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.'"
patents would be better (Score:2, Interesting)
I want an app that pops up a map pointer to each court that Apple wages battle in.
Is there a definitive list of blocked apps? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anyone keeping track of the apps that Apple has forbidden from the appstore?
I used to be reduced to pointing at the bouncy-boobs type apps (shake the phone and watch a girl's tits bounce) until recently when a friend had to deal with an abusive spouse.
I went looking for an iphone app that records video and audio with the screen turned off - she wanted evidence of him being violent - but as far as I could tell apple doesn't permit such apps. There are some available in the jail-break version of the appstore, but jail-breaking is not an option for the typical battered woman.
Then we went looking for an app that would automatically forward all received text messages to an email address, because the guy likes to send threatening texts and it would be helpful to automatically archive them. Again no go - apparently you have to cut-n-paste them one at a time or rely on a significant level of technical expertise to manually extract them from the icloud(?) backups of the phone.
Re:apple just doesn't want to touch that (Score:5, Interesting)
When you write for iOS, you aren't working for yourself. You are instead working as a contractor for Apple. You are given the job of coming up with product ideas, implementing and marketing them. And you get paid a hefty commission on the sales. But as an Apple contractor, they are free to reject any idea or implementation thereof -- it has to be in line with what they would want to develop themselves.
If you think of it this way, it makes things so much easier.
Re:he just now considers android? (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting idea... take it a step further: could it be that Apple is secretly wearing a white hat here, "banning" the app for a few specious reasons in an attempt to publicize it through outrage, only to recant a few days later? How many of us would never have heard of this app if it were not for this? A way of advertising it without advertising it, perhaps?
Re:There is no problem with this (Score:1, Interesting)
It's the "Not a mentally ill sack of geek filth" position. Most people want to browse the web and stream stuff. Running a Python interpreter or some idiot l33t bugfest shitware is not important to sane people with actual lives. Got it, geek?