

NIN Reaction to iPhone App Store Rejection - ironkeith
http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?9,651569,651569#msg-651569

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ironkeith
A better link:

<http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?9,651569,651569#msg-651569>

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buugs
I was thinking the same thing especially with the tie in to walmart's music
sales and the questionable safari application bundled with the iphone :)

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sadfsa
I'm never, _ever_ getting an iPhone.

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axod
I'm sure Apple will miss you terribly. An app was denied. Big deal. No great
loss.

If you really want to run the app, jailbreak your phone and run it.

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tlrobinson
While I don't think it's a major reason not buy an iPhone, it is actually a
fairly big problem. I know of at least 3 high profile apps that have been
rejected due to "objectionable content" which was nothing more than a few
swear words on content loaded from the web.

My problem, aside from the censorship in the first place, is that they don't
follow the same standards in their own apps. Search the YouTube app for any
swear word and it will happily give you all the swearing you can handle.

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axod
The web browser is un-censored. That's pretty much all that matters in this
day+age.

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tlrobinson
Yes, but there's the argument that the browser doesn't directly help you
discover content, whereas YouTube app does.

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pj
I don't think this is so bad really. Apple's brand is affected by the kind of
material it sells and it wants to protect its brand.

It's just like Facebook has porn patrol.

Being a vendor of a product isn't just about moving product, it's about moving
product in a direction that you believe makes the world a better place for you
to live. Apple has the right to choose how to let people use their platform.

Imagine a world where you have no right who you can and cannot sell your hard
work to. Those signs that say, "We have the right to refuse service to anyone"
-- all those would have to come down, by law!

I think, right now, that I would prefer a world where a vendor of a service
can decide who it does and does not provide that service to than a world where
the builder of a product or provider of a service does not have that right.

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chaosmachine
You're missing the point. Apple sells The Downward Spiral in the iTunes store.
Not allowing the same content in the App store is just absurd. In fact, the
app doesn't even contain the content, it's just accessible through it.

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joecode
I believe the reason for the apparent contradiction is this: Apple acts as a
publicizer for the apps in the app store by letting them into the top-N lists
and recent releases. When an "objectionable" app becomes popular, users hold
Apple to account. They don't do this with the music store.

As the app store gets more and more crowded, Apple will most likely loosen up.
Or maybe they will do the really intelligent thing: allow everything in, but
only allow "non-objectionable" material into the top-N and recent releases
sections.

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blgraves
Apple has a top-N list for songs, albums, audiobooks, movies, tv shows, etc.
on the front page of the itunes store. How is advertising questionable
material in those lists any different than advertising apps with questionable
content?

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philh
With iTunes, Apple is a distributor. With the app store, it's a publisher.
It's reasonable to assume that most people who are likely to get angry about
content in a song/app recognise and understand the difference. And perhaps
many of them don't understand that Apple is merely a publisher, and don't
actually create most of the apps.

Creators and publishers are (usually) considered to have more responsibility
than distributors when it comes to objectionable content. I think that's an
important difference for Apple's image.

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jetako
Can anyone chime in on the app store review procedure? Is each app assigned an
individual review monkey, or is it passed through multiple hands? Methinks
Apple needs better screening and performance evaluation of their app store
employees. All it takes is a few jackasses in the mix for this to happen.
Their rejection policy clearly leaves certain things open for interpretation.

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joecode
Based on my server logs, it appears there are multiple levels of review. The
pattern I usually see is a little interaction after a few days of submitting,
then a little more interaction right before approval. In one case, my app got
rejected for an interface issue, and it looked like more people were involved.
So it seems to be a "red-flag" kind of system.

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plusbryan
Yes, for some apps, the first-stage approval is clearly done by someone fairly
non-technical, just reading from a list of things they need to deny apps for.
I've had first-level reviewers deny apps for really silly things, in some
cases where the problem was the reviewer's command of the english language,
rather than the app itself. Resubmitted with no changes and it went through 6
days later.

Oh and there are no appeals at this stage. This isn't a democracy. Resubmit
the binary and get to the back of the line, scruffy.

But if you do get forwarded on, it seems to take about 2x as long, and get you
to someone inside Apple who knows a thing or two.

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klon
It's sad that Apple can get away with this. Somehow competition is not working
like it should in this market.

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HolyoakeD
That's how Apple has always set it out to be. They lock everything down so
that competition _can't_ grow properly..

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dinkumthinkum
Yeah, but that was the other person's point. Apple is still successful.
Therefore, competition is not the panacea to solve all the worlds ills, since
Apple is behaving so poorly yet we all just pony up the cash for iPhones
anyway. :)

