Apple Rips Off Rejected App, Says Wireless Sync Developer

Haedrian writes "Apple is famous for going to absurd lengths to enforce its patents and trademarks. It recently sued Amazon for calling its app store Appstore. And it has publicly lectured competitors to 'create their own original technology, not steal ours.' Last year, UK developer Greg Hughes submitted an app for wirelessly syncing iPhones with iTunes libraries, which was rejected from the official App Store. Fast forward to Monday, when Apple unveiled a set of new features for the upcoming iOS 5, including the same wireless-syncing functionality. Cupertino wasn't even subtle about the appropriation, using the precise name and a near-identical logo to market the technology."

Undocumented APIs == Rejection

[perpenso]

And I'm sure he used some interesting and impressive hacks to trick the iphone into wirelessly syncing.

Well **IF** he went the undocumented API route then there would be no conspiracy regarding the app rejection. Undocumented APIs are an automatic rejection, it may even be part of the automated prescreening process -- completely automated, no human judgement call.

Re:No standing

[shutdown -p now]

The bashing is due to rejecting an app and then implemented the feature set in their OS.

That's not what it says in TFA/TFS.

And it's not like the app was rejected specifically because Apple decided to implement the same thing themselves. It was rejected because it was using private APIs - this rule has been in place since, oh, App Store first opened up? There's no new special treatment here.

Regardless of how you try and sugar coat it what Apple did was flat out anti-competitive.

App Store is inherently "anti-competitive", and has always been that way. Heck, it explicitly has a clause that prohibits apps competing with Apple's even if they follow the rules otherwise! So this particular case is not any different from any other app store rejection that wasn't malware. Why suddenly up in arms now? And what does the name and the logo story have to do with it?

And the reason why Apple can get away with being "anti-competitive" is because they're not the only, nor the biggest, players in the game. If your app gets rejected on iOS, you can always go to Android - there's no monopoly here. Back when DoJ took an interest in Microsoft, it has >90% of desktop computer market.

You should join all the other Apple fanbois in the new spaceship for the iRapture.

That's funny, considering my post history. Both my phone and my tablet run Android for a reason.

But if you want to pick on Apple, find a real reason to do so - there are plenty - not some "whaaa he stole my candy" story coming from a person who's mad at Apple for finally implementing a feature, the lack of which was the foundation of his business model.

Re:Undocumented APIs == Rejection

[agentgonzo]

From what I understood of his app when I took a look at it on Cydia, it writes to system files that the Apple T&Cs do not allow you to do. This is why it got rejected by apple for 'security concerns' (because it's writing to areas it shoudn't). Whether this is done by undocumented APIs or standard iOS APIs I do not know.

As for the name/logo. It's syncing over wifi. There are two very obvious names: "Wifi Sync" and "Sync Wifi" for this. And the logo is the most obvious choice for a logo: The composition of the wifi logo and the sync logo. If you'd have asked me to come up with a name/logo for this I would have come up with exactly the same thing. I do not think that Apple ripped him off - he's just trying to make noise.

And yes, Apple should have put wireless synching in with iOS 1...