Archive for: rejection
It looks like after a brief hiatus in front page news, the App Store approval/rejection employees are working hard to reclaim their spot at the top of #facepalm hill. Today’s story involves Read It Later, a handy little app that allows you to bookmark and save articles for offline viewing at a later point. The app is available on iPhone, iPad, desktop computers, and browsers, so you can see just how useful Read It Later is up front. But one feature in particular has stumped Apple’s approval machine — the requirement of a Read It Later account.
Apparently such things are against the iOS SDK rules. That of course wouldn’t garner a second look if it weren’t true that countless other popular apps require a pre-registered account before the app works (hello Facebook, MySpace, any type of IM service, etc., etc.) And yet Apple responded with the following:
Reach back in the depths of your cranial cortex to April 26th. It was then that we talked about an upcoming app by developer “Greg”, that allowed you to sync your iPhone/iPod Touch over WiFi. Obviously, a bunch of criticism and shifty eyes followed as such functionality is just so terrible for the App Store.
And as we thought, Greg has come forward today to announce that while Apple did reject his extremely useful app (that adds functionality we’ve only been asking for over the course of many years), it all ends well. Wi-Fi Sync can officially be picked up in Cydia for $9.99 Apple be dammed.
Engadget > Wi-Fi Sync
[Image Source
Time and time again we have seen Apple employ utter incompetence, double standards, and plain stupidity when it comes to accept/reject decisions within their approval process. They’ve received their fair share of criticism and at times, warranted a few pats on the back along the way. Sadly, incompetence still runs wild as the recent rejection (and eventually approved) of Pulitzer prize winner Mark Fiore’s comic satire app showed us. But more disturbing than simple incompetence and stupidity is the effect that Apple’s problems have on the technological market as a whole.
- September 23, 2009 12:08 pm
The PSP Go to some is the same machine with a slightly redesigned control scheme and inflated price tag. To others it is the way of the future as it drops physical games and ushers in the era of software/downloadable only games. That very same “futuristic” feature may be hurting it in the classic retail environment. First Dutch based retailer “Nedgame” pledged to ignore the PSP Go as they felt it “didn’t offer them the customer any value” with its lack of physical media. The lack of physical media means no game trade-ins which for Nedgame and other used game retailers means no sales, no money, and no job. Some may see this as an issue, but for many I would assume the lack of physical media is a blessing. Gone are the bulky cartridges that take up valuable space as well as minuscule game card formats that are insanely easy to lose. Once you step back and look at the bigger picture, one can see the only people that will be “hurt” by the shift from physical media are outlets that thrive on physical media sales and re-sales.
- September 18, 2009 11:28 am
While the ongoing drama surrounding the Google Voice/Apple App Store fiasco has been relatively quiet these last couple weeks, that doesn’t mean stuff has died down. Oh no…not in the slightest. Remember how Apple claimed a couple weeks ago that they hadn’t approved the Google Voice app but hadn’t exactly rejected it either and that they were merely studying it? Well, a fair amount of you aren’t stupid or three years old and could clearly see Apple was up to something or hiding the truth. Well wouldn’t you know it (surprise surprise) Apple lied. They were hiding the truth. It’s worth noting that it wasn’t just any mindless App Store employee that rejected Google Voice. They reserved a rejection of this magnitude for Phil Schiller himself. On July 7th, Google Voice got the official rejection from Apple/Schiller via phone. What’s even more telling is that this July 7th rejection follows a previous event from April 10th in which Apple rejected Google Latitude. The reason for Google Latitude’s rejection was because it “offers new features not present on the preloaded maps application”.
You read that right. Google Latitude was rejected for offering “new features” and Google Voice was rejected for “duplicating features”. So if you can’t duplicate already present features and you can’t add new features, what the hell is anyone supposed to do? Seems Apple has an obvious case of malice, double standards, stupidity, and all out problem on their hands as now it’s coming out that this was all a big lie. Obviously the reasoning for Google Latitude is ridiculous as thousands of apps in the app store “add new features”. The only questions left are if AT&T had any involvement (most likely) and what will the FCC think of this new development and lying behind the scenes?
RT the hell out of this folks!
Source: Engadget, WSJ
With all of the controversy and public fixation on the Apple App Store approval process (or lack thereof) and the seemingly increasingly ridiculous app rejections that are coming to light, many have called for an explanation. Being the tightly run and secretive company that Apple is, answers to such pleas have gone largely ignored until recently when the FCC jumped in on the bandwagon with the Google Voice rejection. However, the real sweet bit of information came when Apple revealed exactly how apps get approved/rejected and just how many bodies are responsible. The glaring truth: Apple needs to hire more people…
By now, daily stories of Apple’s incompitent app store employees (specifcally the ones responsible for using 4th grade judgement to deem an app acceptable/unacceptable for mass public consumption) making completley incompetent decisions regarding apps are nothing. It seems they strive to entertain us and give us something to talk about. Apparently, these morons, fools, idiots, *insert insulting name here* are completely incapable of doing that very task. The latest blunder involves your typical retarded app store employee and Ninjawords Pocket Dictionary App. Apparently Apple loves to take this whole rule thing way to far. Case in point, the app developer was forced to remove all bad words, display a mature/17+ warning, and relable his app as mature/17+ — all for a damn dictionary! The developers even went out of their way to design the app so you had to manually type in every letter of bad words to find them as opposed to auto-complete like functions from finding the bad words in question. Clearly common sense is running thin at Apple HQ. According to the developers:
But Ninjawords for iPhone suffers one humiliating flaw: it omits all the words deemed “objectionable” by Apple’s App Store reviewers, despite the fact that Ninjawords carries a 17+ rating.
Apple censored an English dictionary.
A dictionary. A reference book. For words contained in all reasonable dictionaries. For words contained in dictionaries that are used every day in elementary school libraries and classrooms.
Keep it up Apple, you’re building yourself a nice reputation of stupidity, inconsistancy, incompitence, and did I mention stupidity?
Source: MobileCrunch
- September 21, 2008 10:08 pm
MailWrangler
Communism is making its way through America…starting with Apple. Another highly useful app has been banned from the App Store. MailWrangler, a tool to greatly increase Gmail functionality on the iPhone by letting you log into multiple Gmail accounts, see threaded views and all of your Google contacts, archive (quickly), star, etc without the normal issues associated with apples own Gmail IMAP function on the iPhone.
The reasons Apple have been giving for rejecting apps are downright ridiculous. Are they trying to push developers away? Because that is exactly what they are going to start doing. Many developers are going to see all of the apps being rejected and ask themselves the question “Why bother?”. Any sane person with half a brain could easily differentiate between Mail.app and MailWrangler. It’s a BS excuse so Apple can go off and patent their own “new idea” and pass it off as their own.
/rant
Disclaimer to all of the “He’s an Apple Hater Group”: I own an iPhone 3g, macbook pro, ibook, and several iPods…which I love!!
source: angelo.dinardi.name
