Apple Rejects Drone Strike App 234
eldavojohn writes "Developer Josh Begley, a student at Clay Shirky's NYU Media Lab, created an application called Drones+ that allows users to track U.S. drone strikes on a map of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Far from innovative, the app in question merely relays and positions strikes as available from the U.K.'s Bureau of Investigative Journalism. First Apple rejected the application claiming it was 'not useful or entertaining enough,' then it was rejected for hiding a corporate logo. And the latest reason for objection is that Begley's content is 'objectionable and crude' and 'that many audiences would find [it] objectionable." Begley's at a loss for how to change information on a map. He's not showing images of the drone strikes nor even graphically describing the strikes. From the end of the article, 'The basic idea was to see if he could get App Store denizens a bit more interested in the U.S.' secretive, robotic wars, with information on those wars popping up on their phones the same way an Instagram comment or retweet might. Instead, Begley's thinking about whether he'd have a better shot making the same point in the Android Market.'"
apple just doesn't want to touch that (Score:5, Insightful)
with a ten foot pole.
There is no problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is, and should be, free to prohibit any content they want on their store. It's their store, we shouldn't force them to add stuff they don't want.
The problem here is the locked down devices. You have no other way of installing things on an iPhone. Which is precisely why I don't own one.
app vs act(uality ) (Score:5, Insightful)
If the 'app' is rated as objectionable and 'crude'', what does that make the actions themselves? Are we all so content as a society to hide our heads under our pillows, all the while chanting 'freedom in the USA!'?
I think the guy had a valid point -- If the app exists or doesn't exist, it doesn't change the data points that are being created (Monthly/Weekly/Daily?) nor the map itself.
Correlation is not causation - Apple should know this.
Re:apple just doesn't want to touch that (Score:5, Insightful)
apple just doesn't want to touch that with a ten foot pole.
Yep. That's one of the downsides of the walled garden. I'm still annoyed I can't get MAME on iOS.
Re:There is no problem with this (Score:2, Insightful)
We as smartphone users have every right to pressure Apple to accept this application or any other application. We can decide where to spend our money based on how Apple treats us in meeting our demands.
Or he could... you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Put it on a website!
Why does everything have to be an app these days? If you just want to display information, isn't that exactly what the Web was designed for? Why turn it into something that only a minority of your potential audience can make use of?
We already went through this whole proprietary wrappers nonsense back in the early days of the Internet. I thought we learned our lesson. Apparently not.
End rant.
Oh yeah, and get off my lawn!
Re:app vs act(uality ) (Score:5, Insightful)
Head under pillows, going to the Apple store to buy more iPads, not questioning the consensus, super-consuming reality we live in. I turned on my facebook today and saw all my friends got new iphones so I went down and got one too! Drone strikes keep us safe, don't ask too many questions, don't rock the boat. Obama or Romney, Apple or Microsoft, Facebook or Google+. What do drone strikes have to do with it?
--------------
Posted from a 17" macbook pro.
"objectionable" content.... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, this guy has discovered first hand what happens when content gets censored on grounds of being "objectionable."
It doesn't matter what the subject is, SOMEONE will find it objectionable.
Evolution? Creationists.
Fluffy Kittens? PETA.
Babies? Malthists
Picking flowers? Botanical conservationists.
Vaccination? Antivac-ers.
Birth control? Catholics
Lipstick? Orthodox muslims
Etc.
If the metric for rejection was "objectionable", then the only way for apple's store to remain open is if it has nothing to sell.
Rather, Apple has taken the shister path, and has conflated "unpopular" with "objectionable", since the real application of that word would exclude all products.
As such, anything sociologically or politically unpopular, regardless of factual content, is banned.
he just now considers android? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Begley's thinking about whether he'd have a better shot making the same point in the Android Market.'"
He'd be allowed to try. Considering there are considerably more Android users than iThing users, he'd also have a bigger impact if his app was popular.
Freedom: it's not really so bad, despite what Apple would have you believe.
Re:"objectionable" content.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No contest. However, nobody would be forcing people to install this app. The utility provided is the centrality it offers as a data aggregator. The data is already in the wild. The issue here is that political apps are just another item in that list. SOMEONE will find the very idea of a politically motivated app to be objectionable.
This is like porn. Some people want it, and pay money for it. Others find it objectionable. Rather than create a dedicated "restricted" section in the app store for such items (political apps, pornographic items, etc) apple has determined its own set of "decency", and "objectional" metrics which are poorly defined and purposefully ambiguous. The language used can be used to exclude any product, including fluffy kittens.
It is one thing to say "I don't want to sell porn." It is entirely another to say "I am the only store in town, I actively destroy rival stores, and I don't want you to be buying porn because it is dirty, dirty filth."
Getting such things on an idevice is a lot like buying crack; you have to use methods that are less than reputable or proper to get them. In some cases, apple may brick your device for posession.
Simply because the app is political in nature does not mean that nobody would want it, or that nobody would find it desirable or useful. The fact that it is unpopular with the mainstream popular culture should not be grounds for exclusion. It should be "restricted", so people who don't want to see the add don't have to unless they actively look for it, but it shouldn't be banned.
bogus reason (Score:5, Insightful)
There are "many audiences" that would find the content on the Adult Swim app "objectionable and crude", too, but Apple doesn't have a problem with that.
Here's the reason walled gardens are bad for you: Because you don't get to choose how to use your own device.
Re:There is no problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is, and should be, free to prohibit any content they want on their store.
Absolutely!
It's their store, we shouldn't force them to add stuff they don't want.
Nobody is forcing anything. Yet. For the same reason that Apple has a right to carry (or not carry) whatever they like, I have the right to complain about it.
The problem here is the locked down devices. You have no other way of installing things on an iPhone.
And this is the reason I'm actually alright with forcing Apple to carry certain things that they might not otherwise want to carry. If the App Store rules weren't such a moving target, I'd have less of a complaint, but the fact that limitations on what software I can install on my device are added after the initial purchase of my device is a bit of a problem, at least to me.
Re:app vs act(uality ) (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus by making more and more of the public realm private they can use the private property excuse to suppress dissent. "It is Apple's product, too bad!"
Re:apple just doesn't want to touch that (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the App Store (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an iOS developer, and keep in mind when you read this that there is an entire industry of developers whose business plan is to submit pointless novelty/spam games and apps to the App Store as fast as humanly possible. Because of this, Apple has made it so you can't submit any app that simply aggregates web content or has limited functionality, and I think it's good for the App Store to impose this. On the iOS forums I follow, people get rejected constantly for simple aggregator apps like this.
So being a bit of a collector of these spam apps and having seen a lot of them, I don't really blame Apple for not being able to tell the different between those spam apps and this -- which maybe deserves a bit more consideration than the average spam aggregator app. I blame the app spammers who have wrecked the system, not Apple.
And anyway, geez, just make the project a webpage and twitter account and it has the same effect and you aren't limited to iOS. Oh, but then it's not as "cool" because it's not an iPhone app!
Re:apple just doesn't want to touch that (Score:4, Insightful)
The correct term isn't so much "Contractor" as "Sharecropper."
Re:There is no problem with this (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because charging for work you do is so wrong.
Re:There is no problem with this (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple denying what you have an option to use affects you. Most iOS users don't know about it, so yeah they probably didn't think about it.
Denying this app IS impairing communication. Sure, it's not a type of communication you would use, but next time it might be.
Funny thin is, My Galaxy does many thing more convenient the the iPhone does.
No that you should change, but don't kid yourself either.
Re:First Mistake: making it political (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not surprised that Apple has rejected an App that has the purpose of getting people interested in the author's own political agenda.
There's a Mitt Romney app (and other politicians), apps for newspapers and TV news channels galore, and lots and lots of other apps that are about one political agenda or other. How is this one different?
This one is made by some filthy peasant... a mere citizen. The others were submitted by corporate partners, job creators, you know, the real American people.
Re:There is no problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that I was pointing out that there are 2 types of iPhone users.
Those too stupid to know that they have no choice and those that made the choice to not have one.
Re:he just now considers android? (Score:3, Insightful)
Kind of like reverse psychology crossed with Barbara Streisand?