no, it wasn't some mythical update to be released at some unknown time
Thank You bigmc6000!
Arn,
The whole Purpose And the Meaning was that the Developer was told by Apple to Wait till 3.0 came out and submit the App so that they could have the Approval due to the New feature of "Parental Control"
The Developer in there haste went ahead anyway and refused to listen to Apple Request. Causing them Multi-bile App Rejections.
Yes, The Developer was At Fault Also, They could have Averted all this if they had just waited and resubmitted with the 3.0 Firmware Release.
"upon its initial submission in May and recommended that the developers resubmit their application after iPhone OS 3.0 was released so that it could carry a "17+" rating and be subject to 3.0's Parental Controls. Rather than choosing that route (as iPhone OS 3.0 had no known ship date at that time), the developers opted to press ahead in advance of Parental Controls implementation and stripped "objectionable" content from the application itself"
This is why they are at fault also, Along with the Apple Blunders of Miscommunication that, Small White Car & I have been Speaking Of.
There is allot at Fault But this is a big Quote that is Missed That "Apple Asked them to Wait for 3.0; They Did Not."
If you guys have a better process, let's see it!
Communication is a component of the process, not the entire cause. Yes the process, of which Schiller admits is the problem, is the ROOT cause of the problem.
Better Communication is part changing a process. In business, easier said than done.
You're right. I'm an idiot.
But Dictionary! is 4+, which I'd guess is just because it was grandfathered in from the old days when Apple approved more things than it should have.
"BS?" Didn't you mean ******** or were you just self censoring?
Hmmmm...what's with the ****? It seems MacRumors is censoring my posts automatically! The irony of the double standard.