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Apple Reverses Course on iOS 8 Notification Center Calculators
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I find the notification center very useful and convenient.
Can't see why I'd need a calculator widget but other ones are useful to me.
Yep. We often view things as black and white here. In reality, there is a vast spectrum of considerations, challenges, and decisions that need to be made for anything to happen. Apple is no different in that regard than any other company.
And for the sake of taking responsibility, I'll admit that yesterday I made several posts on this topic where I made the prediction that the blocking of these widgets were due to security reasons. There still may be some truth to that notion, but clearly it isn't enough for Apple to continue blocking them. Can't always be right.
You only own the hardware. Apple owns the operating system installed on your device.
i like to see.
That decision of preventing calculators in the Notification Center turned into a whole media mess, and for a good reason.
Their closed garden has annoyed me since two weeks ago. It's a whole other story I know, but I'm a developer myself since this year, have published a game for halloween over two weeks ago, and it's been "In Review" for the last 5 days. The app is small, the concept is simple and very straightforward. It took me hundreds of hours, but after 10 minutes you've seen everything there is to it.
They are control freaks.
At least they give us developers the best tools in the world. They're partly forgiven.
Their closed garden has annoyed me since two weeks ago. It's a whole other story I know, but I'm a developer myself since this year, have published a game for halloween over two weeks ago, and it's been "In Review" for the last 5 days. The app is small, the concept is simple and very straightforward. It took me hundreds of hours, but after 10 minutes you've seen everything there is to it.
They are control freaks.
At least they give us developers the best tools in the world. They're partly forgiven.
I don't think they expected widgets to be more than static information and developers are doing things with them that they never envisioned. It's okay, I forgive them.
You can collapse it.
You can collapse it.
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I believe I called this reversal yesterday.... it seems that with the App Store guidelines (especially new ones) you always have one reviewer who reads them differently than they were intended (clearly since PCalc had been previously approved with its widget). Tim Cook probably finished typing his editorial for Bloomberg and got on the phone to Eddy Cue and said "Hey, Eddy! I like calculator widgets. Don't mess with PCalc".
See what we've done here is magical. we've taken our decisions and made them flexible. In fact, our new decisions are the most flexible that we've ever had. We're now able to take one decision - and immediately respond to the customer and developer by reversing that very decision for a seamless experience.
After reading your post I realised that everyone is like you and should immediately disable any notification centre features they may or may not want.
You created a holiday-specific app and waited until two weeks before the holiday to submit it? Sounds like a YOU problem, not an Apple problem. Apple probably gets hundreds (thousands?) of app submissions a day. OF COURSE they'll review it on YOUR schedule, right?
Apple didn't actually reverse course here.
What it did was NOT reverse course.
It's pretty clear--from my direct experience and from the tales of others--that the first-level app reviewers err on the side of rejecting anything that happens to strike them as problematic.
(And it's pretty clear they don't think too deeply about it and get confused pretty easily... my guess is they have to work very fast so there's not really any time for sober reflection.)
A developer can appeal, however. And, in my experience, the second-level review of specific issues is much deeper and more thoughtful.
I don't really know any of the details. But it's possible this developer jumped the gun by going public with a non-final app review. He may also have done that for the free publicity. Just sayin'
What it did was NOT reverse course.
It's pretty clear--from my direct experience and from the tales of others--that the first-level app reviewers err on the side of rejecting anything that happens to strike them as problematic.
(And it's pretty clear they don't think too deeply about it and get confused pretty easily... my guess is they have to work very fast so there's not really any time for sober reflection.)
A developer can appeal, however. And, in my experience, the second-level review of specific issues is much deeper and more thoughtful.
That could be, but I've had app review decisions reversed without any external attention.
I don't really know any of the details. But it's possible this developer jumped the gun by going public with a non-final app review. He may also have done that for the free publicity. Just sayin'
The pattern is consistent:
Apple policy has bad result; Apple revises it.
There have to be rules on what Apps can do. App Store reviewers have to follow those rules. Unexpected situations will always arise, and when they do, App Store reviewers STILL have to follow the rules. But the rules then need to be revised, and it should be done quickly.
Which Apple did. Good!
Developers are a lot less worried by a question that lasts a day than one that last months (as happened in earlier, scarier days).
Apple policy has bad result; Apple revises it.
There have to be rules on what Apps can do. App Store reviewers have to follow those rules. Unexpected situations will always arise, and when they do, App Store reviewers STILL have to follow the rules. But the rules then need to be revised, and it should be done quickly.
Which Apple did. Good!
Developers are a lot less worried by a question that lasts a day than one that last months (as happened in earlier, scarier days).
