5 ms·

This is the same Apple who has a published document saying: "If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press an

by smackfu 12y ago

This is the same Apple who has a published document saying: "If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ When this company controls your livelihood, you are wise to take a very broad view of what "trash us" means.

waterside81 12y ago
Ha - I thought you were paraphrasing and editorializing, but it actually says that. I'm surprised they're so blunt & honest about that.
- artursapek 12y ago
  It's written in a much different voice from most of Apple's stuff.
  - Zelphyr 12y ago
    If I recall, much of it was written by Jobs himself.
serve_yay 12y ago
It's worse than that - sometimes "trashing them" (i.e., writing a dryly-worded blog post simply stating events that transpired with no hint of anger) is the only thing that helps.
- matheweis 12y ago
  I did have success once with sending an e-mail to tcook@apple.com. I have read that like Steve, he does read many of those external e-mails. This was when the App Store review times had climbed to 28+ days. I never did get a response, but shortly thereafter they started going down, and within a few weeks were down to the 3-7 day range. I don't think they've gone significantly over 7 days since.
  - WhitneyLand 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
mikeash 12y ago
The thing is, it's completely wrong. Running to the press works great when Apple screws up.
- FireBeyond 12y ago
  No. There's a big qualifier. Running to the press works great, /if and only if/, you have enough of a following or already have that groundswell of popular opinion behind you. If not, be prepared to be either ignored, 'shut down', or get the immediate reprieve you were seeking, and then after the media has died down, run into a brick wall.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I don't know about that. Seems to me that the one major requirement is that you need to actually be in the right, and Apple needs to be in the wrong. If you run to the press for some perceived slight that nobody else cares about, you'll get roasted no matter how popular you are. If you got legitimately screwed by Apple, you'll generally get results even if nobody knew about you before. (Everybody loves an underdog story, after all.) I'm sure these factors can swing it for marginal cases, but, well, don't do it for marginal cases.
danielsamuels 12y ago
Yeah, this is literally covered in the article..
- smackfu 12y ago
  Oops, I missed that.
matheweis 12y ago
This really does echo what Schneier said about us returning to a feudalistic society. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht... Although his context was for users, I think the same thing applies to developers.
- ableal 12y ago
  Back in 2003, Tim Bray hit that nail: "Are You a Sharecropper?" https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePl...
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    It was that mentality that, finally, made me buy a little piece of land in cyberspace (others may call it a domain name) - yeah you can get your blog hosted a million places for free, but by owning your own you can move to a new host. I think this Neocities blog post(https://neocities.org/blog/neocities-web-sites-now-have-property-rights https://neocities.org/blog/neocities-web-sites-now-have-prop...) said it best: You have to have your own domain, otherwise you will be a sharecropper for somebody else.
    - anon_adderlan 12y ago
      Actually, you don't own that domain, only rent/lease it. And you don't own the servers neocities uses to host websites either, and they can "terminate the agreement at any time for any reason for no reason.". There's a lot of confusion surrounding what defines ownership in the information age. For example, IP addresses are held like real property despite just being numbers in a database. However, a physical device isn't owned by the user if the carrier can restrict what can be done with it and/or modified/disabled it at any time for any reason without explanation. It also varies by culture too, with most 'Eastern' countries treating virtual goods like real property, and most 'Western' ones treating them as non-transferable services which can be cancelled. Mind, that post you link to has the right idea, just that the only way to achieve what it recommends is to buy a server and IP address, and lease a T1 line or the like.
Yhippa 12y ago
I thought that sentence was a paraphrasing but it is literally in that document. Wow. It seems a bit unprofessional to me.

by smackfu 12y ago

waterside81 12y ago

Ha - I thought you were paraphrasing and editorializing, but it actually says that. I'm surprised they're so blunt & honest about that.

artursapek 12y ago
It's written in a much different voice from most of Apple's stuff.
- Zelphyr 12y ago
  If I recall, much of it was written by Jobs himself.

serve_yay 12y ago

It's worse than that - sometimes "trashing them" (i.e., writing a dryly-worded blog post simply stating events that transpired with no hint of anger) is the only thing that helps.

matheweis 12y ago
I did have success once with sending an e-mail to tcook@apple.com. I have read that like Steve, he does read many of those external e-mails. This was when the App Store review times had climbed to 28+ days. I never did get a response, but shortly thereafter they started going down, and within a few weeks were down to the 3-7 day range. I don't think they've gone significantly over 7 days since.
- WhitneyLand 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

mikeash 12y ago

The thing is, it's completely wrong. Running to the press works great when Apple screws up.

FireBeyond 12y ago
No. There's a big qualifier. Running to the press works great, /if and only if/, you have enough of a following or already have that groundswell of popular opinion behind you. If not, be prepared to be either ignored, 'shut down', or get the immediate reprieve you were seeking, and then after the media has died down, run into a brick wall.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I don't know about that. Seems to me that the one major requirement is that you need to actually be in the right, and Apple needs to be in the wrong. If you run to the press for some perceived slight that nobody else cares about, you'll get roasted no matter how popular you are. If you got legitimately screwed by Apple, you'll generally get results even if nobody knew about you before. (Everybody loves an underdog story, after all.) I'm sure these factors can swing it for marginal cases, but, well, don't do it for marginal cases.

danielsamuels 12y ago

Yeah, this is literally covered in the article..

smackfu 12y ago
Oops, I missed that.

matheweis 12y ago

This really does echo what Schneier said about us returning to a feudalistic society. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht... Although his context was for users, I think the same thing applies to developers.

ableal 12y ago
Back in 2003, Tim Bray hit that nail: "Are You a Sharecropper?" https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePl...
- tomjen3 12y ago
  It was that mentality that, finally, made me buy a little piece of land in cyberspace (others may call it a domain name) - yeah you can get your blog hosted a million places for free, but by owning your own you can move to a new host. I think this Neocities blog post(https://neocities.org/blog/neocities-web-sites-now-have-property-rights https://neocities.org/blog/neocities-web-sites-now-have-prop...) said it best: You have to have your own domain, otherwise you will be a sharecropper for somebody else.
  - anon_adderlan 12y ago
    Actually, you don't own that domain, only rent/lease it. And you don't own the servers neocities uses to host websites either, and they can "terminate the agreement at any time for any reason for no reason.". There's a lot of confusion surrounding what defines ownership in the information age. For example, IP addresses are held like real property despite just being numbers in a database. However, a physical device isn't owned by the user if the carrier can restrict what can be done with it and/or modified/disabled it at any time for any reason without explanation. It also varies by culture too, with most 'Eastern' countries treating virtual goods like real property, and most 'Western' ones treating them as non-transferable services which can be cancelled. Mind, that post you link to has the right idea, just that the only way to achieve what it recommends is to buy a server and IP address, and lease a T1 line or the like.

Yhippa 12y ago

I thought that sentence was a paraphrasing but it is literally in that document. Wow. It seems a bit unprofessional to me.