Mentioning Android Is a No-No In iPhone App Store 441
donberryman writes "Apple has told a software developer that its application cannot be included in the iPhone App Store if it mentions Google Android. The developer just wanted to mention that the app was a finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge." The developer complied with apparent good humor. Here is their blog post, which includes the text of the iPhone store's not-quite-rejection.
Android (Score:5, Funny)
We're all mind readers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Funny)
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Apple is protecting users (Score:4, Informative)
You guys have it all wrong. This is a good thing. Apple isn't competing with Google. They are just trying to protect users from malware apps that turn users into evil androids! Have you people not seen Blade Runner?
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Informative)
And what kills me is that all of the iPhone limitations are caused by Apple being shitty company. Seriously, Apple, why the fuck can't I sync my iPod Touch on Linux? It's not that nobody is willing to make a program to do it; its that Apple went out of their way to make this impossible. It's the first and last Apple product I'll ever make the mistake of buying.
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Informative)
I was rather irritated to find that my nice, new 16GB iPod Touch, shiny and gorgeous and amazing as it is, does not present as a USB mass storage device, unlike pretty-much every other mp3 player including most iPods to date. Great, so now I need to carry a USB memory stick with me as well? Thanks Apple.
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Informative)
You can use libimobiledevice and ifuse to mount your iPod Touch under Linux, if that's all you need. You can use it as a generic mass storage device (no need to jailbreak either) as long as you have these tools.
For what it's worth, I understand Apple's decision on this regard. There is a void in USB regarding smart devices with onboard filesystem drivers which run an OS. Basically, there's no USB File Transfer Protocol, just raw block-device USB Mass Storage (which is useless for devices that run their own OS and can't just expose a block device - not to mention that iPhone OS devices use HFS, not FAT). There's a Picture Transfer Protocol for digital cameras, and Apple does support that, but only for pictures. They made their own protocol for the other stuff. Really, iPod Touch devices aren't music players, they're embedded computers with an OS which you just happen to be able to play music on, and there's no standard "USB file transfer between OSes" protocol.
What is inexcusable is their insistence in trying to cryptographically stop people from syncing their iPods and iPhones with third-party software. But this is one layer above, and it affects the music database. The underlying nonstandard USB protocol was a practical necessity (although, incidentally, their implementation is horrid).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, Android phones have been able to work around the issue without requiring a new protocol or any specific, non-standard sync application.
They simply expose some partition through USB as a block device, but the partition is unmounted by the embedded OS before being handled to the USB host. From the host point of view, the device is like a removable disk drive, and when the user chooses to switch the partition to the PC side, it's like if someone just inserted a disk in the removable drive.
It's kind o
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Informative)
It's kind of silly that the phone is unable to access the files in the partition while they're being accessed by the PC, but nonetheless, I think it's a cleaner solution.
It's not silly at all. When the PC has block-level access, the OS assumes its file system driver has sole control over that partition. This is, at the very least, true of NTFS (and wouldn't be an unreasonable assumption for most file system drivers).
If they made it so that the phone and the PC could both access the partition, there would have to be provisions for simultaneous changes/writes, syncing issues when both systems load the same file, and many of the other complications you see with network shares.
It's far simpler to lock the partition for whatever system is using it than to deal with all the edge cases where simultaneous use can cause the loss, desyncing, or corruption of data.
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Keeping things clean with simultaneous access really isn't hard as long as your API is file-level, not block-level (block-level concurrency is just about impossible without specific filesystems designed for that). Network filesystems have other issues to deal with that can be simplified in this case (e.g. latency).
Of course you have to lock against opening the same file for writes from both sides, but these issues occur in multitasking OSes anyway and they're fairly well understood. For example, iTunes uses
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Informative)
My Android phone has no problem supporting both Microsoft's Media Player sync and mounting as a mass storage device...and I happily would consider it more than just a music player too.
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Informative)
No USB protocol for smart devices... Um, no...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol [wikipedia.org]
Would work just fine for the data that the iPod supports.
So, that's not a good excuse for Apple causing this much pain. MTP could be added in a firmware update. And, the check-file updating could be done on the device if the MTP path is chosen. Yes, MTP users may be disadvantaged (by synching more slowly), but (for me anyway) it would beat having to start Windows XP(tm) in a virtual machines, and then launching iTunes.
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No one can do it. The PSP presents its MemoryStick card to the OS, and in USB mode it can't do anything with it anyway. Android phones do the same thing with an internal partition. There is no standard USB protocol that allows the sharing of a partition between a device and the host OS.
Using existing mass storage protocols requires that whatever storage exists be switched from the embedded OS to the host OS, because they're low-level protocols that are designed for raw storage. This is a significant drawbac
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be an idiot. Take the memory stick out of a PSP - it still works. Remove the data partition from an iPhone and it won't boot.
The PSP isn't a smartphone. It's a console bundled with a media player. It doesn't give a damn if you yank out its memory stick - all that happens is you won't be playing music or storing savegames. And it doesn't multitask.
Since you have a PSP, I'm going to assume you pirate games as it seems to be the only reason people have a PSP these days. Start a game from the MS. Now try
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That's been a known limitation since, well, forever. How did you miss that in your basic research before spending several hundred dollars on a device specifically known on Slashdot to be artificially limited by the manufacturer?
Huh, weird. I'm an apple hater, fully admit that, but I'm also surprised to hear you can't USB mount the iTouch. I'm guessing the iPhone is the same?
I can USB mount my Nexus just fine and copy whatever I want over to it. Still waiting on bluetooth file transfers though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Soy Nuts and Anger (Score:5, Funny)
A giant customized Starbucks in Cupertino California where lattes and no soy skim macchiatos are given out free to all employees. The background music involves a playlist of Nora Jones, David Matthews, John Mayer, and Bono on loop from an Ipod docked somewhere in the Apple/Starbucks facility. Hours are long but morale is surprising high as developers, hardware and software, are given 30 minute breaks to masturbate to the new itunes interface.
All developers sit at cafe type tables with a Mac Book Pro while their lord and master Steve Jobs stands deskless in his predictable attire of a turtleneck and jeans. In fact, this is the preferred (mandatory) dress code at Apple. Jobs walks around to each and every department, separated by latte and vegan preferences, and checks on the performance and efficiency of his developers. At any given point in the day one may see Mr Jobs yelling at a programmer for not implementing a button in the perfect shade of corn flower blue (#6495ED) and immediately sends him to the apple punitive chamber, consisting of a HP Compaq running Vista Basic.
There are 2 software development departments and 2 hardware development sections in Apple. For software there is the Apple core team, Apple Open Source team. In hardware there is the Apple systems and management team and the iDevice team. Since the OSX kernel consists of a BSD darwin kernel there is no real need for low level programmers and as such the entirety of the Apple core team consists of UI designers and photoshop junkies. All software churned out from the core team is designed in a program strikingly similar to Visual Studio's form designer but with Cocoa Objective C generated instead. The 16 hour day (Jobs demands 16 hour days since he himself never sleeps) of a core dev involves lining up the right shade of chrome with the latest photoshopped graphite button and maintaining the correct color scheme, not an easy job at all.
The Apple open source team involves a little bit more coding, which is mandated to be done in TextEdit or the option of a $80 third party mac text editor. The Apple open source team doesn't actually create much code but searches the internet for interesting BSD licensed software and modifies it as it's own through obfuscation and conversion to objective C. Many of the items a mac user sees comes from the open source world stamped by apple such as the ability to play music taken from 67 different originally linux based players, CD burning, and the overall ability to click a mouse. Apple's legal department has no qualms about this practice and has assured many that since most of the code is BSD and if any is GPLed many Linux hippies should be grateful that Apple fostered WebKit by using KHTML and adding some Gecko bloat. Perhaps one of the most important items that the open source team has done to date is use parts of the FreeBSD to keep the kernel up to date.
There's not much to say about the Apple systems and management team. I suppose they can be classified in to desktop and laptop systems. Because hardware work is beneath Apple in general and thought of being only worthy of Windows Users and as such can be found working on these beauties in the starbucks bathroom. Desktops are currently made by buying dell machines and putting them in Lian Li cases, where the majority of the costs goes to buying titanium Apple emblems to paste on the sides. Laptops consists of the rebranding of only the most silver and black Sony Viaos but talk has been going around about rebranding Asus EeePCs for a new Apple netbook but you didn't hear that from me, for fear of my life.
The iDevice team's job is to develop for the ipod, iphone, itouch, and many other portable electronics apple may release in the future. Their jobs are very interconnected with the open source team as well as the core dev team. Using firmware from random samsung devices and giving it an OSX skin the ipod stands as a shining example that infringement only applies to greasy file sharers and that the music player remains the best in market
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously he didn't hate them until he experienced the product.
After years of disinterest in Apple, I finally bought my wife an iPod because the treadmills at our gym have their crummy prioprietary dock. So I caved, and bought an iPod. And guess what, it still didn't work! Turns out Apple locked down the video output on newer models so they could control the sale of accessories, like $45 video-out cables. So I sold the new iPod on ebay, and bought an older iPod Video that works with the treadmill. It'll be a long time until I buy another Apple product in the absence of further coercion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My mother gave my son a 32G iPod touch for Christmas. The iPod itself is a fantastic piece of gear but every time I have to launch iTunes to sync music into it I go on a 15 minute profanity riddled rant. iTunes is buggy, slow, and generally the biggest pile of shit software that I am forced to use. To say that I hate it with the intensity of a thousand burning stars would be an _understatement_.
Why, oh why, won't Apple let me push music to it like every other, non-Apple, media player that we own?
Steve Jobs
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had it explained to me that it makes much more sense to build the metadata index on a powerful PC, rather than building the functionality into each mp3 player.
My $40 sandisk indexes a couple of gigabytes in about 10 seconds, so I scratched my head too.
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Funny)
That's some pretty harsh punishment for buggy software. LOL
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Funny)
> To say that I hate it with the intensity of a
> thousand burning stars would be an _understatement_.
I met a guy who hated iTunes so much that he bought a Zune instead of an iPod. Now, that's hate.
c.
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MM DOES sync iPod touch... kinda (Score:3, Interesting)
I use Media Monkey and it does sync the iPod Touch... kind of.
First, it only syncs music, not apps. (duh)
More importantly, though, it seems like the sync is buggy as hell. I don't even try to use my iPod Touch to play music anymore, because it rarely goes more than three or four tracks without locking up and becoming unresponsive for a good minute or so, before finally failing to play the next song and giving up. Basically all I use the iPod Touch for now is as an authenticator for WoW and occasionally to l
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Don't worry, any company that has tried to introduce artificial limitations like this always ends up defunct soon enough. Apple is just lasting longer than most.
It'll probably start with the developers. They'll get sick and tired of paying $99 a year just to develop goddamn cell phone apps. They'll get sick and tired of Apple's unnecessary censorship and app publication restrictions. They'll move to more open platforms.
It'll continue with the users. Those, such as yourself, who buy Apple products expecting
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Insightful)
I know, replying to an AC and all that, but I hate iTunes so bad I'm going to do it anyway.
I like the iPod touch and would like to have one for myself but I absolutely, positively, 100% WILL NOT buy an iPod as long as I'm forced to use iTunes. It's just not going to fucking happen. I am advising my friends and family not to buy them either, based SOLELY on how terrible iTunes is.
Once I'm forced to use iTunes a few more times my hatred will probably reach the level of a holy war.
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Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I do have to ask, because it works fine for me. So well that I have never considered using anything else. But then again, I am running it under OS X.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You made his point nicely by not giving a single good example of what's bad about iTunes. Background services? What are those to the average user? The interface is slow and clunky? Compared to what? I can shuffle through a thousand album covers in full screen mode as fast as my mouse will let me. Songs change instantly...what is slow? I can burn a CD in a couple of minutes...please tell me, what is slow?
I'll give you an example of a good example of what is slow: iTunes and iPods have become slower th
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Insightful)
Except for those Apple users who have actually ever used an Apple product and will probably keep doing so because most Apple products are actually fairly good. As are most Microsoft products, for the record, even if I dislike them.
Yes, my iPod touch doesn't multitask. Doesn't mean it's not still a decent MP3 player with a PDA built in, which I got for a extremely good price (35 EUR through the Back to School rebate offer); multitasking would occasionally be nice but I don't miss it enough to care. Yes, it needs iTunes, which apprently sucks big time on Windows. This doesn't faze me either as iTunes is a pretty good program on Mac OS and I use it anyway.
Yes, Macs are expensive. Until you require a certain feature set (like anything involving FireWire 800) that puts Mac prices on equal footing with those of comparable devices. That might even happen if you're shopping for a decent notebook; the Apple tax is above zero mainly for desktop systems.
It's easy to find things to hate about the company but it's not like they consistently produce useless junk that people pay pay at 500% market value for no reason at all. Most consumers do use their brain when making purchases and they have (often valid) reasons for their decision. Yes, even those who buy products you personally dislike.
Just like Modern Warfare 2, every video game but Modern Warfare 2, Win7, every OS but Win7, rap, every music genre but rap (and especially metal), metal, every music genre but metal (and especially rap), motorcycles, everything but motorcycles... If we assume the failure of everything some teenager has described as "for fags" we are looking at the end of human culture within the next twenty years.
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Devils Advocate here, If you didn't want to get banned from the app store, you'd probably be saying "Apple is a wonderful company to work with." too.
Just sayin'.
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Perhaps Apple doesn't want to support the ever changing linux environment and is bound by contracts to their media partners that media transfers are done through a controlled channel?
Windows is Windows. OS X is OS X. Linux is ... Suse? Gentoo? Redhat? Slackware? Gnome? Enlightenment? KDE?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is Windows.
Even if you just look at what's still in support you have:
OS:
2000
XP Home/Pro - (And if you don't just look at desktop you have Starter/MCE/Tablet/XP Pro 64-bit link [wikipedia.org])
Vista and all its sub-editions
7 and all its sub-editions
Ref: link [wikipedia.org]
Then if you consider IE6/7/8 since so many apps these days interact with the browser in some way (even what people wouldn't consider web apps), you get a huge number of possible permutations.
You'd never say "Windows is Windows" if you've ever had to do any kind of deve
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:5, Interesting)
You can [marcansoft.com]. They tried really hard, not just by using proprietary everything but also using ridiculously obfuscated crypto, but we broke it again. No jailbreaking needed.
For those who love magic 16-byte keys, the magic "freedom for Apple music players" number this time around is 618ca10dc7f57fd3b4723e08157463d7 ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or just set in your preferences to not have iTunes manage your library. But where's the uninformed rant in that?
(FYI metadata is where it's at these days. Storing it in the filename is soooo 90's.)
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, but any potable music with a dedicated reset button screams "I crash a lot". Why waste the hardware to put one in if you're confident about the OS you're running? If your iPod is crashing so often, I suggest you get Apple to replace it, because it's not normal. There is also a power button and it can turn the device completely off if you want to.
As for altering filenames. There is a preference in iTunes for that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Uncheck "Keep iTunes media folder organised".
Rant solved.
Re:We're all mind readers (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this type of advertising hurting Apple? Not in the least. In fact, I'd argue that it's doing the exact opposite. With the rejection of an app because it said "Android" in it, it makes me wonder if there's any commitment on their part to support device interoperability (even if just on the app level)... And that question COULD hurt them on the business end (and the power users who are on the fence)...
The wording of Apple's reply (Score:5, Insightful)
The wording of Apple's reply is a gem in and of itself:
While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to remove “Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!” from the Application Description.
Please log into iTunes Connect to make appropriate changes to the Application Description now to avoid an interruption in the availability of Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab 2.2 on the iPhone App Store.
That's a nice app you have there; would be a shame if anything happened to it...
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(mods) This is not funny, it's the truth.
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would you have preferred them to have rejected the app outright instead?
An outright, written rejection on the grounds of mentioning the competition may be seen by lawyers as grounds for a lawsuit.
David or Goliath, Which One Today? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, now I get it. You push the little guys around [wikipedia.org] when you're the big man on campus [macobserver.com]. Certainly is interesting I can find literature about Symbian [apple.com] on your site. Tell me, if a very popular Symbian or Blackberry app was ported to the iPhone, would you allow the developer to advertise it? Because I'm betting you would.
Well considering Steve is a god.... (Score:2)
When is this ever false? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if beginning with the best of intentions, a censor will always, eventually, come to use his power to censor to benefit himself.
Re:When is this ever false? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." -- Judge Aaron Satie
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Why? If an organization can stifle me, and does so, what difference does it make whether that organization is a company or a government?
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple can't have Android inside Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field.
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Funny)
Of course not. It causes a ripple in the field bubble and will start a cascading collapse killing everyone inside or transporting pieces of them to random locations. We would have arms and other body parts fused to buildings all across Cupertino and that would be a big Faux Pas in social circles.
To avoid being embarrassed at the next dinner party keep all things android at least 20 feet from your apple iPhone or iTouch.
Uuuuh wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think everyone's going to dogpile on Apple for this, but I think they're missing the point, the point of the removal isn't the word Android, or Google, but the whole phrase of Google Android Developer Contest. They want to be disassociated with that contest. Given that Apple hasn't delisted apps that claim compatibility with other phones, and they even list a whole crap load of Android podcasts and other Android content in the iTunes store, I don't think Apple's paranoid about just the Apple or Google part.
Re:Uuuuh wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uuuuh wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
the point of the removal isn't the word Android, or Google, but the whole phrase of Google Android Developer Contest.
That's not what Apple's response says at all:
we found that your application contains inappropriate or irrelevant platform information in the Application Description and/or Release Notes sections ... Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store.
So, yes, this is about Android as a whole, not just the contest.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is saying an app won an Android Developer Contest not irrelevant to the iPhone platform? That strikes me as the very definition of irrelevancy, because it's not the same platform.
It's an application doing the same thing, and written by the same people. Yes, I think that's relevant. You know those stickers they often place on movies - e.g. "Avatar, from the director of Titanic"?
As a side note, you yourself have cherry-picked one particular highlight, and ignored the other two, which plainly state that "platform compatibility" and "general platform references are not relevant" - which, to me, unambiguously says that even mentioning that there is an Android version of the same app woul
Advertising... or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see this guy mentioning that his application was a finalist in a developer challenge as such.
If anything it makes it stand out...
Gee, how did Apple find out in the sea of 5,000 applications that turn your phone into a flashlight?
They probably search for 'android' and snuff the mention of it out.
It is their store.... they can do what they want and for that reason I don't buy from it.
I have seen tons of apps on the android store that mention iPhone or the fact that the same application was written for it.
We don't see Google snuffing those out....
This Apple has worms in it.
New app submission (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how a game where an archer (who just happens to look like a certain Android) shoots an Apple (that just happens to have a bite taken out of it) off of it's pedestal would be received? Hrmmmm...
Here's a guess (Score:3, Informative)
Just reword it to (Score:4, Funny)
"Winner of the Google developer challenge for (competing app Apple forbids the name of)"
Creativity, so long as we approve of it (Score:2, Informative)
Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
You know it's rather funny to see all the whining and bitching and demonizing of Apple over this when the app developer himself says:
I suppose it’s logical, and I’m not complaining; Apple is a wonderful company to work with. I took out the offending bit from the description.
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, of course he'll say that. He needs to sell his app. Would you say bad things about someone who just threatened you?
Let's See if I understand (Score:2)
Apple doesn't want to list an app that mentions a competitor. (And in a fairly irrelevant way, too. The fact that another version of the app won an award doesn't necessary have any bearing on the iPhone incarnation, does it?) So, in effect, they don't want to advertise for the competition on their own system.
OK, maybe it seems a bit petty, but this isn't really censorship. It seems more like intelligent business practice.
Shame on Apple for taking this route (Score:2)
1999 iMac DV SE, 200? eMac, multiple iPod shuffles, 2.4 duo 15" MacBook Pro, iPod Touch 2G, iPhone 3GS
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I suppose it’s logical, and I’m not complaining; Apple is a wonderful company to work with.
From the horses mouth.
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City 17 is a great place. After all, "It's safer here."
I was told to leave all my luggage at the rail station. I suppose it's logical, and I'm not complaining; Civil Protection is a wonderful security force to work with.
I'm looking forward to the next JobsCast.
Old and new wordings in app description (Score:2)
Old wording: Finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge!
New wording: Finalist in Large Internet Search Company's Human-Looking Robot Developer's Challenge!
At least he was able to preserve the basic meaning in the reworded version.
Attention (Score:2, Insightful)
Chink in the armor? (Score:2)
We don't serve their kind here! (Score:5, Funny)
Apple has issues (Score:4, Funny)
with Apps involving sex, Hitler's Mein Kampf, and Android.
So much for my dream of making a game where you fight Nazi hooker androids.
The new smash hit Apple TV commercial... (Score:5, Funny)
Good for Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sick of seeing app descriptions like the one used for this app before the change.
Telling people that its great for Android is of no value what so ever to an iPhone user.
Its just a wasted fluff piece that takes up space for what should be a real app description.
Listing off the reasons why other people think your app is awesome BEFORE you actually tell anyone what your app does is fucking annoying for those of us looking for apps.
Most of us don't give a shit what awards you've one, awards are generally politically based and rarely a direct relation to how good something is, regardless of the award.
I don't want to read about 10 different awards you got, I want to know what the app does and what features its got that make it worth my money and/or time.
Everyone here is bitching about Apple being so controlling and 'censoring' and you guys STILL DON'T GET IT. You keep going on about how Apple is wrong all the while ignoring that they have a growth rate thats off the charts.
I appreciate that Apple wants this pointless bit of information removed from the description, it does nothing useful to me. I don't use android, and if I'm buying a flashcard app for my iPhone I'm probably not also going to carry it around on my Android phone since having both would be retarded in and of itself.
You might be wise to listen to their marketing department. They've always been the smaller company that could. People like Apple (outside of the fanboys of geekdom, we all have our own things that we love, we don't count) for a reason, maybe its cause they are trendy, but I think its more than that, and this is an example of one of those reasons.
When you go to the store and buy a boxed application that runs on OS X and Windows, and it says so on the box, its because it runs on both. They don't put the OSX version in the box and advertise that you can go buy a Windows version if you want also. Nor do Windows only versions of software tell you about the Mac version. This App is sold in a store for software that when you buy/download it, it will only work on the iPhone (barring some hacked device that runs iPhone OS or a vm or simulator), so theres no reason to mention Android, it will just confuse all the people who have NO FREAKING IDEA what Android is, which is pretty much everyone outside this community. They may know that Google has the Nexus One, or that you can buy a Droid, but they have no clue what Android OS is.
Re:Good for Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't like the way the developer advertises his app. I don't like the fact that Apple decides for him how he can do it.
Why do people that don't own iPhones care? Because we don't want to own iPhones. We would rather that closed ecosystems lose mindshare and fail so we aren't economically compelled to write software for them.
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Does anybody think Barnes and Noble would be willing to post a sign saying your book was #38 in its category on Amazon?
Yes?
"Hey they book got good reviews, it must be good, let me buy it."
Impulse purchasing ftw.
Re:Flash of stupidity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of books have their review list, etc. shown on the back. Do you think the Washington Post wouldn't review a book that has "#4 NYT Best Seller" on the cover?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are using a false analogy.
The Washington Post does not sell the book, only it's reviewer's opinion of the book. At no time does the Washington Post have to mention the NYT or it's best seller list and Post's customers never see the competitor's name in the Post's review.
In this case, the description of the product in the App store mentions Android and the Android contest. Android and Google is in direct competition with Apple and its devices.
Do you think you would see "#4 best seller on Amazon.com" on
Was it your flash of stupidity you meant? (Score:2)
No, but I see all the time people with stickers on their book covers indicating their position on the New York Times Best Sellers list, or the Oprah Bookclub.
You can't expect to place ads for a competing store's award in another retail store.
This isn't that. This is advertising that you won a Fields Metal at a Nobel Consortium (with an enormous pinch of salt).
No, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but then Barnes and Noble isn't the only place you can sell your book. If you don't like their policies, you can also put it up for sale on Amazon, Books-A-Million, any number of local bookstores, and probably even stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
On the other hand, Apple's app store is the only place to offer applications for iPhones, iTouches, and now iPads. The author of this application can't simply go through some alternate means of distributing his application without asking people to jailbreak their device, something that is at best iffy to do if they want to maintain service.
If Apple would let developers put their apps up for download from their own web site or alternate app stores, then I wouldn't complain. Apple has the right to accept, deny, or place any conditions on apps in its app store that they want. However, that's only half the story. My problem with their attitude is that they have set themselves up so that their store is the only store in town; they have a monopoly over distribution of iDevice applications. They have final authority over what I can and can't run on a device that I own, and as this story illustrates, they are grossly misusing that authority.
Personally, I can't understand why anyone would want to by an iPad, given that it is going to maintain this paradigm. With phones, people are somewhat used to this. With the iPad pushing into the netbook and ultraportable laptop market, though, it is completely unacceptable. Imagine if you bought, for example, an HP laptop, and they told you the following: "Congratulations on your new HP laptop! To obtain applications, visit apps.hp.com. Oh, and we're sorry if it causes any inconvenience, but that is the only way you may install applications on this new laptop. Everything else is blocked, and if we find out that you're trying to install apps from anywhere except hp.com, your laptop could be deactivated. Congratulations again!" Well, that's Apple, and it boggles my mind that anyone would tolerate it.
These shenanigans are precisely why I, as a developer, got a refund on my developer program application and told them that I will be not be developing for the iDevices. It's also why I, who used to be an advocate for Apple devices, am strongly urging people to not buy their products these days.
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I was going to mod the parent, but decided to correct you instead.
Here, let me fix that for you:
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The flash of supidity is thinking visitors to the iPhone App Store have any significant interest in Android apps.
Unless they also have an Android phone, in which case they are going over to the Market for those apps.
More Apple paintywaists, and more=less. Not a real big deal, but I wonder how Apple would react to a developer who mentioned their app was a finalist for a Nokia or Microsoft competition.
And the dev has a sense of humor. So they don't seem to need the mentions to achieve their goals. Good for
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Android has its own app store, prominently displayed on its phones. Are you seriously suggesting that someone would ignore the app store on their phones, and try to run software never intended for their phone, despite the well-publicized link between iTunes and the iPhone, and the fact that even the most cursory explanation of features (for a true newbie) from the
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Re:AppStoreRejections.slashdot.org (Score:4, Informative)
You clicked through and made 2 root level comments. That doesn't speak to you trying to ignore it.
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Re:Remember a time.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Remember a time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The latter, of course.
Apple could have come out with a phone that could not have any apps added to it at all. This would have been perfectly legal. Silly, perhaps, but legal.
Taking this same phone that can't have apps added to it and allowing apps to be added from Apple's site is no more illegal than the previous situation.
IOW, you are an idiot.
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(btw, "idiot" is one of those pesky little words that, when used in an argument to attack the opponent, says much more about the person that said it than anyone
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As it is hopefully the backlash from their North Korea style platform management should be enough to handle it.
I know I certainly wouldn't have an iPhone at any price.
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It's not really illegal until you've actually eliminated or prevented competition through it.
It's not even illegal then if the government sanctions your monopoly.
Re:Remember a time.. (Score:5, Insightful)
IPhone's app market definetly has a larger marketshare than Android. They're using this to silence developers mentioning other platforms, basically that's like Microsoft telling an app vendor that their app will be erased from all Windows users' PCs if the app's packaging contains a "compatible with Mac" logo. And a "best Mac app of the year" award.
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It works perfectly for users. Apple doesn't care about the developers. It never has.
Users have a simple App to access the store. All the apps are tested for compatibility, and the store won't let or will warn if you try to purchase an app that is not compatible with your device. The apps are tested to ensure they follow basic UI guidelines and that they fail gracefully when connectivity is limited or unavailable. Purely as a user, what's not to like?
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Since when Apple is a government?
Re:Objectively speaking... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, 1) none their competitors do not have similar restrictions in place, and 2) they do not provide any venue for installing applications on one's iPhone apart from the App Store, so censoring that is effectively censoring the entire platform.
Also, Apple does not "subsidize" anything here. The developer wrote application for their own money, and a cut of any sales of the app go to Apple, part of which is used for store maintenance. It is a very large stretch to call that "subsidizing" in any way.
Well, I guess you're one of those guys who think that kicking people with t-shirts mentioning companies competing with Olympic sponsors out of Olympic venues [spinwatch.org] was a grand idea. After all, the logic is exactly the same.