Monday morning App Store shenanigans, NIN: Access edition

Another day, another app store rejection. Who cares? Historically this will get resolved in the next day or so anyway but in the meantime, every fanboy or anti-Appleite gets all up tight about how Apple is inconsistent, or decency and parental controls, and how everybody should move to Cydia, blah blah blah. That still doesn't change the fact that you're still buying Apple hardware.

I gotta play devil's advocate here and wonder if this drama is actually artificially created to keep us Apple faithful talking about the iPhone and the app store in general. Short of Steve Jobs dying, any hype, good or bad, at the end of the day, is good for Apple. They know the blogs will report the slightest "misstep" or the sticky for the Apple store "going down for maintenance" or whatever. It's a soap opera for Apple nerds.

Sounds a lot like Flying Rider to me...

over 1 billion downloads...i don't think Apple gives a Sh&t about what you think of their process.

The Golden Rule: The one with the Gold makes the the rules

Maybe when another competent App Store comes out (not like the App World or Android Market) and they allow stuff like this, then Apple will start making some revisions.

Another point: If they rated apps as Mature Audiences Only, the App Store would turn into a porn shop. It would be no surprise that developers would recognize that a MATURE ONLY app would make much more money. All sorts of porn, killing, vulgar, profane apps would be unleashed...and after a few weeks we'd find ourselves in the same argument: "Why won't Apple allow Anal Penetration when they allow Frontal Nudity" blah blah blah.

Stop calling Apple a Totalitarian state. Just like in all democracies, there needs to be some sort of government. It took a hell of a long time to establish our written out rules and a hell of a lot of money (money in which Apple has no interest in spending, clearly). Stop demanding Anarchy from the App Store. Just like in America, if you hate it so much then get out. If you hate the App store so much, stop using it and stop developing for it.

-Apple Developer whose App is currently being held for further review

Here's a solution:

RESUBMIT THE APP!

The app approval depnds on the approver. Some of the approvers at Apple may find the content objectional and reject it, while another person looking at the same app do not find the content objectional and approves it.

This is what happened to Tweetie 1.3 update.

It basically something out of a famous Nordstrom one card employee handbook:

Welcome to Nordstrom

We're glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.
Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

For Apple's app store approval people, there's only one rule: use good judgement. no other guidelines, nothing.

@Derrick: Does Amazon get into trouble because of the contents of the books it sells? It does seem to arbitrarily remove batches of books whenever a particular special-interest group whines about content, but I've never heard of a lawsuit against Amazon for book content.

Apple's gatekeeper approach to the iPhone is one of the reasons I ditched the iPhone for another platform. Imagine if Apple took the same approach with Mac software: People would be screaming!

If Apple comes out with the "perfect" tablet device--but it runs the stripped down iPhone OS X that requires Apple's blessing to code for--I would never buy it. I cannot imagine buying a general-purpose, programmable computing device where I would have to wait for the blessing of the OEM in order to load my software on it. (If the device isn't "extensible," like the earlier-generation iPods, that's a different story altogether.)

In the age of open-source software and as a developer I am very discouraged by Apple's totalitarian approach to its consumer hardware. Clearly the jailbreaking community agrees--but I don't want to give Apple the benefit of my money for such devices, no matter how good the hardware is. I do not want to encourage this new behavior on Apple's part.

(Please note that I am not Apple-bashing. I'm bashing Apple's specific policy of developer and software approval.)

you know all this stuff really got out of hand when steve left apple i wonder and i hope that when steve gets back he can hope over see this crap processes and fix it

It was a stupefyingly bad decision on Apple's part not to allow any app at all on the App Store--even at the risk of spreading malware or offending someone. Now, Apple is judged by both its own inconsistent rules and the particular morals of whomever is doing the judging. Apple cannot possibly please everyone in the situation it has created for itself and so is in a no-win scenario.

Apple would have been far better off creating a mechanism where anything can be listed, but certain apps get the Apple Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Additionally, apps could get rated on a few attributes by users themselves. E.g., "Offensive," "Malware," "Crashes," etc.

As it stands, Apple is appearing to wield power haphazardly like a blunt instrument... which is a Microsoft trait.

That's "flummoxed". :)

"another App Store scandal"

You need either a dictionary or a better sense of perspective.

I expect no less than a full jail braking instructions article on the NIN site.

The iPhone and iPod touch are like luxury sports cars. When they are jail broken they are like luxury sports cars with wheels.

There is no morals involved here, it just concern about apps cutting into their sales.