Apple Yanking Widget Apps: “We’re Not Allowing Apps That Create Their Own Desktops.”

John Brownlee ()

Apple Yanking Widget Apps: “We’re Not Allowing Apps That Create Their Own Desktops.”

According to Apple Insider, Apple has started to cull programs on the App Store that offer Dashboard-like widgets to the user.

The most tangible evidence of the purge comes from Developer Russell Ivanovic, whose MyFrame app was removed by Apple for including widget support.

Going straight to Steve Jobs, Ivanovic received this reply: “”We are not allowing apps that create their own desktops. Sorry.”

Apple Insider speculates that this might be preparation work for Apple to introduce their own widgets in iPhone OS 4.0, although surely we’d have seen some evidence of that in beta form by now.

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Original iPhone Patent Confirms Apple’s Always Had User Widgets In Mind

An equally valid reason Apple may be shutting dashboard apps down is because of their strict ban against interpretive code, which is essentially what a widget is.

7 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Apple, iPhone Apps, News, Software |

  • charli

    should be no shock to anyone after they yanked google voice

  • Darcy McGee

    Meh. Violates terms, so such is life.

    HOWEVER it does seem like Apple could do something other than yank immediately. Perhaps giving the developer a 30 day notice that their product will be yanked would be a good idea. This would give the developer an opportunity to revise the app, if they felt it was possible to do so.

    On the other hand, I rather like the “Steve Jobs hand of God” coming down requiring you to do its bidding. I don’t design iPhone Apps, mind you.

  • Drizzle

    iPhone/iPad are such a crippled devices its amazing anyone would still use them.

  • BigJosh

    Shocking! Apple takes away a developers perfectly good application just to make thier own! I am so shocked right now. I love the freedome Apple gives its customers to do absolutely nothing original. Ever seen an iphone that didnt look just like the next one? Sheez, what a joke. Go ahead and rip me Apple fanboys. The Google Tablet with Verizon is going to blow this things expensive doors off. Cheers!

  • charli

    @BigJosh. You are wrong about the whole originality issue. there are plenty of realms that aren’t copying the UI, porn etc for folks to play in

    as for the whole ‘google tablet’ comment, time will tell on that one. And until this tablet is released I will neither praise nor mock you.

  • Alexis

    wtf?

  • BigJosh

    Wow, I am glad I dont have an iPad becasue apparently it makes you a rambling lunatic. I am scared by these comments folks. Enjoy your iPad’s crazies.