

Apple shuts down Podcaster, again - nikils
http://almerica.blogspot.com/2008/09/apple-shuts-down-podcaster-again.html

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mattmaroon
I found the original post text just by putting their URL into Google Reader.
Gotta love web-based RSS aggregators that cache. Here it is:

It seems that Apple has shut me down. I can no longer provision any more
devices. The developers website that had a "remove device" link is now gone. I
looked at the help tab but it still lists "removing a device" as one of the
options. I guess Apple just shut my account down. I believe that all the
copies of Podcaster I released will keep running. I will try to make an update
and test it on my iPhone. If it works, I will release it to every user. I
would recommend keeping version 1.0.8b around just in case.

On a more serious note, what does this mean for me? All I wanted was for
someone from Apple to contact me and tell me how we can work it out so that I
get into the app store. Instead, Apple took the cowards way out by simply
disabling features in my developers portal. This seems like a childish move
for a company that has been proving such high quality service and products in
the past.

I plan to make Podcaster for the Android operating system. At least there, I
will be welcomed instead of being walked all over. I will also try to port the
app to a jailbroken iPhone.

So a final note to developers. Try to stay out of Apples grey area. Don't
build anything that would compete with Apple. Don't spend too much time before
you submit to the app store because it could be all for nothing.

P.S. Podcaster got a 4.3 our of 5 star from 63 reviews. You can read them at
<http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx>

UPDATE: I just wanted to add that I am not surprised that Apple has stopped
me. The application seems to still be working and can still be installed if
you signed up before 9/22/08 Midnight EST. If you are one of these people and
still want to try it, email almerica@gmail.com I will also be making updates
to the application and will still fix a lot of the issues users have bene
having. Give me about a week.

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SirWart
I think the most telling word in that post was "childish." Apple probably has
legitimate concerns here, but by simply shutting him off instead of talking
with him directly they are really missing an opportunity to develop loyalty
with app developers.

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dunk010
Apple are doing this to a lot of people. Surely this is anti-competitive?

~~~
colinplamondon
Seriously?

iPhone has 1% of the market, they've got another 79% to go before we're even
in the ballpark of antitrust.

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silencio
1% of what market? Last I checked the iPhone had a wee bit more than 1% of the
smartphone market.

~~~
Flemlord
Hilarious. You're assuming the DOJ is actually trying to prevent monopolies;
it seems to me their main motivation is responding to pressure from Congress
and corporate lobbyists. If Apple were called into their offices to defend
their market share, they would say something like "we have .001 percent of the
mobile devices market. This market includes anything with a wireless
connection, like laptops and all cellular phones." The DOJ would say "Ok,
sounds good to us. No monopoly issues here." (Unless, of course, some powerful
Congressperson was pounding on them, trying to cause headaches for Apple..)

As an example, the DOJ just let the only two satellite radio companies merge
(Sirius and XM). They allowed them to define the market as "anything that can
broadcast music". The market included all normal over-the-air radio stations,
internet radio, and (for all I know) iTunes. By that definition, XM and Sirius
only owned .01% of the "anything that can broadcast" market, so there were no
antitrust issues.

I got a personal look at this when I sold my last company; we were bought by a
competitor and the DOJ called us in to evaluate the merger and determine
whether there were any anti-trust issues. We defined the market in the
broadest terms possible and got absolutely no resistance from them. (Granted,
even had we defined the market in narrow terms we still should have been ok.)
To this day I'm amazed at how tractable they were.

The system is broken.

~~~
silencio
Actually, I think you meant to reply to my parent post. I don't disagree with
you. I'm really seething mad over the Apple app store and iPhone bullshit
(guess how many ignored/closed radars i have regarding iPhone and iPhone sdk
right now?) and even moreso because a lot of my friends are worried about
their future in iPhone development.

But I'm really curious as to 1% of what my parent post was talking about. Not
ANYTHING ELSE related to monopolies and damned statistics.

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gstar
This is going to be a PR disaster for apple, from a developers point of view.
He may have been asked to pull the blog post until they get time to talk to
him about it.

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silencio
You'd think it was a PR disaster a long time ago. Right now it's just tons of
seething anger and frustration and stress. I have a fair number of friends
worried about their current and future contract work because of the way Apple
is handling things.

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mpk
For anyone interested, the blog appears to have belonged to the author of
Podcaster. The cached url is
[http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.b...](http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.blogspot.com/)
.

It doesn't contain the last post, though.

I'm curious to see how this develops.

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KirinDave
Did the author take down the post because of the NDA requirements or because
it is a retraction or...? What?

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khangtoh
Apple Do no Evil

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trezor
They even removed the _story_ about Podcaster being shut down!

So... Anyone have a mirror/cache or whatever handy? Google cache is failing on
this one.

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ovi256
Yup, I can confirm, the blog isn't there as of 23 Sept 2008 21:10 GMT+1.

