The Apps Law Blog » Apps Store

Apple’s App Store continues to alienate

Eric Seidmon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:58:33 +0000

Less than a month ago, Apple removed more than 5,000 apps from its iPhone and iPod App Sto re. Apple’s reasoning: the apps included inappropriate content.

However, it seems that Apple was acting more in its interest than that of the public. Apple is highly protective of all its properties, especially its Apps Store. And that could pose problems for the company.

According to one news source, Apple’s offical reason for banning these apps is because they were deemed “sexually inappropriate.” Some seemed to deserve the “inappropriate” donning while others were simply shooting for a cheap laugh.

By rejecting or removing this many apps at once, Apple received a lot of criticism from iPhone users, apps developers and the media. Apple promptly responded to the public outcry by posting new guidelines to submitting apps, which can be viewed at MobileCrunch.

The new rules are controversial and hypocritical, even for Apple. What’s more concerning, however, is the thinking behind this list and the rejection or removal of these apps: censorship. Apple seems to be increasing its censorship in regard to its apps.

The harder that Apple clamps down, the more likely it is that the company could be challenged. As Apple censors more material, its users and developers alike will find that their First Amendment rights are being infringed upon. And if there’s one thing Americans don’t like, it’s having their First Amendment rights stripped from them. Thus, if Apple continues its path down this slippery slope, it will likely find itself steeped in Constitutionally-based lawsuits. Also, the more Apple alienates its users and developers, the more likely it is that they will simply leave Apple for another, less restricting alternative.

iPhone app developers can’t utilize GPS for advertising

Eric Seidmon — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:32:27 +0000

Apple has announced that the GPS feature in iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS may be accessed only to provide what the company describes as “beneficial information.” The restriction means no advertising using Apple’s Core Location framework.

Apple‘s iPhone Dev Center describes the framework as a tool that “allows you to build applications which know where your users are and can deliver information based on their location, such as local weather, nearby restaurants, ATMs and other location-based information.”

Apple’s App Store Review Team will not post the app to Apple’s store if the software enables a mobile advertiser to target messages based on an iPhone user’s location. The reviewers will return the app to the developers for modification.

It appears that Apple placed limits on outside developers to avoid competition with its internal strategy to infiltrate the mobile advertising market. Apple has not announced its advertising plans yet, and thus it is hard to know the company’s plans.

But recent developments suggest that the strategy exists and will soon be made public. On Jan. 5, Apple purchased the mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless . That gave rise to speculation that Apple would allow app developers to use Quattro to integrate the company’s advertising plans into Apps Store software.

There is also speculation that Apple wants to retain control over location-aware advertising in order to gain an edge over competitors such as Admob,which Google purchased. Apple now has patents on location-based services, so Apple may be girding for a mobile-ad fight with its sometime-ally, sometime nemesis.

Developers quit Apple due to legal, contract and creative frustrations

Eric Seidmon — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:30:06 +0000

Several important apps developers are unhappy with Apple and the way the company is still exerting too much control over their App Store. Some developers are so frustrated with Apple and their stringent policies that they are completely halting iPhone development. If enough developers follow suit, the App Store could potentially be in for some trouble.

One of these developers is Joe Hewitt, who worked for Firefox and its acclaimed developer plug-in Firebug. He was so agitated with Apple’s policies that he handed off the Facebook iPhone app to another engineer at the company. Ars technica believed that his decision could have been due to an issue with his Three20 framework rather than issues with the Facebook app. However, he later reported to ars technica that it was because of another experience which he was not at liberty to disclose.

The Three20 framework initially derived from work he did to create the Facebook app and it was named for iPhone’s 320-pixel-wide screen. The open source framework is used by several iPhone developers, which gives them drop-in support for several user interface enhancements in their own iPhone apps. Then Apple stepped in by rejecting apps that relied on the framework and used a private API (Application Programming Interface) call, which goes directly against the controversial iPhone Development Agreement. Although Hewitt should have been aware of this issue, it is likely the reason he decided to break away from iPhone development.

Other developers have proposed different reasons for discontinuing their development with Apple. Second Gear developer Justin Williams cited to the way the App Store is being managed and the risks involved for most developers. The recent rejection of Google Voice for iPhone is one example of what Williams was referring to. Fed up, when Williams attempted to transfer his apps to another developer that purchased them, the Apple Developer Connection prohibited this action, making the transfer much more difficult and costly to its users (who had to re-purchase the app), further illuminating his frustrations with Apple.

Apple leaves a sour taste in developers’ mouths for multiple reasons. Developer Rogue Amoeba, maker of many audio apps for Apple, ran into a development problem that derived from an intellectual property issue. Rogue had a minor bug they needed fix in its Airfoil Speakers ToCall app, the update’s purpose was solely to improve the way audio was received and did not change any functionality.

Regardless, Apple rejected its update multiple times. The reason was both predictable and simultaneously illogical: The app uses Apple-approved images and icons. The original app had already been approved and was in the App Store, it used the same mechanism, and Apple had provided developers public API for accessing these very images. And yet, Apple rejected the use claiming that it was an inappropriate use of “Apple-owned Graphic Symbols.” Like Hewitt and Williams, Rogue Amoeba got so aggravated by its experience that it is no longer developing for the iPhone either.

Developers are starting to question whether they should invest so much time and effort into iPhone development only to have their apps or ideas rejected. These frustrations that Apple has caused could be good news for Google‘s Android. But it is unknown whether developers will give Android a try next.

The good news for Apple: in the app world there are plenty of other developers waiting for a chance to catch lightning in a bottle.