
Rooms irc app removed after 4 minutes in app store - slater
http://www.roomsapp.mobi/blog/2010/07/worst-review-evar/
======
lurch_mojoff
The whole story is very skimpy on details but it seems this guy is trying to
pull off quite a bit of hacky and "clever" tricks (I'm gathering this from the
posts about two previous rejections). Considering this, this doesn't seem to
be as frivolous act of Apple as it is made to be.

On top of this, the complaint that Apple do not respond doesn't ring true with
me. In my experience, at the very least in the past 6 months Apple have become
very prompt in responding, especially to rejection issues, and have provided a
contact phone number to further expedite the process.

To me this looks like some guy venting his frustration that Apple are calling
his bluffs and is a good excuse for people to gratuitously bag on Apple.

~~~
0x44
The updates on a linked article[1] seem to point to his distribution
credentials having expired.

1) [http://www.roomsapp.mobi/blog/2010/07/roomspulled-from-
store...](http://www.roomsapp.mobi/blog/2010/07/roomspulled-from-store/)

~~~
invisible
Your reading of that article isn't accurate. His distribution provisioning
profile (basically his name, address, phone, etc) expired. All he had to do
was go in and (for some unknown reason) just save his profile again to "renew"
it. You'd think he'd get 5 emails that his profile was about to expire (why
expire at all?).

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lukev
At this point, anyone who develops an iTunes app is bringing this on their own
head. Apple's arbitrary stupidity is a _known risk_. If you don't want to get
bit, then don't play with the pit bull.

~~~
illumin8
It seems the developer just let his 1 year distribution certificate expire.
This is really careless on his part and blame should not be automatically
placed on Apple.

If you distribute a web app using SSL, and let your Verisign certificate
expire, are you going to complain that Verisign is unfair because now your
customers are getting security warnings/errors in their browsers?

~~~
invisible
False. He did not let his distribution certificate expire - his "distribution
provisioning profile" expired.

Read this carefully: [http://www.roomsapp.mobi/blog/2010/07/roomspulled-from-
store...](http://www.roomsapp.mobi/blog/2010/07/roomspulled-from-store/)

~~~
alttab
Sounds like he set up a provisioning profile early on and hated the process so
much he just kept using the same one for his final project.

------
jacquesm
That really sucks, but it is the risk you take when you allow someone else a
say in the operation of your business. If you want to have a solid income
stream you'd do well to stay miles away from walled gardens where some flunky
behind a desk can destroy your business with a click of their mouse.

~~~
rimantas
Indeed. Port it to Android and make a bunch of money there. Or in Nokia's OVI
store.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Bad advice... The money on Android is terrible compared to iPhone. I know this
from continuing experience.

Anyone doing mobile and wanting to bootstrap needs to do iPhone first.

~~~
hboon
I think that was his point. iPhone is where the money is (for the top X
developers).

------
Zev
Maybe its because I've contributed to Mobile Colloquy (Rooms' competition),
but, I can't bring myself to be pissed off here. The guy actively ignored his
app for periods at a time. That his certs expired at some point isn't
surprising. And then he proceeds to abuse APIs in a way that Apple has
specifically said not to do. And acts surprised at rejection?

You know what? We had the _exact_ same issues when working on Mobile Colloquy.
We managed to figure out a way to not get removed from the app store. And
we're BSD! All he had to do was copy what we did (yet again; Rooms' core is
based on Colloquy's Chat Core)!

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MWinther
Did anyone honestly believe that use of the VoIP in background API was going
to be allowed for non-VoIP stuff, though?

Having said that, the rest of the story seems conflicting and with confusing
back-and-forth.

~~~
troystribling
The NPR application appears to be using it to stream audio which is not
strictly VOIP.

~~~
kanwisher
There is a separate mode for background audio, pandora uses it

~~~
troystribling
I thought this was playing audio not streaming it. A streaming app would need
both background network access and the ability to play audio in the
background. See the Background Audio section at
[http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/iPho...](http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/BackgroundExecution/BackgroundExecution.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007072-CH5-SW4).
It is not clear here that network access is permitted. Being vague in the
permitted application functions for each mode makes it difficult to know what
exactly os permitted.

~~~
isamuel
It's completely clear that network access is permitted because Pandora uses
it, which is the app everyone thinks of when they think background audio. It
also works for Rdio and many other apps.

------
Hoff
I can't tell if the programmer was using the VoIP mechanisms to allow the app
to run continuously in the background, though it does look that the programmer
was attempting that. Apple isn't going to allow continuous background. If your
application needs that, then that's likely best an Android application and not
an iOS application.

And this comment: "It’s just not possible to tell them to hold the chatline,
send a Push Message, and resend the text to the app when it comes online…"?
That's arguably less of a limit, and more of a potential opportunity. Why not
create the servers necessary to do that; to allow off-line IRC, and deliver
via push? There are folks already using a similar scheme - bouncers - to do
that with existing IRC clients and servers, after all. Package that and sell
it, and (if your end-user agreements are clear about the potential for dual-
use of the servers) package and sell the feed, too.

~~~
Zev
_Why not create the servers necessary to do that; to allow off-line IRC, and
deliver via push? There are folks already using a similar scheme - bouncers -
to do that with existing IRC clients and servers, after all. Package that and
sell it, and (if your end-user agreements are clear about the potential for
dual-use of the servers) package and sell the feed, too._

We considered running a service like this for Mobile Colloquy. We ultimately
decided that it wasn't worth doing. Too many different IRC networks out there,
too much potential for abuse. This page is slightly out of date, but explains
our reasoning for not running a bouncer service on our own:
<http://colloquy.mobi/push.html>

Instead, we host a push server and let people use a bouncer that they host on
their own for push. There's support for ZNC, Colloquy and irssi. Plus an SDK-
type thing, so any other bouncer with a plugin system can, in theory, work.

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bruceboughton
He really needs to calm down. The tone of his blog posts on this, while
understandable, is not conducive to a good business relationship.

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cschneid
As much as this all sucks, it just seems like a reviewer clicked the wrong
button. "Whoops, undo".

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metabrew
I'm finding it really hard to be sympathetic after hearing so many of these
kind of stories.

There's no way in hell I'd develop anything for iOS while the only way to
distribute is via the app store.

I have some serious cognitive dissonance going on though; I have an iPad, and
it's great. I'm glad people do run the app store gauntlet so I have nice apps
to play with.

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char
The first iPhone app I submitted got rejected for having "minimum user
functionality". I resubmitted it, and it got approved. I'm not saying that
this will necessarily work in your case, but it might be worth a try.
Sometimes approval/rejection is simply a matter of which person is looking at
the app.

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tomjen3
How could he not know that this is what is going to happen when you develop
for the Apple store? I mean the first few times, one could understand it - we
assume others are reasonable - but this is story number, what 30?

~~~
jdminhbg
If this is story 30, and there are 225k apps in the App Store
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store>), then you have a 0.01% chance of
this happening. So it's understandable that the author didn't know that this
is what was going to happen.

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campnic
Huge market, single point of distribution with known history of 'complicated'
app validation. I feel bad for the developers in the same way I feel bad for
people that lose in the final stages of a poker tournament. Its not always the
quality of your app or idea, but sometimes its just luck.

With the recent ruling reinforcing the legal standing of jail-breaking a
device to load applications, does that mean that third party application
market places are also legal? I know there has been some debate about that,
would be an interesting spot for someone to consolidate a multi platform app
store.

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joehn
removed from sale, sometimes happens when you change the app languages or app
world store availability. check to go to app country availability and select
all countries

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GrandMasterBirt
As the creator of typefrag pointed out... once you rely on a platform as part
of your business model, you take that platform ugliness and all with you.
Don't like it? Don't develop for the app store. There is no better way to
protest than to not support them. But we all know the allure is all too much
for developers and they will eat apple's cake at any price.

------
drats
Absolutely disgraceful treatment of a very reasonable person.

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mfukar
Man, this is depressing. As are Apple's terms for the iPhone/iPad store. I'd
advise anyone who wants to develop for the iPhone/iPad to stop dealing with
iTunes, distribute their work themselves (free and open source) and invite
people to jailbreak their products in order to install it.

~~~
javanix
And lose out on whatever chance they had of making a decent profit? I doubt
that this jailbreak ruling is going to result in a spate of common-joe iPhone
hacking.

~~~
mfukar
I agree it's not ideal profit-wise, and neither do I expect every iPhone user
to be interested, let alone technically savvy, enough to jailbreak their
iPhone. But I find the fact that the executable won't be free even if my
source code is (and I don't mean free as in "free of charge" - people deserve
to get paid for their work and then some) a farce, at best.

~~~
ojilles
How is that a farce? The distribution model of the App store has been clear
from the start... It's take it or leave it - but depending on jailbreaking for
a mass market app is clearly not going to work.

