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Why Apple Nixed My iPhone App

28 points by iseff 17y ago

puredemo 17y ago
This is a terrible, unilateral, knee-jerk methodology to determine application eligibility. It seems that apple is constantly creating lose/lose situations in which the developers have zero recourse for their strongly legitimate complaints.
- b-man 17y ago
  Yeah, this is fascism in miniature. Imagine a large scale experiment on that philosophy. Welcome to Italy, circa 1919.
  - jsz0 17y ago
    Luckily it's just a cell phone and there are plenty of alternatives.
    - elai 17y ago
      Unfortunately, as a market, the iPhone app store is fairly unique.
  - cakesy 17y ago
    So, any system with a bunch of rules, like Apple Application process if fascism? Apple has these rules, they pointed it out to the developer, and let him resubmit his application. Only a complete moron would compare this to fascism and what happened in Italy. I guess it is only a certain law stopping you from comparing them to another figure.
    - uibuibk 17y ago
      No a system where the local police/magistrate is allowed to interpret the rules however they wish and you aren't allowed to question them, ask for an explanation, appeal to a higher authority or have any sort of representation is facism.
      - jsz0 17y ago
        You are most certainly allowed to question the policies. Armed thugs didn't show up at this gentleman's house and beat him for this blog post. Lack of representation alone is not fascism. They also gave him an explanation which is completely contradictory with your statement justifying your assertion this would classify as fascism. Even if they hadn't given him one it still wouldn't make it fascism.
        hellweaver666 17y ago
        True... Apple only send the armed thugs round when you lose one of their prototype iPhones ;)
pyre 17y ago
The real issue is that there is no discussion happening between Apple's AppStore approval staff and the developers. If there was 2-way communication between the two the developer would know fairly quickly whether or not this was Apple having an over-reachingly broad policy, or just an Apple employee misinterpreting the policy. I think that Apple is running into the same problem that the patent office has. Everybody can't be an expert on everything, and it's increasingly expensive to hire experts to do mind-numbingly boring work like shuffling through applications (software or patent) to approve based on rather broad criteria. Not only that, but there is pressure to just push things through the pipeline (whether they are approved or rejected). In this case, it's entirely possible that the employee that rejected the app knows there is a program called Bitwise, and thought that this app was trying to tag along on that popularity (I guess?) not realizing that bitwise is a generic term. It might be a different story if he was naming his app Bitwise, vs just adding it as a search keyword. But all of this could be solved through 2-way communication and making AppStore developers feel like valued business partners -- they are business partners with Apple afterall. Even the US Patent Office -- for all its ills -- has an amount of communication between the patent reviewer and the patent applicant. If the AppStore reviewer fired off an email or phone call to the developer saying, "Your app seems great, but we don't like the keyword 'bitwise' in there because it's referring to another application," the developer could immediately respond with, "But 'bitwise' is a generic term that describes the functionality of my app. Wikipedia/Google it." As it stands, the developer feels like Apple is talking down to him/her from 'on high,' decreeing that this app does not seem worthy of the AppStore. Without communication, the developer feels powerless to affect the outcome of the approval process, and gets frustrated at minor details like this which would probably be cleared up over a couple of emails instead of forcing the developer to resubmit his app in the 'Apple approved way' (even though his way might be perfectly fine, and the reviewer was only mistaken).
- dflock 17y ago
  As far as I can see, one of the problems with this gatekeeper thing, is that it doesn't scale very well - you can't do a proper job of talking to each developer and making a fully informed decision in each and every case - they just don't have the time. So they've got a default 'No soup for you' policy if there are any questions about an app. Given that they apparently aren't short of new app's in the pipeline, then from their point of view, saying no to a few hundred won't make much difference to the platform overall.
cesare 17y ago
Why didn't they just approve the app and remove the incriminated keyword?
- cakesy 17y ago
  Because business doesn't work like that. You can't go around changing someone application, or removing words from the description that you don't like. That is really bad. They have given the guy the option to resubmit, so all that happens is his app is a couple of weeks late.
  - cesare 17y ago
    Right. On the other hand, in this case it was a search keyword, not a word in the description. They could add a disclaimer to reserve the right to remove inappropriate keywords. Asking the developer to do so and resubmit the app is a waste of time for both parties.
    - jonursenbach 17y ago
      Dude, welcome to the status quo.
4chan4ever 17y ago
Does anybody else feel like there's just been a rash of this kind of stuff lately? Apple really seems to be dropping the ball on a number of issues. Whether it's the attempted trademarking of "glossy chat bubbles", lethargic update cycles, or app rejection decisions like the one in this article, I really feel like the Apple user and developer experience has soured. I think the iPhone store (and the iPhone phenomenon) is perilously close to jumping the shark. Android, anyone?
tlrobinson 17y ago
I wouldn't expect the average application reviewer to know what "bitwise" means. If he responded explaining it and they still didn't allow it that would be worthy of a rant.
- there 17y ago
  the average application reviewer that is also looking at api calls and other internals of applications?
- andrew1 17y ago
  I would expect that the average application reviewer has access to a dictionary though.
joshhart 17y ago
Perhaps this is really naive, but why haven't any lawsuits been brought up regarding the app store? Maybe they have but I haven't heard of them?
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  How would you build a legal basis for asserting that you have a right to force Apple to accept, approve and distribute your software against their desires?
  - joezydeco 17y ago
    Especially when you signed away all those rights in the developer agreement (or so I've been told).
sfphotoarts 17y ago
I'm so bored of the YAIDC syndrome (yet another iPhone developer complaining) here on HN...
- chaosprophet 17y ago
  Yeah, and I'm pretty sure after all that complaining he still went ahead, removed the keyword and submitted the app. I'd say if you're going to bow down to Apple then you have no right complaining.
  - roc 17y ago
    People only complain when they want to keep using the product/service in question and are unwilling to take things to an extreme conclusion. E.g. When people have a bad experience at the theatre, the only ones who complain at the service desk are those who will return regardless. The people who've had enough just quietly walk out and never return.
    - sfphotoarts 17y ago
      I'm not sure I buy into this piece of psychology.

28 points by iseff 17y ago

This is a terrible, unilateral, knee-jerk methodology to determine application eligibility. It seems that apple is constantly creating lose/lose situations in which the developers have zero recourse for their strongly legitimate complaints.

b-man 17y ago
Yeah, this is fascism in miniature. Imagine a large scale experiment on that philosophy. Welcome to Italy, circa 1919.
- jsz0 17y ago
  Luckily it's just a cell phone and there are plenty of alternatives.
  - elai 17y ago
    Unfortunately, as a market, the iPhone app store is fairly unique.
- cakesy 17y ago
  So, any system with a bunch of rules, like Apple Application process if fascism? Apple has these rules, they pointed it out to the developer, and let him resubmit his application. Only a complete moron would compare this to fascism and what happened in Italy. I guess it is only a certain law stopping you from comparing them to another figure.
  - uibuibk 17y ago
    No a system where the local police/magistrate is allowed to interpret the rules however they wish and you aren't allowed to question them, ask for an explanation, appeal to a higher authority or have any sort of representation is facism.
    - jsz0 17y ago
      You are most certainly allowed to question the policies. Armed thugs didn't show up at this gentleman's house and beat him for this blog post. Lack of representation alone is not fascism. They also gave him an explanation which is completely contradictory with your statement justifying your assertion this would classify as fascism. Even if they hadn't given him one it still wouldn't make it fascism.
      - hellweaver666 17y ago
        True... Apple only send the armed thugs round when you lose one of their prototype iPhones ;)

pyre 17y ago

The real issue is that there is no discussion happening between Apple's AppStore approval staff and the developers. If there was 2-way communication between the two the developer would know fairly quickly whether or not this was Apple having an over-reachingly broad policy, or just an Apple employee misinterpreting the policy. I think that Apple is running into the same problem that the patent office has. Everybody can't be an expert on everything, and it's increasingly expensive to hire experts to do mind-numbingly boring work like shuffling through applications (software or patent) to approve based on rather broad criteria. Not only that, but there is pressure to just push things through the pipeline (whether they are approved or rejected). In this case, it's entirely possible that the employee that rejected the app knows there is a program called Bitwise, and thought that this app was trying to tag along on that popularity (I guess?) not realizing that bitwise is a generic term. It might be a different story if he was naming his app Bitwise, vs just adding it as a search keyword. But all of this could be solved through 2-way communication and making AppStore developers feel like valued business partners -- they are business partners with Apple afterall. Even the US Patent Office -- for all its ills -- has an amount of communication between the patent reviewer and the patent applicant. If the AppStore reviewer fired off an email or phone call to the developer saying, "Your app seems great, but we don't like the keyword 'bitwise' in there because it's referring to another application," the developer could immediately respond with, "But 'bitwise' is a generic term that describes the functionality of my app. Wikipedia/Google it." As it stands, the developer feels like Apple is talking down to him/her from 'on high,' decreeing that this app does not seem worthy of the AppStore. Without communication, the developer feels powerless to affect the outcome of the approval process, and gets frustrated at minor details like this which would probably be cleared up over a couple of emails instead of forcing the developer to resubmit his app in the 'Apple approved way' (even though his way might be perfectly fine, and the reviewer was only mistaken).

dflock 17y ago
As far as I can see, one of the problems with this gatekeeper thing, is that it doesn't scale very well - you can't do a proper job of talking to each developer and making a fully informed decision in each and every case - they just don't have the time. So they've got a default 'No soup for you' policy if there are any questions about an app. Given that they apparently aren't short of new app's in the pipeline, then from their point of view, saying no to a few hundred won't make much difference to the platform overall.

cesare 17y ago

Why didn't they just approve the app and remove the incriminated keyword?

cakesy 17y ago
Because business doesn't work like that. You can't go around changing someone application, or removing words from the description that you don't like. That is really bad. They have given the guy the option to resubmit, so all that happens is his app is a couple of weeks late.
- cesare 17y ago
  Right. On the other hand, in this case it was a search keyword, not a word in the description. They could add a disclaimer to reserve the right to remove inappropriate keywords. Asking the developer to do so and resubmit the app is a waste of time for both parties.
  - jonursenbach 17y ago
    Dude, welcome to the status quo.

4chan4ever 17y ago

Does anybody else feel like there's just been a rash of this kind of stuff lately? Apple really seems to be dropping the ball on a number of issues. Whether it's the attempted trademarking of "glossy chat bubbles", lethargic update cycles, or app rejection decisions like the one in this article, I really feel like the Apple user and developer experience has soured. I think the iPhone store (and the iPhone phenomenon) is perilously close to jumping the shark. Android, anyone?

tlrobinson 17y ago

I wouldn't expect the average application reviewer to know what "bitwise" means. If he responded explaining it and they still didn't allow it that would be worthy of a rant.

there 17y ago
the average application reviewer that is also looking at api calls and other internals of applications?
andrew1 17y ago
I would expect that the average application reviewer has access to a dictionary though.

joshhart 17y ago

Perhaps this is really naive, but why haven't any lawsuits been brought up regarding the app store? Maybe they have but I haven't heard of them?

ubernostrum 17y ago
How would you build a legal basis for asserting that you have a right to force Apple to accept, approve and distribute your software against their desires?
- joezydeco 17y ago
  Especially when you signed away all those rights in the developer agreement (or so I've been told).

sfphotoarts 17y ago

I'm so bored of the YAIDC syndrome (yet another iPhone developer complaining) here on HN...

chaosprophet 17y ago
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure after all that complaining he still went ahead, removed the keyword and submitted the app. I'd say if you're going to bow down to Apple then you have no right complaining.
- roc 17y ago
  People only complain when they want to keep using the product/service in question and are unwilling to take things to an extreme conclusion. E.g. When people have a bad experience at the theatre, the only ones who complain at the service desk are those who will return regardless. The people who've had enough just quietly walk out and never return.
  - sfphotoarts 17y ago
    I'm not sure I buy into this piece of psychology.