6 ms·

Apple shuts down Podcaster, again

44 points by nikils 18y ago

SirWart 18y ago
I think the most telling word in that post was "childish." Apple probably has legitimate concerns here, but by simply shutting him off instead of talking with him directly they are really missing an opportunity to develop loyalty with app developers.
trezor 18y ago
They even removed the story about Podcaster being shut down! So... Anyone have a mirror/cache or whatever handy? Google cache is failing on this one.
- ovi256 18y ago
  Yup, I can confirm, the blog isn't there as of 23 Sept 2008 21:10 GMT+1.
gstar 18y ago
This is going to be a PR disaster for apple, from a developers point of view. He may have been asked to pull the blog post until they get time to talk to him about it.
- silencio 18y ago
  You'd think it was a PR disaster a long time ago. Right now it's just tons of seething anger and frustration and stress. I have a fair number of friends worried about their current and future contract work because of the way Apple is handling things.
KirinDave 18y ago
Did the author take down the post because of the NDA requirements or because it is a retraction or...? What?
dunk010 18y ago
Apple are doing this to a lot of people. Surely this is anti-competitive?
- colinplamondon 18y ago
  Seriously? iPhone has 1% of the market, they've got another 79% to go before we're even in the ballpark of antitrust.
  - silencio 18y ago
    1% of what market? Last I checked the iPhone had a wee bit more than 1% of the smartphone market.
    - Flemlord 18y ago
      Hilarious. You're assuming the DOJ is actually trying to prevent monopolies; it seems to me their main motivation is responding to pressure from Congress and corporate lobbyists. If Apple were called into their offices to defend their market share, they would say something like "we have .001 percent of the mobile devices market. This market includes anything with a wireless connection, like laptops and all cellular phones." The DOJ would say "Ok, sounds good to us. No monopoly issues here." (Unless, of course, some powerful Congressperson was pounding on them, trying to cause headaches for Apple..) As an example, the DOJ just let the only two satellite radio companies merge (Sirius and XM). They allowed them to define the market as "anything that can broadcast music". The market included all normal over-the-air radio stations, internet radio, and (for all I know) iTunes. By that definition, XM and Sirius only owned .01% of the "anything that can broadcast" market, so there were no antitrust issues. I got a personal look at this when I sold my last company; we were bought by a competitor and the DOJ called us in to evaluate the merger and determine whether there were any anti-trust issues. We defined the market in the broadest terms possible and got absolutely no resistance from them. (Granted, even had we defined the market in narrow terms we still should have been ok.) To this day I'm amazed at how tractable they were. The system is broken.
      - 18y ago
mpk 18y ago
For anyone interested, the blog appears to have belonged to the author of Podcaster. The cached url is http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.blogspot.com/ http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.b... . It doesn't contain the last post, though. I'm curious to see how this develops.
mattmaroon 18y ago
I found the original post text just by putting their URL into Google Reader. Gotta love web-based RSS aggregators that cache. Here it is: It seems that Apple has shut me down. I can no longer provision any more devices. The developers website that had a "remove device" link is now gone. I looked at the help tab but it still lists "removing a device" as one of the options. I guess Apple just shut my account down. I believe that all the copies of Podcaster I released will keep running. I will try to make an update and test it on my iPhone. If it works, I will release it to every user. I would recommend keeping version 1.0.8b around just in case. On a more serious note, what does this mean for me? All I wanted was for someone from Apple to contact me and tell me how we can work it out so that I get into the app store. Instead, Apple took the cowards way out by simply disabling features in my developers portal. This seems like a childish move for a company that has been proving such high quality service and products in the past. I plan to make Podcaster for the Android operating system. At least there, I will be welcomed instead of being walked all over. I will also try to port the app to a jailbroken iPhone. So a final note to developers. Try to stay out of Apples grey area. Don't build anything that would compete with Apple. Don't spend too much time before you submit to the app store because it could be all for nothing. P.S. Podcaster got a 4.3 our of 5 star from 63 reviews. You can read them at http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx UPDATE: I just wanted to add that I am not surprised that Apple has stopped me. The application seems to still be working and can still be installed if you signed up before 9/22/08 Midnight EST. If you are one of these people and still want to try it, email almerica@gmail.com I will also be making updates to the application and will still fix a lot of the issues users have bene having. Give me about a week.
khangtoh 18y ago
Apple Do no Evil

44 points by nikils 18y ago

I think the most telling word in that post was "childish." Apple probably has legitimate concerns here, but by simply shutting him off instead of talking with him directly they are really missing an opportunity to develop loyalty with app developers.

trezor 18y ago

They even removed the story about Podcaster being shut down! So... Anyone have a mirror/cache or whatever handy? Google cache is failing on this one.

ovi256 18y ago
Yup, I can confirm, the blog isn't there as of 23 Sept 2008 21:10 GMT+1.

gstar 18y ago

This is going to be a PR disaster for apple, from a developers point of view. He may have been asked to pull the blog post until they get time to talk to him about it.

silencio 18y ago
You'd think it was a PR disaster a long time ago. Right now it's just tons of seething anger and frustration and stress. I have a fair number of friends worried about their current and future contract work because of the way Apple is handling things.

KirinDave 18y ago

Did the author take down the post because of the NDA requirements or because it is a retraction or...? What?

dunk010 18y ago

Apple are doing this to a lot of people. Surely this is anti-competitive?

colinplamondon 18y ago
Seriously? iPhone has 1% of the market, they've got another 79% to go before we're even in the ballpark of antitrust.
- silencio 18y ago
  1% of what market? Last I checked the iPhone had a wee bit more than 1% of the smartphone market.
  - Flemlord 18y ago
    Hilarious. You're assuming the DOJ is actually trying to prevent monopolies; it seems to me their main motivation is responding to pressure from Congress and corporate lobbyists. If Apple were called into their offices to defend their market share, they would say something like "we have .001 percent of the mobile devices market. This market includes anything with a wireless connection, like laptops and all cellular phones." The DOJ would say "Ok, sounds good to us. No monopoly issues here." (Unless, of course, some powerful Congressperson was pounding on them, trying to cause headaches for Apple..) As an example, the DOJ just let the only two satellite radio companies merge (Sirius and XM). They allowed them to define the market as "anything that can broadcast music". The market included all normal over-the-air radio stations, internet radio, and (for all I know) iTunes. By that definition, XM and Sirius only owned .01% of the "anything that can broadcast" market, so there were no antitrust issues. I got a personal look at this when I sold my last company; we were bought by a competitor and the DOJ called us in to evaluate the merger and determine whether there were any anti-trust issues. We defined the market in the broadest terms possible and got absolutely no resistance from them. (Granted, even had we defined the market in narrow terms we still should have been ok.) To this day I'm amazed at how tractable they were. The system is broken.
    - 18y ago

mpk 18y ago

For anyone interested, the blog appears to have belonged to the author of Podcaster. The cached url is http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.blogspot.com/ http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.b... . It doesn't contain the last post, though. I'm curious to see how this develops.

mattmaroon 18y ago

I found the original post text just by putting their URL into Google Reader. Gotta love web-based RSS aggregators that cache. Here it is: It seems that Apple has shut me down. I can no longer provision any more devices. The developers website that had a "remove device" link is now gone. I looked at the help tab but it still lists "removing a device" as one of the options. I guess Apple just shut my account down. I believe that all the copies of Podcaster I released will keep running. I will try to make an update and test it on my iPhone. If it works, I will release it to every user. I would recommend keeping version 1.0.8b around just in case. On a more serious note, what does this mean for me? All I wanted was for someone from Apple to contact me and tell me how we can work it out so that I get into the app store. Instead, Apple took the cowards way out by simply disabling features in my developers portal. This seems like a childish move for a company that has been proving such high quality service and products in the past. I plan to make Podcaster for the Android operating system. At least there, I will be welcomed instead of being walked all over. I will also try to port the app to a jailbroken iPhone. So a final note to developers. Try to stay out of Apples grey area. Don't build anything that would compete with Apple. Don't spend too much time before you submit to the app store because it could be all for nothing. P.S. Podcaster got a 4.3 our of 5 star from 63 reviews. You can read them at http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx UPDATE: I just wanted to add that I am not surprised that Apple has stopped me. The application seems to still be working and can still be installed if you signed up before 9/22/08 Midnight EST. If you are one of these people and still want to try it, email almerica@gmail.com I will also be making updates to the application and will still fix a lot of the issues users have bene having. Give me about a week.

khangtoh 18y ago

Apple Do no Evil