God help us if Mac OS X ever has a system like the App Store policy. This time, Convertbot by Tapbots (a Cult of Mac favorite a while ago) was rejected. Its crime, as the image above shows, was using an icon for Time that Apple considers too similar to the one it uses for Recents.
Thing is, Tapbots just used a generic and insanely simple clock icon. Clearly, Apple—a company that bases a lot of its advertising on the fact smart people use Macs and Apple kit—thinks iPhone and iPod touch users are a bunch of f——ing morons, with no understanding of context. Perhaps they’re right and Cupertino has been inundated with frustrated iPhone users, repeatedly stabbing the Convertbot clock icon and yet not being able to access a recent calls list.
Somehow, we doubt it. Also, this icon’s the same one Convertbot’s had since the start—and this is the third point update to the app, and therefore the fourth time it’s been submitted. There were no problems at all the first three times.
With Philip Schiller’s email to John Gruber (regarding Ninjawords) and a similar communication to Panic’s Steven Frank, along with positive noises regarding C64 app finally being approved, we’re for once going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt on this (in that the decision is an isolated error). But here’s hoping things really are improving—that the Convertbot rejection is the blip, rather than the blip being Apple getting things right.
