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Apple Extends Non-Disclosure to App Store Rejection Letters

What's in a name?

RnSK said:
Ok...um...something you said above is very, very key to this whole debacle, but due to ME signing the NDA I can't specify what it is.
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I'm not under (this particular) NDA, so I'll venture a guess. It's something I'd wondered about so I'll "voice" it here for others to ponder:

Is the name "Podcaster" why the app got rejected? Does Apple hold (tm) on the term "Podcast"? I know they hold (tm) on "Pod" and have fought other companies trying to sell hardware with "pod" in the name. So could this entire stupid debacle be solved by the developer renaming his creation? :confused:
 
I bet one of the main reasons that they've done this is to stop the negative effect of their share price. It's taken a massive hit lately.
 
The App Store is a model for commercial distribution. It's like being sold at any retail store. Apple may someday approve another method for distribution that allows for shareware, but they do not currently. Any developer that is looking to publish software commercially will have to play by the publisher's rules, whether Apple or anyone else.

If you put yourself in Apple's shoes from a business perspective, it's not hard to see whether they might accept or reject any application. If you are competing with their own software in any way, they may not publish. Most Mac developers know that you have to try to anticipate Apple's own suite of software when coming up with ideas. There are plenty of examples of applications that either failed or left the platform after Apple released something similar in the operating system (Watson, Konfabulator). Apple has full control over the competition in this case, however, so there is much more risk.

I'm not saying I approve of Apple's methods or power. It would be great to have multiple levels of iPhone distribution that would guarantee that all ideas are marketable if the demand exists. What we need to ask for in this case, however, is the removal of the Ad Hoc distribution restrictions. I believe the App Store was misrepresented on the WWDC feed and implied that all developers would be accepted as long as their application was not not pornographic or malicious. That said, Apple's subjective review is far from unprecedented.

Final note: no developers have spoken about how much work is necessary to get an application like Podcaster published. I don't think Apple ever completely rejects an application. Though they can take weeks to reach by email, Apple may be very helpful in suggesting tweaks that will allow an application to be accepted.

I hope Apple finds some way to accommodate developers, even if not through the App Store.

Sincerely

Luke
 
Small White Car said:
Uhm, that's the rule, right there: "Duplicates current iPhone function." You said it yourself. Of course it broke that rule. There's no debate there.

The problem is:

1) It's not enforced with other programs (as you pointed out)

2) The rule was made up after they submitted it

3) Apple won't define what functions it does and doesn't cover, so you have to guess

4) It's a dumb rule in general.

I can tell you agree with all of that, but I'm just pointing out that your first thought was wrong. It DID break a rule. It was just a stupid, made-up, ill-defined, invisible rule. But it was still broken, all the same.
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it broke a playback of audio rule (that they made up after the fact), but not a wirelessly beaming podcast rule, which is the big selling point of the app. that's all i'm saying. given the number of audio players you can download of all the various forms, that shouldn't be an applicable rule. they can't "break" a rule if others are doing the exact same thing.
 
nxent said:
holy cow, there a bunch of whiners out there.
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Wow--it's like every single sentence you wrote is wrong and that you've not read the 10 pages of posts before yours. Funny how those go hand in hand.

nxent said:
folks have always known apple wouldn't allow crap 3rd party apps on the i-phones
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1. Podcaster wasn't a "crap" app--it was actually relatively well done, if not flashy.
2. It's useful. I'd have killed for it last month.
3. Look at all the tip calculators in the App store and tell me again Apple won't let crap thru.

nxent said:
jobs menioned there'd be a review process for which 3rd party apps would be allowed vs. which ones wouldn't (obviously for security/ stability purposes)
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None of which applies here. There's no security or stability excuse for this being rejected. And the review process is demonstrably flawed, something which was definitely not promised or expected.

nxent said:
i dont' feel like sifting through sh** to find a decent app.
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And yet you still do, and no matter how much sifting you do you won't find Podcaster.
 
nxent said:
holy cow, there a bunch of whiners out there.
i really don't care if apple rejects a bunch of a lame applications. true, maybe they should make their acceptance criteria a bit more clear, but compared to a year ago, folks have always known apple wouldn't allow crap 3rd party apps on the i-phones. people seem to forget steve jobs menioned there'd be a review process for which 3rd party apps would be allowed vs. which ones wouldn't (obviously for security/ stability purposes)... and when i first heard about the notion of 3rd party apps, i had the impression only certain developers would be allowed to write programs. i'm recalling the 'i am rich' application and the number of people b***ing about how that app got into the apple store. for one, i dont' feel like sifting through sh** to find a decent app. second, how much of a profit is apple getting off these 3rd party apps? (30%, no?- hence it being in apple's interest to allow more programs) so, developers: stop whining and write decent apps
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I totally agree with you about wanting more useful/productive apps and less crap, the problem is that there have been several useful apps that have been rejected.
 
Adjei said:
Well this podcaster app is useless to me and I wouldn't use it, just like some of those calculator apps are useless to you. It is up to Apple to decide what gets in their store, sure some people will complain that their app got rejected by evil Apple and have some symphatizers but the world is not fair.

You people are the same people who say Apple should release their OS that they developed to help differentiate themselves from others to the likes of Dell, HP or else they are anticompetitive. Unbelieveable. If it was you guys in the same situation as Apple I'm sure you wouldn't make a different decision from them, in fact yours might even be worse.
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You *still* haven't answered the question. Apple THEMSELVES stated the reason WHY they didn't approve both Podcaster AND MailWrangler:

DUPLICATION

So, AGAIN I ask you, is not those 100s of Calculator apps and Weather apps DUPLICATION of existing functionality? Why weren't those 100s of Calc and Weather apps NOT APPROVED then?

This is the HEART of the problem. CONSISTENCY.

You are CLEARLY not getting the point.
 
oh... sorry about that... i actually have a life as opposed to reading 10 pages of complaints. i'm not saying all the apps out there that've been rejected are crap (for one, i'd have liked that tethering app), just that a lot of them are (eg, 'pull my finger' 'i am rich'?) i'm not going nitpick with you about every single app, but folks get the point. but the other part of that argument was apple should be more clear about how and why they reject certain apps.
 
aristobrat said:
Imagine if you could only buy your Mac software from a single store and that single store contained every piece of software ever written for a Mac.
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Imagine if you could only buy your Mac software from a single store and that single store contained every piece of software ever written for a Mac (assuming Apple first approved of you selling that software in said store).

The problem with Apple being the gate keeper is that they are the only ones to decide what software you can look at and decide if you want, they don't allow you to (easily?) find out about any other software written for the iPhone or iPod Touch so even though software you want does exist, you will never know it existed because Apple decided it was not worthy of being added to the App Store. But feel free to use your iPhone as a flashlight which is really useful.
 
Well I'm voting with my money.

Sorry Apple, but I'm not buying that new iPod next month. I'm not buying that new MacBook later this year. It will hurt, but I'm thinking that I can deal with it.

I'm not buying anything Apple, until they (a) clarify their AppStore rules, (b) and/or allow official third party stores, (c) understand that competition with their own applications is a good thing, (d) remove the NDA from the software developers, because sharing of information is how developers create better software, and thus everyone benefits.

Did I read that a university was going to teach a Programming the iPhone course, but has scrapped it because of the NDA meaning they can't actually teach anything! I bet it will turn into a Programming Android series. The next generation of programmers, not programming Cocoa, Objective C, or Apple systems.

You know what, if I had spent a large amount of my time developing an application, only to have it rejected for a protectionist reason, that NDA can go screw itself because I won't ever develop anything, ever again, for an Apple system, so I don't care that they might not have dealings with me again. NDAs are gentleman's agreements at best legally, people abide by them to keep a relationship sweet in the future. If the relationship is burned, who cares anymore.

I'd like to think that it is a few curmudgeons in Apple that are being tossers, but the more it happens, the clearer it becomes that Apple are being the tossers themselves, not a rogue employee.
 
topicolo said:
so instead of addressing the issue of banning competitors, they try to silence them?

Apple is turning into a monster of a company--the kind with traits that all the mac purists hated in microsoft years ago, but worse!
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This really is an incredibly dispicable low. I was all ready to go out and drop $400 on a new iPod Touch, but this is giving me real pause. Keep malware apps out, sure, but come on! If apple can't take the heat of other developers competing with their apps, and then are trying to keep them from talking about why their apps were rejected, (distorting the purpose of a NDA agreement in the process). I don't think they deserve to be the (or at least my) platform of choice for hand-held internet devices (like the iPod Touch).

Anyone know of any good alternatives (sadly I doubt there are any that are quite the same...)

Apple, why not try competing on a level playing field instead of acting like the spoiled bully holding the monopoly cards?

Why should anyone trust you if you've got NDA on all your policy decisions?

This is such a step backwards from all the progress that's been made. Apple if you are listening, you're close to losing a life-long loyal customer. :mad:
:mad:
:mad:
:mad:
 
chris200x9 said:
....I already am.....after my macbook dies I'll be 100% gnu/linux ;)
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Yeah Right.:rolleyes:

So, because you don't like Apple's Modus Operandi in regards to the App Store you are going to change to a different computer platform from the one that's been servicing you well? If that's the case nobody would be using Windows based on Microsoft's business ethics.
 
i dont see the problem. Apple are providing a service not making you use that service.

Developers shouldnt go crying if their product isn't accepted. We all knew the iphone restrictions (in terms of you could only use the app store for apps) when we bought one and devs knew the app store restrictions when they started building their apps.

android will be forgotten in a few months HTC release a phone every month they are all big, ugly, unreliable and only appeal to a limited few people.

it annoys me all this anti-apple talk iWay etc..

did Apple ever say it was a Charity? Bottom line is Apple is a business and a bloody good one. If an application submitted to their store conflicts or takes focus away from their own product they have every right to deny it.

The android app store will be full of crap. hald the stuff on the apple app store is pointless and of no use to anyone I have to date found only half a dozen apps that I actually wanted and kept after installing
 
w00master said:
So, AGAIN I ask you, is not those 100s of Calculator apps and Weather apps DUPLICATION of existing functionality? Why weren't those 100s of Calc and Weather apps NOT APPROVED then?
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I imagine the duplication that caused the rejections is that of the advertised functionality of the phone. Take a look through the iPhone TV ads and you will see what functionality Apple values on the device. The risky areas IMHO are mail, calendar, music, web, contact, and maps. If Apple is working to integrate google technologies into the phone, for example, something like MailWrangler hurts their leverage with google. If users are not requesting the integration...

Again, the effect could be negligible, but Apple has the right to reject something that could hurt their business model, regardless of the magnitude. As in my past post, I don't think this is right, but the terms of service do allow the rejection. There is some element of subjectivity in the process.

Also, if you were approving applications for Apple and you thought an application could hurt the company in any way, would you want your name attached to the approval?
 
One more thing: can you imagine if every game developer who tried to publish through EA or one of the big publishers published the reasons for the breakdown in their negotiations?
 
Perfect way to not properly handle a problem!

So what's next?

Is Apple going to force us all to sign an NDA when we make our next iphone, MB, MBP, NBA, ipod, or MP purchase, so that we can't complain in public if something isn't working properly?

All this situation called for is better communication between Apple and the developers, giving them specific guidelines for what is and is not out-of-bounds, before the developer wastes time and money on a development project. Now Apple makes the situation worse by providing even less information and not even letting other developers know when a project is rejected and for what purpose.

Now multiple developers can work on the same type of app that will get rejected over and over again because no one will know that this type of app had been previously rejected.:mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
lucasgladding said:
One more thing: can you imagine if every game developer who tried to publish through EA or one of the big publishers published the reasons for the breakdown in their negotiations?
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Your comparing apples to oranges here. People who are developing iphone apps aren't in negotiations for multi-million dollar deals. I don't see how you can compare a tip calculator to something like call of duty.
 
lucasgladding said:
I imagine the duplication that caused the rejections is that of the advertised functionality of the phone. Take a look through the iPhone TV ads and you will see what functionality Apple values on the device. The risky areas IMHO are mail, calendar, music, web, contact, and maps. If Apple is working to integrate google technologies into the phone, for example, something like MailWrangler hurts their leverage with google. If users are not requesting the integration...
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Then guess what, Apple needs to be EXPLICIT about this. They are not. This is the core of the problem. Apple isn't being consistent and hence it is causing confusion (and panic) among developers as well as users.

Finally, what about the VOIP app? Why does Steve Jobs say it's ok, when it duplicates the central app of the iPhone. The phone.

lucasgladding said:
Again, the effect could be negligible, but Apple has the right to reject something that could hurt their business model, regardless of the magnitude. As in my past post, I don't think this is right, but the terms of service do allow the rejection. There is some element of subjectivity in the process.

Also, if you were approving applications for Apple and you thought an application could hurt the company in any way, would you want your name attached to the approval?
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Of course Apple has this right. As I've stated previously, they aren't being clear and consistent. This hurts everyone. This is the whole reason why many of us are upset by all of this. The NDA thing (though in since the beginning) just smacks of censorship, even though this might not be Apple's intention.

Ultimately, Apple needs to come to realize and understand that alternative apps which may or may not duplicate functionality in the iPhone HELPS Apple in the long run. I hope they come to understand and realize this.
 
Apple is the new evil empire. it'll be worse that Microsoft because Apple controls both their software and hardware. Apple do not listen to customers. Apple is arrogant. Unlike Microsoft, it has no accountability to business partners. When it does partner, e.g. with AT&T, it sets up draconian dictatorships. Think people. See where this is headed 5 years from now. There is no alternative to this fate. Macs are so cool that the sheep will continue to buy them in spite of Apple's abuse. And Apple knows this. so they can continue to abuse its customers, knowing they have nowhere else to turn to go stable, fast computers. Microsoft is not an alternative for stable, fast OS. Neither is Linux packaged in a manner to reach mass market. We are therefore headed for the dungeon of Apple. Hopefully this culture will change when Steve leaves or departs. This really is Steve Job's personality embodied in the organisation that he started.
 
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