Lifted tutorial code winds up in $0.99 App Store tennis game
For some, the recently released iTennis game in the iTunes App Store looked extremely familiar -- that's because it was a rather blatant ripoff of code provided by the iCodeBlog, a site known for its free iPhone coding tutorials. The original tutorial, written by Brandon Trebitowski, was apparently compiled and submitted by Peter Sheen of BlaBlaIncTech and placed on sale for $.99USD on iTunes in late May.
Trebitowski revealed the theft through iCodeBlog yesterday, and Jonathan Siegel got in touch with us regarding the situation. As response has gotten out through iCodeBlog, there has been a backlash through both BlaBlaIncTech's site and the App Store. As a result, around 4:45 Pacific Time, the game was pulled from iTunes.
In an attempt to contact someone from BlaBlaIncTech, I headed over to the site to find no contact information except for a support chat that was spammed with nearly 15,000 comments regarding the theft. While I was writing up this post, BlaBlaIncTech removed the link to its guestbook from the front page of the site. Ten minutes later, the game was gone from the App Store. Ten minutes after that, all mention of iTennis was gone from BlaBlaIncTech's site.
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For some, the recently released iTennis game in the iTunes App Store looked extremely familiar -- that's because it was a rather blatant...
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There were apps by some folks calling themselves "App Genius" ... not content just selling on demo code, there were borrowing open source code and removing all credit, then selling it for profit. Seem to have disappeared now though, which is nice.
July 15 2009 at 1:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI was using iCodeBlog for the wonderful tutorials and it was helping me develop an application that had nothing to with the samples. Now when I try to get the second tutorial for the todo list the site is forbidden to me. How do I get access to this wonderful site? I also want to thank this blog for explaining what an irresponsible developer did causing the rest of the ethical developers the pain of not being able to access the iCodeBlog.
July 15 2009 at 9:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@ ymilord: can you tell me which sample code you mean?
July 14 2009 at 5:11 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGuys:
Apple Inc. is a business. Khalid Shaikh probably puts more money in Apple's pockets with his "dross" than any of the "gems" people are looking for.
Have you ever wondered why it is the stuff that is so "obvious" to everyone seems to be ignored with extreme prejudice by Apple? :) It is very hard to convince pretty much...anyone...to change a system that is succeeding, in spite of itself.
Remember, this is the same company that wants to charge the same cut for "In App" purchases for stuff that is either already there and "hidden" or has to be delivered and maintained on outside servers at developer expense as they do for apps they have to deliver, track and warehouse themselves :)
Why would they have a problem with a bunch of wrapped Javascript one-shot apps and a buck a piece or more, exactly?
Something to think about :)
-K
Posted By khalid.j.shaikh
Hello from Silicon Valley / Pakistan
Just saying hi.
Have a team of 6 guys in Pakistan cranking out apps. 68 so far. Going to double the team and keep going.
Love the platform.
Love you guys.
Been programming since I was 12. Am old now . Did a startup YouSendIt, got $34M in funding, but no cash out of it. I feel cheated .
http://www.iphonedevforums.com/forum/introduce-yourself/626-hello-silicon-valley-pakistan.html
Someone gave him $34M? No wonder the economy is screwed...
July 10 2009 at 9:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI wonder if this is the same guy??
http://www.linkedin.com/in/yousendit
"Khalid Shaikhâs Specialties:
Visionary Leadership, Key Partnership Development, Risk Management, Organizational Restructuring"
Looking at what that guy has achieved in his very short life, he's a true prodigy. Compared to him, Steve Jobs would now be flipping burgers at McD.
How many times are you going to inaccurately call it "theft" ? You can't steal intellectual property.
That being said, this is still pretty lame.
Apple needs to do something about this app-madness going on at the AppStore. I hear 50,000 apps and I don't think of that as a positive. How will I ever wade through all the dross to find the few gems?
Apple needs to find a way to filter or at least classify the developers so that the Khalid Shaikh's of the world land at the bottom of the pile. Perhaps part of the screen space on the appstore should be a featured app list where the slots are bid out to the developers so they can start to self-select. Serious, quality developers who have faith in their product should be willing to put some money where their mouth is. So it doesn't become an EA outpost, Apple can institute some tenure rules. Like you can't camp out on slot #1 for more than a week at a time with at least two weeks in between stints. Or something like that.
It seems that its very crappy one.
July 10 2009 at 5:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI'm a developer and I would happily pay more to get on the app store if it meant then end of developers such as Khalid Shaikh. 84 pages of useless applications is one of the reasons it is taking Apple 3 weeks to review my applications update. Developers should also be banned from releasing 50 versions of the same app (e.g. an app for every football team in the league) as it holds up the review process and can push new apps off the what's new section severely hurting sales of a new app.
July 10 2009 at 4:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply+1 vote
this guy doesn't even have decent descriptions of his application.. i guess is someone buys one or two of his apps each week; he's probably making more than most working people out there.
+1 also.
I'd actually happily pay a small fee per submission. Maybe Apple could use it as a credit towards the cut they get from sales, then successful developers wouldn't lose out on money in the long run, but the upfront cost would hopefully put off people Khalid Shaikh.
P.S. The BlaBlaIncTech web site is now "under construction".
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