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Apple's App Store Rejection Policies Raise Concerns

Lictor said:
You might be surprised at how Europe can match products to a category.... For instance, if the iPhone had had a video capacity, it could have been matched (and taxed) with video cameras...
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Everything is possible in theory, but that has got to be the most nonsensical argument for not having video capacity in the iPhone to date.

You realise we (as in "europeans") have phones with video capacity, right? Lots and lots of them. In fact, I'd venture to say that you will be hard pressed to find a smart phone without video capacity – unless, of course, it has no camera to begin with.

No, it wouldn't be categorised any differently had the camera could be recording frame after frame quickly in succesion.
 
Tosser said:
Everything is possible in theory, but that has got to be the most nonsensical argument for not having video capacity in the iPhone to date.
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I'm not saying that's the reason why, I'm just saying that if it has sufficient video capacity it would be taxed.

You realise we (as in "europeans") have phones with video capacity, right? Lots and lots of them. In fact, I'd venture to say that you will be hard pressed to find a smart phone without video capacity – unless, of course, it has no camera to begin with.
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And you do realise that some of them *are* taxed as video cameras. Just as some P&S cameras are taxed as video cameras when their video capacity exceeds the legal threshold. Just like I expect the latest D90 DSLR from Nikon to come under scrutinity by the European authorities to access if it's still a camera or if it is a video camera as well.
Exactly like both the iPhone and other phones are taxed as mp3 players in countries like France.

Deciding in what category a device exactly is is not for the manufacturer to decide. That would ake it too easy to fraud. If the practice of Apple with its AppStore comes to Justice, the first step will be to assess what the iPhone is in order to establish if there is a "dominant position" (which is not the same as a strict monopoly btw). What I know for sure is that the iPod Touch is certainly not a phone...
 
Lictor said:
I'm not saying that's the reason why, I'm just saying that if it has sufficient video capacity it would be taxed.
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You're trying to make it plausible that the iPhone might be taxed as a video camera if it could record anything with it's crap camera.



And you do realise that some of them *are* taxed as video cameras.
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Which *camera phones* are taxed as video cameras?

Just as some P&S cameras are taxed as video cameras when their video capacity exceeds the legal threshold.
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That's really not a good comparison to camera phones. I am sure that the new Samsung NV24HD is taxed as a video camera, but still, I don't know of any camera phone even close to being that capable, so which camera phone?
Further, it seems like the whole idea of putting that forth is to suggest that it would be too expensive if the iPhone could record video with its camera as opposed to other phones which can record video. Well, it shouldn't be, as there are many phones out there with much better cameras than the iPhone. Many of them are capable of video recording, and far from all are even considered "expensive".


Just like I expect the latest D90 DSLR from Nikon to come under scrutinity by the European authorities to access if it's still a camera or if it is a video camera as well.
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You don't think there's a difference between the D90 DSLR and a camera phone?

Exactly like both the iPhone and other phones are taxed as mp3 players in countries like France.
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"In countries like"?


Deciding in what category a device exactly is is not for the manufacturer to decide. That would ake it too easy to fraud.
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Are you kidding me? Did I suggest anything to that end?

If the practice of Apple with its AppStore comes to Justice, the first step will be to assess what the iPhone is in order to establish if there is a "dominant position" (which is not the same as a strict monopoly btw).
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I don't think I argued anything to that end, but argued that it was a nonsensical argument to suggest that the reason the iPhone couldn't record video was because it might then be taxed as a video camera (and thus the inferral that it would then be more expensive, and the fanboy connotation that it's not there for the good of all of us).


What I know for sure is that the iPod Touch is certainly not a phone...
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No!! :p
 
Lictor said:
Yes, just like Microsoft can ship whatever application it wishes to with its own OS.... Errr... Oooops... Microsoft is paying huge fines in Europe because it just did that... And Microsoft had to pack a special release of Windows without these applications too...
Being Apple and owning a store does not allow a company to break laws. The laws in the US are not the laws in Europe - Europe is very strict about monopolistic situations, much stricter than the US.

If Microsoft was found guilty for shipping MediaPlayer and Internet Explorer with Windows, you can bet Apple can be found guilty for 1) making its store the only way to deliver applications 2) refusing applications because they could enter in competition with their own. It's a very clear refusal to play by the rules and to abuse their dominant situation.
You can be sure that the day Amazon or a similar player tries to enter the field and gets denied access to the AppStore because they compete with iTune, they will have ground to attack Apple...
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It is not clear you understand the laws in either place, nor what a monopoly is.

There is very little chance that anything Apple is currently doing could be considered in violation of monopoly laws anywhere. The difference between the App Store and what happened with Microsoft is greater than Night and Day.
 
What's Apple Done NOW?!?!

It doesn't look like situations for developers getting apps rejected are getting any better....
Apple have just made it so that the developer of Pocaster cannot issue ANY more provisioning files... Therefore rendering his app un-sellable for now, either by App Store or Ad-Hoc.
Therefore he's releasing it for Cydia in the next few days...



Oh, and this is what Apple is now putting on all rejection letters:

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE

Sourced from https://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/23/apple-extends-non-disclosure-to-app-store-rejection-letters/
Seems all this campaigning to make Apple relax the restrictions actually made them tighter..... Oh dear.....
Seems like they're ENCOURAGING jailbreak..... Which has exactly what this App has been FORCED to come to....
Bad move Apple, bad move....

SuperMacMan
 
Great and my "Koi Pond -EXTREME" application will probably get rejected because the Koi are nude (and anatomically correct !)

Screw You Apple !!!


:mad:
 
Kilamite said:
This app was free right?
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nope. they were looking to charge for it. which might be part of why apple turned it down. it is charging for something iTunes does when Apple could be looking for a way to make at least audio podcasts avail directly to the phone/touch in the same way that music is avail.
 
SuperMacMan said:
w. Since mid July.

This developer has paid Apple the $99 developer subscription, worked endlessly on the app for 3 months, waited a whole month (it was worked on while in review) for it to be accepted, and now it is denied.
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i'm sorry but I'm not weeping. you and 'he' knew that podcasts were built into iTunes and that should have been a huge clue that creating a podcast app, especially one that was going to have a fee, wasn't going to fly. even with that knowledge you went ahead and spent the money and the time. so that's on you.
 
charlituna said:
i'm sorry but I'm not weeping. you and 'he' knew that podcasts were built into iTunes and that should have been a huge clue that creating a podcast app, especially one that was going to have a fee, wasn't going to fly. even with that knowledge you went ahead and spent the money and the time. so that's on you.
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Well, obviously users want this functionality. There's now over 18,000 purchased copies of Podcaster (through the old Ad-Hoc mode and Cydia combined), so there's plenty of users!!

If there's so many users, and so many want this feature, why did Apple turn it down?

SuperMacMan
 
charlituna said:
i'm sorry but I'm not weeping. you and 'he' knew that podcasts were built into iTunes and that should have been a huge clue that creating a podcast app, especially one that was going to have a fee, wasn't going to fly. even with that knowledge you went ahead and spent the money and the time. so that's on you.
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So what you're saying is that no developer should compete with Apple products. In fact, you go as far to say that it such competing products obviously aren't going to fly - i.e. condoning a company preventing competition in functionality. If we had the same way of thinking on OS X itself then we can scrap Firefox (Safari), etc. Why should a fee be relevant? - if people are prepared to pay the fee then they agree that the app is better, if they are not prepared to pay the fee it doesn't affect Apple anyway.

I mean hell why did Apple even develop the iPhone - phones already exist after all. Why did they bother develop something that already exists? Of course, we know the reason: because they felt they could do it better, and were prepared to stake the time and effort, letting the marketplace decide. This is exactly the same. Try to do it better and let the market decide.
 
macgruder said:
So what you're saying is that no developer should compete with Apple products. In fact, you go as far to say that it such competing products obviously aren't going to fly - i.e. condoning a company preventing competition in functionality. If we had the same way of thinking on OS X itself then we can scrap Firefox (Safari), etc. Why should a fee be relevant? - if people are prepared to pay the fee then they agree that the app is better, if they are not prepared to pay the fee it doesn't affect Apple anyway.

I mean hell why did Apple even develop the iPhone - phones already exist after all. Why did they bother develop something that already exists? Of course, we know the reason: because they felt they could do it better, and were prepared to stake the time and effort, letting the marketplace decide. This is exactly the same. Try to do it better and let the market decide.
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Thank you, macgruder. Thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to say. If you're so anti-competition, then why does IE exist? Or for that matter, why does Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and the plethora of other browsers exist, hey? Wasn't Netscape Navigator fine, back when it was introduced for Win 95? They were introduced because without competition, you'd have a monopoly over a product. Then you would be restricted to whatever the developers wanted to include in the browser. And if the developers abandoned the project...? Well, I don't think the internet would EXIST today if it weren't for IE, FF, etc.

Same goes for the 100+ tip calculators on the App Store. Aren't they competition? And the tons of Calculator apps? Well, the iPhone comes with a built in calculator. Why did Apple allow these? Huh? Yeah. Didn't think so.

Same goes for Podcaster. It's a bit of competition for Apple. And it opens a space where Apple can improve upon.

If anyone wants to talk about this issue with me directly, shoot me an email at shaun.ruigrok AT gmail DOT com (http://is.gd/4i3w will open an email to that address)

SuperMacMan

SuperMacMan
 
With all the noise about Apple rejecting all these apps and they were bound to fall, Android was coming to save everybody and knock off Apple I was shocked to see that the total number of rejected apps is like around 10, I mean 10, oh big bad evil Apple rejected 10 apps, they will fail.:rolleyes:
 
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