
Steve Jobs personally rejects FreedomTime iPhone app (2008) - wallflower
http://www.juggleware.com/blog/2008/09/steve-jobs-writes-back/
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raganwald
I read it as saying that Steve personally _explained_ a rejection. And as for
letting the market decide (dons Asbestos):

1\. The market does decide. There's Android, Palm, Blackberry, and Zune
(rebranded as Windows for some reason) to provide options. Vote with your
wallet.

2\. I have worked in Retail. Retails stores choose their products very
carefully. What you carry is part of your brand. Sure Apple is the store and
not the app, but they're still a store closely associated with their brand-
sensitive product and thus they behave like a company carefully managing their
brand.

Ok, have at it. But before you waste me with lectures about how Apple has some
sort of moral obligation to lose money or why they're idiots for not doing the
smart thing, please try to think of them as being an "opinionated" hardware
manufacturer that is so opinionated they make their own OS.

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seldo
You are right to say that the quality of the merchandise affects the brand of
the store, and that's the problem with the App Store model: Apple has
implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) taken responsibility for the quality and
content of apps in the store.

But the iPhone is not just a store, it's also a platform. Sometimes shitty
software is the only choice you have. Sometimes you want to do something most
people would consider offensive with your device.

The lack of an (authorized) way for consumers to load apps onto their phone
independently of the App Store is leading to continuous PR problems for Apple,
alternately with consumers for hosting offensive apps or developers for
rejecting inoffensive ones.

Apple needs to turn the App Store into a premium distribution channel (most
people will still find their apps via the store) but create an unregulated
channel for installing apps. Otherwise people will slowly migrate to platforms
that are less restrictive, like Android.

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ynniv
_The lack of an (authorized) way for consumers to load apps onto their phone
independently of the App Store is leading to continuous PR problems for Apple_

Step out of the echo chamber. The only people complaining are the tiny
minority of customers who happen to be developers.

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Zak
People who can't use their Google Voice service, make Skype calls on 3G[0] or
tether their laptops to their iphones _are_ complaining. Those are still a
more technically sophisticated audience, but they're not developers.

Long-term, what I think will end up being a bigger issue is the apps that
aren't even written for the iPhone out of fear of rejection. Once Android
captures a bit more of the market, I think we'll start seeing a lot of high-
quality apps coming to Android first because developers know they're not going
to be blocked.

[0] Yes I know that has changed or is changing soon

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schwanksta
For the vast majority of iPhone users, whatever exists in the store is just
fine and dandy, and while not being able to use Google Voice natively etc
might be an annoyance, the probability that an average user is

a) aware that an app they might use often has been actively rejected from the
store and b) feel that the functionality provided by said app is important
enough to switch phones to have

seems pretty low. The fact that you read a site like HN and know the dramas
surrounding rejected apps colors your thoughts on the subject heavily.

And tethering isn't there -- AFAIK -- because of AT&T, not because of Apple.

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semanticist
Tethering is available for the iPhone - it just needs the carrier to activate
it.

The carriers in the UK offer tethering (for an extra fee, of course).

~~~
raganwald
Rogers/Fido up here in Canada doesn't charge extra for tethering. Mind you, I
don't have an unlimited data plan, so I guess they don't care how I use my
bandwidth since I'm paying for it.

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jfi
I think Mr. Job's "What's the point" is more saying that AAPL risks having 50%
of it's customers ticked off by this app (and in this day, anything and
everything can and will get blown out of proportion) - what is AAPL potential
upside? Not much. One more app in it's 70k+ library and a drop in the revenue
ocean if this is a paid for app. I completely agree that The Market should
decide, but this isn't a free market unfortunately. APPL is in a position of
power to weigh the risk vs reward of letting a new app into the arena and
unfortunately gave the thumbs down ... no offense, but in this case I think it
is smart business move on their part, but I realize how frustrating / unfair
it is for the individual developer as well.

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xenophanes
Steve Jobs wrote:

> Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app
> will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What’s the point?

The point is that some customers would like it and buy it. Duh. The motto
should be make stuff that (some) people want, not make only things that
everyone wants.

The people who don't like it (which happens to include me) should just ignore
it along with the thousands of other apps they don't want. TV channels publish
more offensive political speech all the time, and we consider that a good
thing and we're proud of the free speech in our country.

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jkincaid
Sort of neat, but this is from September 2008. The author's conclusion that
this was a "good omen" was a little off the mark — many developers can't get
_anyone_ to answer their questions, much less Apple's CEO.

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colinplamondon
That's just not true anymore- people keep repeating this, but the 'can't get
an answer to emails' problem has been largely solved over the past three
months. This is from someone who had an app in review for nine months- the
problem is almost entirely in the past.

Review times are super quick, questions are responded to quickly, and
rejections are almost always due to QA failures on the dev side.

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castis
Article from 2008

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wallflower
Yes, I decided to post it anyway because the AppStore of 2010 is still the
same and more dominant.

The best comment on that blog post in my opinion:

> On the response What you’ve asked Jobs to do is personally modify this
> decision. He’s going to have to take responsibility for that action. He’s
> going to have to call someone out and override the opinion of a subordinate.
> It won’t go unnoticed or unanalyzed. Given that it’s Jobs, he might even be
> analyzed in the media for the decision. It’s not likely, but when people are
> parsing every word you probably spend a bit more time wondering how the
> world will interpret your actions. Look, you’ve asked someone to do
> something for you that could potentially be seen by half his customers as a
> bad thing.

What’s the point of him doing so much for you, when there so little to be
gained by it?

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motters
This is old news, but it does illustrate the problem with locked down systems
like the iPhone, where a single organization has total control over your
computing experience. Personally, I would never buy an iPhone for precisely
this sort of reason, instead preferring something like an Android device.

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smokey_the_bear
When I at Google, I remember that they explicitly stated that they did not
review iGoogle gadgets or toolbar buttons for content, at all. Because that
might lead to some kind of liability, but I don't know how.

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Concours
oops, server ressources exceeded, couldn't read the article. Any cache version
around?

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megablahblah
How did he get Steve Job's email address?

~~~
lallysingh
steve@apple.com

(seriously)

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megablahblah
Fair enough. I'm sure that address works and someone reads it, but I would
imagine there is an alias address that he actually uses on a day-to-day basis
for any meaningful exchanges.

I suppose this one might have caught someone's eye and he responded, but I'm
surprised.

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GHFigs
_September 23rd, 2008_

