

Apple withdraws objection, Eucalyptus now available on the App Store - mikedouglas
http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/hither-eucalyptus

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zimbabwe
Steven Frank of Panic said it best:

"Of course, it’s not all bad. As everyone knows, the iPhone app submission
process works like this: Develop app / Submit app / App rejected / Blogs raise
a stink / App approved. So, these guys are merely mired in step 4 and we can
look forward to their app being approved within a week or two."

~~~
andrewljohnson
Our app got accepted immediately, and was developed by someone who had never
done an iPhone app before. It's pretty simple if your app isn't controversial
and you are good at following directions.

~~~
wooster
I submitted 12 almost identical applications (code was identical, data was
not). They were all approved.

Then, I submitted updates for all 12 of these applications. 2 were rejected.

These were city maps, so it's not like they were controversial. The process is
just broken.

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ghshephard
On the flip side, this may have possibly been the most effective promotional
strategy he could have hoped for.

Prior to all of the sound and fury being raised, what do you think the odds of
me purchasing a $9.99 Book Reader for my iPhone was going to be?

But, I saw the video, read _tons_ of books on my iPhone, and am actually going
to make my first $9.99 iPhone App Purchase.

And he has Apple to thank for my Purchase (or at least bringing the app to my
attention.)

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martythemaniak
I wonder how many developers get fucked over by Apple without being able to
generate the press that this and other apps in the same situation were able
to.

~~~
jsz0
Probably not many, if any at all. Sites love to carry these stories because
they almost always degrade into flame wars which is great for your hits & ad
impressions. A developer merely needs to write a paragraph long e-mail and CC
4 or 5 popular tech tabloids.

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daeken
Yet again, Apple allows an app after getting a black eye in the press. I'm
shocked.

~~~
frossie
Quality Control via The Blogosphere. That's one way of crowd-sourcing, eh? :-)

~~~
derefr
This process could actually be formalized. Picture each app submission coming
with "references", like on a resume: well-known beta testers that Apple will
phone up or email and ask what they thought of the app.

It seems like this is how the reviewing effort _should_ be balanced between
the reviewer and the reviewee, actually: developers want to be "hired"
(published), but Apple doesn't care much to "hire" (publish) a merely-mediocre
developer. The developers should be tasked with providing Apple good reasons
to "hire" them, or, more neutrally, good, hard customer data upon which to
base their decisions.

~~~
wooster
Jamie worked at Apple. So did I. So did the guys who did the iReddit app.
We've all had rejections, and it's not like nobody at Apple knows who we are.

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boundlessdreamz
Thank God. It was nice app. It would have been a shame if apple hadn't
corrected it.

Hopefully a day will come when develpers can get the attention of apple
without a big hue and cry

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xenophanes
Are the people who said Apple is "Evil" going to withdraw the insult now?
Apple may be a little bit of a bumbling fool, but that's not evil. If Apple
knew how to avoid these things happening, surely they'd do it.

~~~
tralfam
Thousands of people saw Apple's bad move when this story made its way across
the web. Apple doesn't think twice when it's someone small who can't make a
fuss.

It's the same kind of deal we saw with the Google Checkout story a couple
months ago. Honest people get caught up in overzealous protection methods and
companies just take it as a loss.

Search for "iPhone app rejected" and you will see this isn't an isolated
incident. A lot of the rejected apps probably broke the rules, but plenty have
not, and Apple doesn't seem to care unless they have a big soapbox to shout
from.

Textbook "evil", no. But, it wouldn't be hard to stop these things. Apple
takes a calculated approach because they know the few wrongfully rejected apps
won't cost them as much money as implementing a beefier review process across
their whole app store. When this policy gets bad press by influential
bloggers, like with this app, they can spend a minimal amount of resources to
reevaluate the app. It's cold and calculated.

~~~
xenophanes
By "easy to stop" you mean "costs so much money (i.e. human effort) as to be
even more costly than bad PR", in other words "takes TONS of effort to stop".

~~~
tralfam
I have no idea where you are pulling these quotes from. I said none of those
things.

I said said they could stop it if they wanted to. It might cost a little
extra, but it also wouldn't completely screw over a bunch of small developers.
Developers who already paid money to Apple and further invested their time and
money into making an application.

Based of how prevalent iPhone app rejections are, you would think the least
Apple could do would be to release a comprehensive list of things they do not
like.

Would it really cost 'TONS' of effort just to create a set of guidelines and
stick to them?

~~~
xenophanes
you said

> Textbook "evil", no. But, it wouldn't be hard to stop these things. Apple
> takes a calculated approach because they know the few wrongfully rejected
> apps won't cost them as much money as implementing a beefier review process

in other words, you advocate spending more money on reviews. how much? an
amount that costs more than the bad PR. you say this explicitly.

how much is "more than the bad PR"? quite a lot. you and i both agree the PR
is a big deal.

