Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Santa Claus fired from App Store gig
Remember Santa Live 2008, the iPhone app that provided a new animated Santa Claus video to the kids every day? Things started badly for Santa (developer Adam Majewski) shortly after the release of his app on November 14th when people found out the publisher (the Casual Game Network) was paying reviewers through Amazon's Mechanical Turk to purchase the app from the App Store, NS then leave positive reviews online.
Now the app has been pulled from the App Store by Majewski after a new fiasco -- last Friday's episode of Santa Live 2008 featured the ever-popular holiday song "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" (click opens iTunes). Apparently some parents became irate, concerned that they were going to have to explain to their little ones why grandma was killed by renegade horned ungulants.
Enough people complained about the December 5th message from Santa that Majewski yanked the app from the App Store. Anyone who has purchased the app already will be able to continue viewing the daily videos.
There are a lot of Grinches out there this Christmas!
[via iPhoneSavior]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kai said 10:24AM on 12-08-2008
Weird America.
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Think Adrian said 10:25AM on 12-08-2008
You talk, but all I hear is silliness.
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Techtistic said 10:28AM on 12-08-2008
Grinches? How about fair-play advocates and decent parents. Majewski's app deserved to fail.
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FearlessFreep said 10:28AM on 12-08-2008
You can say there's no such thing as Santa, but as for me and grandpa, we believe.
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Geoff said 10:33AM on 12-08-2008
"Apparently some parents became irate"
What a stupid, stupid country we live in. Their kids probably play GTA.
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lanejasper69 said 12:08PM on 12-08-2008
NS, I thought the same thing, I don't agree with him paying people (moron) for reviews, as this little app for the kiddies probably spoke for itself, was a cool little app already if that's your thing, but for parent to say their children were horrified by the song!!! gimme a break!!!! The see more than that on TV and video games!!! I call BS!!! My nephews (5 and 6) laugh at that song, it's silly and not violent in any way (well MAYBE the "ran over part", but by a Reindeer, seriously, wasn't a MAck Truck and she was squirted all over the highway in the song for god's sake), it's just a silly christmas song that's on the airwaves every year etc....People are stupid!!! the parent here complaining are dipshits, and the guy paying people for positive reviews on an app that probably would've done fine on it's own is also a stupid ass. Hell I think we sung that sill ditty in school!!!
'whatever!!!!!
Bob S. said 10:34AM on 12-08-2008
Did he pay for the rights to use the song?
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Hoo B said 10:50AM on 12-08-2008
So if you're between about 30-40, you grew up in the 70s and 80s, which means like the rest of the country, you sang this song happily - now that they're parents its suddenly wack? Who has time time to even think about that, much less the time to email and "complain" about it - OMG - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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lanejasper69 said 12:12PM on 12-08-2008
No shit!! I call BS, they themselves sung it in school I bet, I did, and we all laughed about ho silly it was to get ran over by a reindeer, they are making it into this horrific "slaughter-fest snuff song" BS, I call BS to the whole thing and the parents are idiots! As for the song itself, it's pretty "kitchy", and I'm sure no kids started screaming horrifically when the heard that line, BS BS BS BS BS BS!!!!!!!
eric f. said 11:10AM on 12-08-2008
Wait, Kids have iPhones and buy iPhone apps?
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Macskeeball said 11:22AM on 12-08-2008
I thought the same thing. They could be iPod touches, though.
lanejasper69 said 12:08PM on 12-08-2008
Agreed!!! Though the same here too, what a bunch of BS, the whole story!!!
We sang the song in school, the parents are lying their asses off!!!! people are so f-ing stupid these days, where's the common sense and compassion? Most people are ignorant and sue-happy idiots!
Scott said 11:34AM on 12-08-2008
I'm about 4 poorly-written fluff pieces away from removing TUAW from my RSS reader. 3, after this post.
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mannymix said 3:25PM on 12-08-2008
god forbid that tuaw is removed off your high and mighty list of feeds.
Without you reading they will prob. have to shut down the site.
Seriously, no one cares about what you read or don't, if you don't like it don't read/comment.
Scott said 5:36PM on 12-08-2008
Silly me for assuming that "Comment" meant I should comment.
VanillaSpice said 6:37PM on 12-08-2008
Well, you can comment, but having done so you cannot expect others not to comment (positively or negatively) back at you.
I suspect that Manny is just feeling like many of us do when we see - yet another - person saying "this article no good" or "I've had it with these types of articles" ... we are amazed that people still don't know how blogs work.
Blogs have many many articles, you're not meant to read ALL of them, you're only meant to read those that are obviously going to interest you. For e.g. I have no interest in GTD, I don't use Parallels, and I am not personally interested in Apple Store openings.
So, I just avoid articles about those topics. Easy, quick and painless. What I don't do, is open up those articles, go to the comments section, and say, "one more article about GTD and I am out of here!" because I respect the fact that other readers clearly appreciate those articles.
Scott said 7:03PM on 12-08-2008
@Vanilla,
I would agree with that response if my criticism were directed at TUAW's selection of subject matter in the abstract. That wasn't the point of my criticism. I'm not saying there should be less articles about iPhone apps. In fact, I'm quite interested in that subject. My problem is with the average quality of *all* the stories that appear here. I think we're kidding ourselves if we deny that there hasn't been a steep decline in overall quality over the law few months, (no) thanks in large part to losing Scott McNulty and Erica Sadun. I expressed my dissatisfaction in response to this *particular* blog post because it was an especially good example of the decline.
Did my original comment contribute in a positive way to this terrible post? Of course not — it was a total gripe comment. I don't *expect* that people like Manny won't respond in kind. But I'll return the mockery when they do. Hey, it's the Internet — this is where we get our petty irritations off of our chest.
VanillaSpice said 11:42PM on 12-08-2008
Well that is fair enough, Scott; although I would suggest that complaints of TUAW as a whole are probably better directed at the TUAW direct contact line rather than at just one of the articles representative of your complaint.
I personally disagree that there has been a drop in quality ... but I miss Erica's articles, too.
Shunnabunich said 11:49AM on 12-08-2008
A glorious blow has been struck for political correctness. And, y'know, against actual humans, but not that that ever mattered.
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Kento Ito said 12:21PM on 12-08-2008
Expect Apple to fire up it's KILL SWITCH any time now.
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