
New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications  - olefoo
http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/08/version-2-2-rejected-new-rejection-reason-from-apple-may-have-major-implications/
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dieterrams
The email is confusingly worded, but I think it's simply saying that

1\. you can't require account registration if the app does not provide
account-specific functionality, and

2\. if your app has both account-specific and non-account-specific
functionality, registration can only be required to access the former.

I'm going to agree with houseabsolute and chalk this up to a mistake. That is,
the app reviewer mistakenly assumed the app did not have account-specific
functionality, or exclusively account-specific functionality. There are far
too many (major) apps that require an account to do anything for his
interpretation to make sense.

I wouldn't put this sort of craziness past Apple, but reviewer error just
seems far more likely.

------
msy
I think the wording is poor here but this basically appears to boil down to
'you cannot ask for a bunch of personal information from users for no valid
reason'. Which seems entirely reasonable and a good use of Apple's power to
stop the harvesting of personal information. But lets not let that get in the
way of a good outrage session.

~~~
dejb
> But lets not let that get in the way of a good outrage session.

I know it's an old argument and many people don't like to be reminded of it,
but for some people, each an every one of these 'total platform rejections'
represents an outrage.

~~~
dejb
Wow people are sensitive. Of course it's perfectly fine for the Apple
apologists to rehash their justifications on each and every instance of this.
But for somebody to reaffirm the basic problem with the app store model is
deserving of censure. What a place of intelligent debate this is.

------
mkramlich
I've rejected Apple's ability to tell me what programming language I'm allowed
to use (whether I'm kept back in the 80's in terms of language sophistication,
for example) and I've rejected their ability to make me wait weeks only to
hear an update has been rejected for some dumb random reason which they
shouldn't care about at all. I've rejected a marketplace full of fart apps
that somehow do meet with their approval, and I've rejected a marketplace full
of dumb content which should never have been an app in the first place.

</rant>

~~~
rimantas
Too bad you did not reject an urge to rant about the things you neither care
about nor use them.

~~~
wallflower
The poster of the parent comment is a published iPhone developer with
substantial experience in delivering games and custom apps.

<http://synisma.com/iphone.html>

~~~
mkramlich
yes, thank you!

and I've sold non-iPhone software outside the App Store so I know what the
alternatives are like. It is definitely a bigger challenge getting eyeballs
but is better in most every other way.

------
edd
Can we please all wait for Apple to clarify before getting too excited at
another reason to hate the app store?

As much as a sensationalist 'Apple are evil' might help promote your product
only having one letter to go on and not waiting for a response for
clarification is really lame journalism.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
That sort of rational, reasoned approach has no place in a discussion like
this. Clearly what this situation calls for is a knee jerk reaction based on
limited information and pre-existing prejudices and I'm shocked that you could
ever think otherwise.

~~~
joezydeco
Right. Let's not preemptively collect data points. Lets wait for Apple to
clarify their mysterious positions _just because we asked them to_. I'm sure
that will happen right away.

I don't see the OP as a "knee jerk reaction" but rather a warning to everyone
else saying "hey, things might be changing again, stay alert".

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
And we should definitely take comments meant in jest as seriously as possible.

------
maushu
Wouldn't be better to have registration optional for syncing? You could still
use Read It Later without registering but only on the current platform without
syncing.

Ps: If you follow this thread of logic then Apple is right, a person doesn't
need to register to use the basic features of the application.

------
houseabsolute
Seems to probably be a benign mistake that will be rectified or clarified in
the future.

~~~
damncabbage
I wish I had your confidence. :(

------
buster
Let's face it: Apple will and can reject whatever they want for whatever
reasons and you can do nothing about (except by abandoning the appstore).

I personally couldn't invest weeks of time in an app where i can't be sure
whether it may be rejected for some stupid reason.

~~~
lzw
I have invested months confident that my app wouldn't be rejected for a stupid
reason, and i was right.

Still not aware of any apps rejected for stupid reasons. However there ares a
lot of stupid reasons spread as misinformation to make people think apple is
urneqsosnable in their review process.

Apple is pretty reasonable, even in this situation here.

------
interlock
In my experience, this is similar to the notice I got when they wanted the
submission to include information for login without registration. A resubmit
with a dumby account satisfied Apple in my case.

------
bcl
Did you forget to give Apple a demo account for the reviewer to use?

------
poundy
I am a newbie in this space. Is it better to build webapps for Twitter,
facebook and Gmail like applications that rely heavily on the data to be
downloaded? Is this the best route for web developers to take? I have seen
sencha mobile and it looks great for cross device compatibility as well
iphone/ipad/android.

~~~
edanm
Hi, being new I think it might be a good idea to tell you _why_ you're being
downvoted. You're posting a comment that is a good question, but has nothing
to do with this article. There are other places more suited for such questions
(you can post it here as an "Ask HN" thread, but there are places that talk
specifically about these kinds of issues which are even better).

------
hrktb
the situation got "fixed" at the second try
[http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/08/version-2-2-approved...](http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/08/version-2-2-approved/)

------
devin
I haven't read all of the comments on this yet, but I can would venture to
guess that Apple is planning on including their Safari 5 "Reader"
functionality in iOS in the near future. Maybe this has something to do with
it?

------
jcromartie
This is obviously a mistake on Apple's part.

------
Sapslzr
this is my favorite ff addon,

and apple may be evil, but if they products are the best, the market will buy
them, no matter what

------
kqueue
so every time an app gets refused we have to whine and blog about it? bloggers
are becoming obnoxiously louder every day.

------
chmike
Apple Store, the latest killer app !

------
letmein2
This developer is an idiot.

It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an
app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.)

Twitter, facebook, evernote, all have account features so they were approved.
Apple was crystal clear explaining this.

The poster's muddled logic and inflamatory reaction shows me why Instapaper by
Marco is a vastly superior product.

My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for
his product. Astroturfing, methinks.

~~~
credo
_> >This developer is an idiot.

>>It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use
an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.)

>>My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for
his product. Astroturfing, methinks._

I think you're being unduly harsh on this developer.

"Read it later" is an instapaper-like app and it makes perfect sense for the
app to need an account.

My understanding is that read-it-later collects no personal information other
than their read-it-later username and password.

The app has been around for more than a year. The free version of read-it-
later is ranked 22nd in productivity. I think that the developer is genuinely
concerned about the rejection and don't see this as astroturfing.

Why do you suspect the developer of harvesting user information and
astroturfing ?

 _[edit: The parent post was at 10 points around 40 minutes ago. Now it is at
-4. That is really interesting :) ]_

~~~
barrkel
It was at 6 when it was 3 minutes old, IIRC. (Or it might have been 3 at 6
minutes. What I do know is that I was struck by how oddly popular it was for a
flamebaity comment from a new account.)

~~~
fhars
And now it is at -12, as you can see by looking at the total karma of -13 for
this one-comment throwaway account. (Ha, I found an information disclosure
vulnerability in the HN codebase ;-))

