App Store Lessons: the game changer rejection

So weird. Apple is acting like Big Brother in a creepy way that matches their first big popular commercial.

Will another OS/Computer maker come running to our rescue and smash a hammer into Apple's (Job's) App-Banning face on the big screen as the fan-boy drones stare vacantly at their overlord?

I miss the old Apple.

I'm out of touch: when did Erica Sadun come back to TUAW?

Maybe it's because Chuck Norris jokes were never funny.

Clearly you'd know exactly what 220 Apps that I would find useful? I'm sure the 40 million users out there are dying to know what 220 Apps you will allow us all to use?

Please, sir, enlighten us!

While your at it, why not tell me what 220 songs I can listen to and what 220 TV shows, movies I can see, and what 220 books I can read!

I downloaded the app about a month ago and it had bunch of racist jokes in it. One of them was:

"Why do Iraqis only have 2 pallbearers at their funerals? Becasue garbage cans only have 2 handles."

Not hard to see why this stupid thing was rejected.

More apps need to be rejected, and garbage like that needs to be taken down from the app store if it's already in there.

To assure people have their freedom to release and install garbage, there should be a non-app store method of installing apps.

In the meantime, I'd rather the app store underwent a major purge of crapware. I like having my crap pre-filtered.

why can't the 2% who want a joke book and to be asinine douches at the bar reading jokes from an iphone spend their money on what they want?
why can't the developers make money off those 2%?
I note that the computer software industry hasn't collapsed when there are plenty of pointless and shoddy applications in boxes on shelves everywhere.
maybe it's because most people read reviews and do a little research before buying something. and if not, then caveat emptor, shopping for apps drunk at 5am got you a fart simulator for $0.99, lesson learned.

Rejections like these have a broader negative impact on iPhone development. Every story where Apple pulls some random BS (like blocking a 3rd party browser that can view porn while letting Safari access that same site) and now this ("We don't want to publish this app. Please write another one and try again.") makes developers and people funding developers to think twice about starting a project.

This is because you can't find out if and for what reason (if any) Apple may choose to decline to publish your application ONLY AFTER you have spent 100% of the money to develop the application.

And you're only avenue of appeal is a black hole, as you are explicitly denied publicly mentioning if and/or when your application has been rejected by Apple (which this developer has violated).

As a hobbyist developer, and someone who wrote native apps many months before the app store opened, I have to say the Apple process has been extremely disappointing.

Their rules, lies and arbitrary behavior has meant that even though I've been approved since last August, I haven't put up anything for sale. The Newton wasn't this closed. Windows Mobile isn't this closed. Palm wasn't this closed.

While they've provided a nice marketplace, they've really discouraged the creativity and potential they could have tapped that had already formed around the iPhone in the development world, and instead encouraged the continuation of jailbreaking, and outside development.

It will be interesting to see how Palm handles the Pre going from 0 to rooted much, much faster than the iPhone, and contrast their attitudes with Apple's.

I am surprised this wasn't blamed on at&t like every other iPhone issue.

What's the big deal, can't the developer just build and host a webpage with the jokes. I mean it's a work around.... (After reading that ridiculous work around with the pocket verizon router just to avoid and stick it to AT&T I thought a solution like that would be posed by TUAW.)