Apple Bans iPhone App For Competing With Mail.app

recoiledsnake writes "Another submission has been rejected from the iPhone App Store, this time for 'duplicating the functionality of the iPhone Mail application.' The author claims that his application allows the user to log into their multiple web email accounts and that Apple seems to be confusing Gmail and Mail.app. This comes on the heels of Apple rejecting an application for competing with iTunes and rejecting other silly but harmless apps as being of 'limited utility.'" ComputerWorld has an update to the rejected Podcaster app mentioned above. It seems the developer has used Apple's "Ad Hoc" service to begin distributing the software despite the fact that they blocked it from the App Store.

"Duplicating functionality"

Isn't duplicating functionality the basis for competition? The 45 different flashlight applications don't exactly support the claim that duplicate functionality is why these applications were rejected.

Seems to me like they're trying to reserve the right to develop their own alternative to any application on the store and pull the third party version. Don't you just love closed platforms?

Re:"Duplicating functionality"

Even if I don't support it in any case, it is about duplication of *apple's* software functionality. So it doesn't matter if there are 45 versions of flashlight apps, apple doesn't have one so they don't care. When you start to design your music player, mail and itunes app, then you get into the problems.

But by using a different distribution method (jailbroken device + cydia or installer.app) you could duplicate the functionality of apple's own apps.

Re:"Duplicating functionality"

Part of the problem is that Apple hasn't built their existing applications to be removable, so even if they allowed the these competing apps they'd still be competing against entrenched applications (like IE on Windows).

Now, I don't think it's quite as bad as IE on Windows, but only because at this point it's sort of in a middle-ground between a real handheld computer and an embedded system. But still, Apple should just treat it like a real handheld system, allow competing applications, open all the APIs and allow their applications to be removed.

Apple declares: "Fuck it, we're evil"

"Fuck it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. [today.com] But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it's pretty and it's cool and it works. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!"

From TFA

⦠Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. â¦

So the 30 different versions of Voice Notes is acceptable, since it doesn't compete with Apple, but having two versions of mail applications are unacceptable?

What bothers me more than this is that the AppStore restricts any frameworks that one _could_ use to write good applications, like movie players (CoreSurface) and programs that interact with iTunes. If you look at older versions of the firmware, these were all public frameworks until the AppStore rolled out.

Life Without Walls

You know, this is one area Microsoft could really do some damage to Apple in their "I'm a PC" movement. And, (wait for it...) they'd be right to do it!

The iPhone is one of the most draconian platforms ever produced for a consumer market, gradually stripping away more and more of the end-users rights and abilities until they all become a singular monolithic platform where no one user has capabilities other users do not. This is probably the furthest thing away from what Steve Woziak envisioned when he developed the first personal computer.

Strange how the company he originally co-founded on the idea of bringing personal computing to the masses is now pushing the masses toward a mainframe/dumb terminal relationship with their computers.

When you look at the direction the iPhone has taken, it scares me to think what future technologies like cloud computing could end up as, if they developed from this same context.

I'm not suggesting that Microsoft is now the "good guy" in all this, but when their methods of locking everything down seem relatively minor when compared to the Apple Inc. way of doing things, something has definitely gone in the land of Jobs.

Re:iphone is a police state

It's a general-purpose computer that's been DRM-infected to hell.

It's what Trusted Computing would actually be like: capricious, arbitrary and overpriced [today.com].

Re:iphone is a police state

http://code.google.com/android/ [google.com]

Android is not an iPhone killer

Android certainly has potential, but so far I see a number of things that prevent it from being an iPhone killer.

First off, it's entirely Java based. This is just plain silly. Why not have the APIs with bindings for Java? Google has completely cut off other languages. Furthermore, while speed normally isn't an issue with Java these days, there is overhead. Could one really build the X-Plane[1] simulator in Java like they did for the iPod? It's pretty CPU and i/o intensive (calculating force vectors and loading textures, building 3-d models etc, at 30 frames a second). While the iPhone's SDK is mainly objective-C (which I think is pretty silly too), there are a number of languages that you can use to develop with including Python, using an objC bridge. Currently this is not the case with Android. It's only Java. Part of what made the iPhone and Touch so cool early on was that they were little unix systems and one could install python or ruby or any other language and hack together neat scripts and things. Of course Apple has kind of put an end to much of that though, with their official SDK. While Python and probably Ruby can be used, the guts of the iPhone are once again off-limits. It may as well not even be a unix system anymore for all the good it does developers and users. Very sad. Android is open and happens to be able to run on a Linux core, but with core APIs all in Java, there's currently no way to interface from a shell script or to build ad-hoc applications. JPython isn't the solution either since Android's jvm is completely incompatible with Sun's and JPython emits bytecode directly.

Secondly, I have yet to see that Android really does support multi-touch operations. Demos I've seen so far look fairly conventional, using buttons to zoom, and so forth. I've also seen a fair number of pop-up menus in use in Android apps, which just don't work as well as the way that most iPhone apps typically do it. Perhaps this is mainly do to the poor way in which the UIs have been constructed in the Android apps that I've seen video demos of.

[1] http://www.x-plane.com/iPhone.html [x-plane.com]

Re:iphone is a police state

When was a device built by Apple a democratic system? If I have a party do I have to invite everyone even if I do not like them?? Certainly not..

In short.. If you do not like the iPhone, then dont buy one. That is your right, and Apple is not holding a gun to your head. What they are trying to do, however, is to provide the experience that they want and not yours. If that means that they hurt some people's feelings along they way, then they seem fine with that... Personally, I am too...

Apple ][ was open.

When was a device built by Apple a democratic system?

Just to answer, when the Apple ][ was sold, the documentation included full schematics and a listing of the ROM. It also included a section on how to build an interface card that would work in one of the 8 slots. I don't think I have owned a machine that was more open than the Apple ][.

Re:iphone is a police state

When was a device built by Apple a democratic system?

Oh I don't know, the entire Mac range?
I can run any software I please on my MacBook Pro, even format and install Windows or Linux if I want. On an iPhone, I can only run Apple-approved software, unless the phone is jailbroken.

24 years after their iconic '1984' ad, Apple look like hypocrites with their complete about-face on the iPhone.

Re:iphone is a police state

I wish Google or someone would come out with a phone which is based on a completely open OS like Linux and where people can write their own programs and so on for it.

What you want is an HTC Dream. It's being released Oct 17.

Re:iphone is a police state

You know, while I resent and dislike this scenario for all the same reasons most people here do, I have to think about this from the other side of it. My CEO loves his MacBook pro. He loves it so much, last year, he got Macs for the whole family and bought every Apple device to support it -- airports and the like -- and went full-bore Apple at home and didn't look back. It was total commitment. It was part experiment and part disgust and frustration with the misery that Windows brings.

Apple works to keep confusion out of the Apple world. They do this by controlling the environment carefully. It is imperfect in areas; faults and holes are found and closed. And it is speculative to say that Apple excludes things for anti-competitive reasons, but it is unquestionable that they do work to control the environment. But for many people, the results of this provides exactly the experience people are seeking out of Apple.

And I think the fact that Apple's philosophy exists in the form it does is useful if for no reason than to observe the practices and the results they yield.

Apple isn't in 100% control though. Apple HAS to allow Microsoft to behave like assholes in their world. By that, I am specifically talking about the difficulty of setting up Entourage to connect to a Microsoft Exchange server using SSL without getting the invalid certificate error. It's a Microsoft app and a Microsoft server. You'd think they would be able to get it right but for whatever reason, Microsoft hasn't fixed it. If Apple had their way, they would exclude Microsoft entirely from their environment... it just wouldn't be a wise business decision. Microsoft applies other limitations and broken behaviors in its products for Apple as well. This is not something that Apple easily tolerates... but they will from Microsoft and probably from Adobe as well.

Other opinions aside, I find it interesting to observe the various dynamics surrounding Apple's philosophies applied.

Re:iphone is a police state

Just what is expected of Apple fans: Denial. Obviously the iPhone isn't a police state. For one, it isn't a state. That should make it clear that you're looking at an analogy. The programs are the people of that "state", and they are indeed censored and controlled by Apple.

Unfortunately the central authority model is on the rise everywhere: Even Mozilla has its one stop shop which is tightly integrated into Mozilla's products and where developers are at the mercy of the admins (without the DRM though).

Re:iphone is a police state

Unfortunately the central authority model is on the rise everywhere:

It's the mainframe mentality expressed on a global level. And yes, it's unnerving, particularly for someone like me who was there thirty-odd years ago when the personal computer was born, and has long since been accustomed to doing whatever the hell I want with my systems.

Re:iphone is a police state

And yet I can still slam Apple on online forums and while phoning friends while using an iPhone.

Except for Apples forums, they can't handle criticism even if its just an attempt to resolve a problem.

Re:iphone is a police state

Wow. Melodramatic much? How about you just cut to the quick and drop a reference to Nazis or Hitler so we can be done with this thread right off the bat...

Oh, and for the record, it's "iPhone" - lower case "i", upper case "p". If you're going to claim it's the next biggest evil of technology, at least spell it correctly.

You're a spelling Nazi. Heck, even worse, you are a so-in-love-with-Apple-that-can't-stand-wrong-capitalization-of-Apple-products-Nazi.

Happy now?

Re:Why should Apple open up?

Because it's pissing people off in a way that's bad PR, firstly to the developers and secondly to the users. There's a reason why so many of the latter have jail-broken their iPhones - Trusted Computing sucks to be bent over for.

Re:Why should Apple open up?

It's Apple's platform, Apple's SDK, and Apple's store. Why should they allow any product on the shelf that competes with their own business? Why should they allow useless products? You don't get mad at Best Buy for not selling maps to Circuit City. You don't get mad at Circuit City for not selling empty cardboard boxes for $999. Why should Apple's store be any different?

I am an Apple fan to the highest degree, but this has to be the stupidest analogy I've ever heard. It's one thing for Apple to ban apps that violate privacy, harm the network, or even that go against AT&T's TOS (like the tethering app). But to ban an app that competes with Apple's free included apps? If Best Buy won't sell your software, you can always try getting Circuit City to sell it or if that doesn't work, sell it from your own site and pay for advertising. If Apple won't sell your app on the App Store, you have no alternative. I have a regular old Samsung flip phone on the Sprint network. The included web browser sucks. I went over to Operamini.com. downloaded it, and now I have a great browser. Apple would never allow a competing browser,

Re:Why should Apple open up?

It's Apple's platform, Apple's SDK, and Apple's store. Why should they allow any product on the shelf that competes with their own business?

How does a product that they would sell in their own app store compete with their business, pray tell? They are the gatekeeper. Any application could, potentially, help them sell more iPhones if it's good enough, and at the very least, they make money from the sale of the app. Even free apps encourage people to go to the app store, thus increasing the odds they'll buy something.

Why should they allow useless products?

Like 100 flashlight applications? Like the "I am Rich" application? Like more failing social networks then you can shake a stick at? I'm failing to understand how apple has prevented useless products from arriving at the app store.

You don't get mad at Best Buy for not selling maps to Circuit City. You don't get mad at Circuit City for not selling empty cardboard boxes for $999. Why should Apple's store be any different?

Because, if I choose to buy a piece of electronics, Best Buy is not my only option. I can choose to go somewhere else. If Apple restricts an app for no viable reason, then I have no recourse. If I own an iPhone, I am absolutely restricted by the whims of Apple, and that is absolutely ridiculous. They call the iPhone a platform, then they need to treat it as a platform. Since you sound like a Mac person, let me ask you this: What if Apple came out with their own massively powerful graphics editor, and then they told Adobe to take a hike because Photoshop was competing with their app on OS X. No one would stand for that. Yet everyone seems to accept it on the iPhone. It's unacceptable. [For the purposes of disclosure - I do own an iPhone and I do own a MacBook running OS X, so I'm definitely not Anti-Apple. This whole App Store thing, though, is incredibly dangerous precedent and disturbs me greatly.]

Re:Why should Apple open up?

It's Apple's platform, Apple's SDK, and Apple's store.

It's also my iPhone (were I to have bought one).

Why should they allow any product on the shelf that competes with their own business?

What are they selling Mail.app for these days? Oh, wait - it's included for free. So, let's rephrase your question so that it makes sense: why should they allow any product on the shelf that enhances part of the OS? Answer: because then it makes their OS more attractive to users. This is generally regarded as a good thing. At least they thought so when they offered Firefox for OS X for download [apple.com] from their own site, even though Firefox "competes" with their own Safari.

You don't get mad at Best Buy for not selling maps to Circuit City. You don't get mad at Circuit City for not selling empty cardboard boxes for $999. Why should Apple's store be any different?

Last I checked, Best Buy and Circuit City haven't gone out of their way to prevent me from installing software I've bought elsewhere.

Re:Why should Apple open up?

One might have thought you were trying to make a reasonable point, right up until your Apple fanboism shone through:

Why should they allow useless products?

Because clearly, once Apple has created a product it's PERFECTION! Nobody should even bother to do anything encroaching on so much as the realm surrounding the vision of the idea that Apple coded. By golly, if we were to have more than one email client on a computer the whole technology thing would never have picked up steam!

Or, perhaps competition is good? Perhaps there actually ARE multiple products that do essentially the same thing and the world hasn't coming crashing down on our heads? Perhaps we have these concepts of markets and supply and demand that are capable of weeding out useless products without bothering our Beneficent Apple Overlords with having to take time out of their day? I wonder why nobody's ever tried such a thing? Customers deciding whether they like a product or not? Whoddathunkit?

But I'll give you better than you deserve and actually look past the Jobs worship to reply.

It's Apple's platform, Apple's SDK, and Apple's store. Why should they allow any product on the shelf that competes with their own business?

For starters, competition is good for consumers and stifling it is wrong--sometimes legally, sometimes "just" morally. The idea that we should permit it to chase every last dollar is what's wrong with this country. Corporations exist and are given all sorts of benefits by our government. Our government is supposed to exist to do the things which are best for its populace as a whole. Holding up the idea that two products competing on their merits and one being crushed by the power of the company who produced the other as somehow equally beneficial to us is ridiculous. Would we be having this discussion if it were Microsoft or IBM of a few decades ago that was crushing its competition beneath its heel?

Beyond that, Apple isn't creating these things to be generous to you, even within the context of the iPhone. They're using your work to make money. A cursory glance at their developer program page [apple.com] shows they take a 30% cut off the top. But more to the point, they're using you to populate their application library so more people will shell out hundreds of dollars to get that shiny new iPhone.

There's nothing wrong with this, but all previous objections aside (and let's face it, storing a few Kb on their servers for apps that never sell isn't going to hurt Apple) the least they could do when you actually DO agree to let them use you that way is not spit in your face, wave their arms and scream "oh no no no! *WE* coded something like that already, you can't!" If it's so useless, let it languish in obscurity. Don't ruin somebody's hard work. If it's not useless, if it's something people actually would want and they're squashing it... well, maybe that Apple glow dims because that's no better than anything Microsoft ever did.

You don't get mad at Best Buy for not selling maps to Circuit City.

The better example, of course, would be "you don't get mad at Best Buy for not selling Circuit City's products." My response is simple: Best Buy doesn't have a program whereby they let you store your products on their shelves, integrate with their system and take a cut of your profits either. If they did, I would be equally pissed at them if they decided that nobody could produce anything that they already stocked. It's all a crappy example, though, since physical goods and digital ones vary in so many important ways. This IS Slashdot, I'd expect you to be aware of that. It comes up in every damn story about copyright infringement, which is like every other story as it is.

You don't get mad at Circuit City for not selling empty cardboard boxes for $999

Re:Why should Apple open up?

Why should Microsoft's store be any different?

I can't think of any reason other than Microsoft is a monopoly, and users have next to no choice but to use Windows for many purposes. However, if you're talking about Windows Mobile, or some other MS platform that isn't a monopoly, then it really doesn't sound as silly as you might think it does.

Re:It's time to face a simple fact about the iPhon

I think it was fairly clear that the grandparent was talking about developing software for the iPhone, not just using one. And I agree completely with his points. Of course, any company can develop a free program that duplicates yours, but being able to ban your software from the only place you can sell it is much worse. Even as an user, I find their attitude unacceptable, and will not buy their stuff.