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Phil Schiller Comments on 'Ninjawords Dictionary' iPhone App Rejection

It's not a question of whether or not they could have waited. I don't know about the company that developed this app. But it costs money to develop an app, it costs money to not ship an app.

Apple told them it was rejected because of XYZ. But it wasn't exactly the real reason. It resulted them going on a wild goose chase of approvals. It caused frustration for the developers, wasted money, wasted time. It's just not good relations, regardless of if you think the rejection was justified.

arn
 
It's frustrating how slow Apple is to fix this important part of a platform that is otherwise so amazing and useful. But at least Apple does KNOW when something is not good enough. They can see it as easily as we can.

This is all interesting to me, because I've only had two questions/issues as an iPhone developer, and when I emailed my questions (which were NOT anything earthshaking) I got a reply within a week in both cases. A very clear reply--by PHONE call--so I could discuss the matter. I was very pleased. There were even certain minor points they could not answer, but they were honest about that. (This all happened this past spring--and did not relate to one specific app.)
 
jmargolese said:
And to be clear, Apple has a monopoly on the iPhone market.
Click to expand...

WTF??? Of course they do. Also, Microsoft has a monopoly on the Zune market. Honda has a monopoly on the Accord market. Burger King has a monopoly on the Whopper market.

:confused:

People need to quit throwing this "monopoly" word around in such silly ways. Sheesh.

Also, do people really need a dictionary to find the definition of the F word? :rolleyes:
 
nagromme said:
It's frustrating how slow Apple is to fix this important part of a platform that is otherwise so amazing and useful. But at least Apple does KNOW when something is not good enough. They can see it as easily as we can.

This is all interesting to me, because I've only had two questions/issues as an iPhone developer, and when I emailed my questions (which were NOT anything earthshaking) I got a reply within a week in both cases. A very clear reply--by PHONE call--so I could discuss the matter. I was very pleased. There were even certain minor points they could not answer, but they were honest about that. (This all happened this past spring--and did not relate to one specific app.)
Click to expand...

Hopefully Apple is being truthful that they are learning and learning fast. I've been as quick to dump on them as anyone but the App Store hasn't been open for long and everything they do sets a precedent.

That being said there are some serious issues with communications, lack of consistent rules, rejections of apps, and the influence AT&T has over app submissions.
 
arn said:
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
Click to expand...
As Said in post #71 & I Will Say it again, The BIG Missing Piece of the Q&A is as follows;:)

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":apple:

The Developer in there haste went ahead anyway and refused to listen to Apple Request. Causing them Multi-bale App Rejections.

Yes, The Developer was also At Fault , They could have averted all this if they had just waited and resubmitted with the 3.0 Firmware Release.

APPLE QUOTE :apple: "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 too, along with the Apple Blunders of Miscommunication that, Small White Car & I have been Speaking Of.

I am not going to get into semantics here or even try to speculate on what either or both party's where thinking, We have had to much speculation on what either party has said and that in turn has blown this all out of proportion.

There are no right or wrong questions and answers to any of this, all we know know is as the facts have come out, Allot of people have misunderstood and jump to conclusions without complete Proof,And this in turn has caused a cascading reaction, that has many different sides & It is clear that all sides in this particular case, had done things that are questionably wrong.

I Don't disagree with your reasoning, if like you say the part of "Waiting for 3.0 to be released so You can have Parental Approval in the new Firmware before Approval" is left out. But thats not was Said;

Then of course you would be correct in assuming the developer was not at fault.

But the facts are, you left out that one important piece of information and that changes the whole pretense of the subject line. and that of course is the Asking of Apple to the Developer to wait and resubmit the Application under the 3.0 guidelines.

:)

P.S. Sorry to all about the Double posting of some of this content, I'll do better next time, Have a good Night, Going to Dinner and Movie with the Kid's. (Dad's Night Out)
 
str1f3 said:
I've been as quick to dump on them as anyone but the App Store hasn't been open for long and everything they do sets a precedent.
Click to expand...

Yep, Apple needs to figure this out ASAP. Every time one of these snafus hits the news circuit, Microsoft has to stop its Zune Phone Marketplace photocopier and re calibrate (oh yes, you know it's coming!).
 
LagunaSol said:
Yep, Apple needs to figure this out ASAP. Every time one of these snafus hits the news circuit, Microsoft has to stop its Zune Phone Marketplace photocopier and re calibrate (oh yes, you know it's coming!).
Click to expand...
Apple's damage control has been off lately. It has usually been a major media cluster that does get blown out of proportion.

Then the clean up is just as messy. I don't think Apple can win and is going to have to deal with the clean up after the fact. Anything beforehand is going to scream coverup, etc.

They play off their image to sell but it's burned to the ground just as fast everytime a new story hits. Of course eveyone convinently forgets this when the new product comes out. :rolleyes:
 
I'm glad to hear that Apple is drawing a distinction between respectable traditional profanity, and that 'urban slang' riffraff lumpenproletariat nonsense. Someone's gotta say 'enough is enough', right?

Also, good job Apple, continuing to approve innovative, life-enriching masterpiece apps like 'Asian Boobs' and 'Poop the World' while rejecting shady code-slime like Google Voice. I mean, sheesh. Who do these VoIP jokers think they are?
 
LagunaSol said:
WTF??? Of course they do. Also, Microsoft has a monopoly on the Zune market. Honda has a monopoly on the Accord market. Burger King has a monopoly on the Whopper market.

:confused:

People need to quit throwing this "monopoly" word around in such silly ways. Sheesh.
Click to expand...

What, do you mean like saying my foot has a monopoly on my toes?!?! ;)
 
AustinZ said:
I'm glad to hear that Apple is drawing a distinction between respectable traditional profanity, and that 'urban slang' riffraff lumpenproletariat nonsense. Someone's gotta say 'enough is enough', right?

Also, good job Apple, continuing to approve innovative, life-enriching masterpiece apps like 'Asian Boobs' and 'Poop the World' while rejecting shady code-slime like Google Voice. I mean, sheesh. Who do these VoIP jokers think they are?
Click to expand...

What if someone calls your voice main and fills it with profanity? Then your Google Voicemail will be full of questionable material! I'm so glad they didn't allow THAT to happen!
 
arn said:
It's not a question of whether or not they could have waited. I don't know about the company that developed this app. But it costs money to develop an app, it costs money to not ship an app.

Apple told them it was rejected because of XYZ. But it wasn't exactly the real reason. It resulted them going on a wild goose chase of approvals. It caused frustration for the developers, wasted money, wasted time. It's just not good relations, regardless of if you think the rejection was justified.

arn
Click to expand...

I agree with most of your points, but you are a bit willing to take the developers story as fact. There does not appear to have been a wild goose chase. On May 30 (the first date they were rejected for objectionable content) they were given the choice to remove the objectionable content or resubmit with a 17+ rating. They chose to resubmit without removing all the objectionable content (and they admit to fault) and without a 17+ rating. The rejection of this submission happened on July 1 - after Parental Controls had been released. Once they resubmitted with a 17+ rating it was accepted.
 
jmargolese said:
And to be clear, Apple has a monopoly on the iPhone market. It's not illegal, but it's a fact. And they use this monopoly power to control the iPhone application market. Whether they are abusing that power is a matter for lawyers.
Click to expand...

TO be clear, you don't know what you're talking about, and you certainly don't have any idea of what a monopoly is.
 
AustinZ said:
Also, good job Apple, continuing to approve innovative, life-enriching masterpiece apps like 'Asian Boobs' and 'Poop the World'
Click to expand...

Wait, there's an app called Asian Boobs???

*runs to App Store*

Just kidding - and don't tell my wife I cracked the joke. I don't want to end up in a Microsoft IE vomit ad.
 
gwangung said:
TO be clear, you don't know what you're talking about, and you certainly don't have any idea of what a monopoly is.
Click to expand...

It's not his fault - jmargolese has a monopoly on jmargolese. Sometimes jmargolese has to toe the jmargolese corporate line because of jmargolese's complete monopolistic control. Stupid monopolies... ;)
 
gwangung said:
TO be clear, you don't know what you're talking about, and you certainly don't have any idea of what a monopoly is.
Click to expand...

He was completely right that Apple has a monopoly on iPhones. He was completely wrong in insinuating that that fact has any legal relationship to antitrust issues.
 
BaldiMac said:
He was completely right that Apple has a monopoly on iPhones.
Click to expand...

I don't believe the word "monopoly" typically applies to a specific product of your own manufacture...otherwise everyone is a monopoly. Even you. ;)
 
Eidorian said:
Apple's damage control has been off lately. It has usually been a major media cluster that does get blown out of proportion.

Then the clean up is just as messy. I don't think Apple can win and is going to have to deal with the clean up after the fact. Anything beforehand is going to scream coverup, etc.

They play off their image to sell but it's burned to the ground just as fast everytime a new story hits. Of course eveyone convinently forgets this when the new product comes out. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You're assuming that this alleged "image problem" filters down to the average user and thsat everyone and their dog will be up in arms over it.

It doesn't. And most users hardly care.

You're losing sight of the big picture. Apple has no image problem because there are some niggles with App Store acceptance/rejection policies. If only the other players in the industry, the also-rans, had this kind of problem.

Apple needs developers. Every platform does. But sometimes developers have their heads way up their asses and cause more trouble than they're worth, unwittingly or deliberately. Knowing how to code doesn't magically give you common sense.

Just have a look at this goof:

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/09/08/05/apple.bans.iphone.dev/
 
LagunaSol said:
I don't believe the word "monopoly" typically applies to a specific product of your own manufacture...otherwise everyone is a monopoly. Even you. ;)
Click to expand...

It actually does. But a different definition related to "market power" is used when discussing antitrust issues.
 
This just in-

The Disney Store has been issued a lawsuit by Warner Bros over the rejection of Looney Tunes items,
for not allowing them to be sold and in any of their stores........ more news at 11.......
 
*LTD* said:
You're assuming that this alleged "image problem" filters down to the average user and thsat everyone and their dog will be up in arms over it.

It doesn't. And most users hardly care.

You're losing sight of the big picture. Apple has no image problem because there are some niggles with App Store acceptance/rejection policies. If only the other players in the industry, the also-rans, had this kind of problem.

Apple needs developers. Every platform does. But sometimes developers have their heads way up their asses and cause more trouble than they're worth, unwittingly or deliberately. Knowing how to code doesn't magically give you common sense.
Click to expand...
Alas in my interactions with the mundane masses I have yet to find another Mac user much less a MacRumors one. We're the cream of the crop for the most part here even if you're just reading off of the Page 1 RSS feed.

Still, I noticed that the same day we get the iTunes 8.2.1 vs. Pre news here it's on the local news broadcast. The same day Palm fixes it, it's on the news again. Even the pedestrian local media here picked it up.

I'm going to agree though it's not even going to register on the minds of the unwashed masses. The app store niggles as you put it are going to show up on every joe blogs site. The user base is its own worst enemy.
*LTD* said:
Just have a look at this goof:

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/09/08/05/apple.bans.iphone.dev/
Click to expand...
Hachi Machi!
 
This reminds of how happy I am to live in europe where so called bad language isn't censored e.g. in TV.

I know this is maybe a bit off-topic but why is 'bad words' censored so much in the US?

No one I know here in Europe has taken any damage by learning 'bad words' at young ages. It should be the job of the parent to teach their kids when and when not to use 'bad words'.

Apple also needs to lighten up. Seriously, rejecting an app just because there is a possibility to get access to 'mature content' via. a link to google search is just too ridiculous!!

How can they do this and feel good about it when I without ANY problems at all can find hardcore porn pics/vids via. Apple's own Safari Browser in under 30 seconds??

This puritan line does NOT make Apple look good. Apple: Relax a bit for ****s sake!

Edit: I forgot to mention that rejecting a dictionary app where e.g. **** can only be searched for when the entire word is entered is one of the most ridiculous things i've ever heard.
 
Lets be fair and balanced here. People complained that M$ used monopolistic powers with their OS by having their apps optimized for the OS. Apple is taking it to another level by restricting apps on their OS altogether. Thus what apple is worse than M$ has ever done... All the more reason to jailbreak the iphone or go with android...

LagunaSol said:
WTF??? Of course they do. Also, Microsoft has a monopoly on the Zune market.
Click to expand...
 
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