More App Store Stupidity – iPhone eBook App Rejected For Including Kama Sutra
1:21 pm, May 21st, 2009, Craig Grannell
Gnh! That’s pretty much the sound we made, surprisingly loudly, on reading Gruber’s ‘Regarding Eucalyptus’ post. The gist? App Store idiocy strikes again! The specifics…
It seems Apple, not content with plumbing the depths by rejecting Tweetie for a rude word being in the day’s Twitter trends, has now rejected an e-book reader, because you can potentially read ‘objectionable’ content on it. Gruber sums things up nicely, calling this the “shittiest and most outrageous App Store rejection to date, and that’s saying something”, and we agree wholeheartedly.
As Gruber notes, Apple’s got a bug up its ass regarding the fact that you can read Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana on Eucalyptus. (Won’t somebody think of the children?) However, you can read this on a few other apps, too—you know, apps like Kindle and Stanza and, er, Safari. So Apple had best get ready to kick those off the iPhone for warping our fragile little minds.
But there’s more! What makes matters even worse is on reading the developer’s blog, it’s pretty clear the approvals process is even more broken than we all thought. Had Apple made a mistake and rectified it (see: Tweetie), fine… Dumb, but fine. Here, though, it’s pretty clear Apple keeps rejecting the app again and again for precisely the same utterly asinine reason. When the developer argues his case, it’s like shouting at a brick wall— a particularly dumb brick wall.
Far be it for us to say that perhaps ‘reversals’ for Tweetie and the NIN app actually came from Apple caving to dreadful publicity. But, hell, if the way to get a perfectly good app into the App Store is for a whole bunch of blogs to kick up a fuss and show, yet again, how the App Store approvals people seemingly have the combined intellect of a drunk, lobotimized woodlouse, we’re happy to do our bit.
Posted by Craig Grannell in News, Opinions, iPhone | Comment on this article
If you didn’t realize it was this broken, or if you ever suspected even for a moment that Apple was in the habit of rectifying mistakes, or if you even thought there was a way for developers to communicate with Apple about any part of the process at all, then you simply haven’t been paying attention. Developers know that the App Store is the worst thing Apple has ever done, and the approval process is the worst part of it.
I say that as a developer who has never had a rejection, and never had an approval take longer than 8 days — so I’m not selfishly whining about my own treatment. It just sucks in general.
Jeremy, on May 21st, 2009 at 2:23 pm
@Jeremy: I think everyone knew the process was bad, just not quite this bad.
Craig Grannell, on May 21st, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Apple will listen… eventually… when they can no longer ignore the yelling and screaming.
Embarrass them into action everybody!
Bart Hanson, on May 21st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Oh my god! I just booted up my mac mini and then used my pure Safari web broser and looked up Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana. Oh it’s digusting (ha ha!) I want a full refund on my mac mini and all the additional stuff I purchased from Apple. We can’t have a manufacturer allowing me to just willy nilly go browsing for naughty stuff.
Really Apple. GROW UP!
You are looking daily more and more stupid.
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