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Followup from PULLED: multiple apps … (for “overtly sexual content”) … Apparently we’re already at 5,000 apps, and counting, pulled for “sexual content”.
Jon Atherton managed to get a detailed response from Apple over what’s not allowed:
1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
2. No images of men in bikinis! [...]
In typical Apple fashion, it’s major but (apparently) silent: large numbers of apps are being pulled from the App Store (see below for linked examples – some of these are safe for viewing by teens and pre-teens under standard Parental Guidance rules). A couple of examples (1, 2) suggest this form letter:
Dear [developer],
The App Store [...]
It’s only a temporary rejection – easy to fix – but worth noting as something to avoid. Hipstamatic’s latest version got rejected for running a contest, but not having enough info in the app description on iTunes:
“…It would be appropriate to provide official rules of the contest within the application which clearly state that that [...]
Poor O’Reilly; they’d already had one ebook rejected for having “iPhone” in the title. Now, their ebook Take Control of iPhone OS 3 has been rejected for talking about JailBreaking:
Apple’s only answer was that we would “need to remove the section on jailbreaking.”
What’s the offending text? Does it have source code? A step by step [...]
Scant details on this one (the developer concerned was interviewed by their regional paper, but apparently they “don’t do” developer blogs in Ireland). It seems they were rejected for sending emails from the phone via a server with a single email address:
The application allowed users to create their own card from scratch, customising the background [...]
For anyone following the “yes, you did”, “no, we didn’t”, “I’m telling the FCC!”, “please don’t sue us – sue our partner!” Apple vs. AT&T vs. Google debate here’s a fun one: AT&T released an excited press release (NOTE: that is allegedly not the original release) implying that – thanks to AT&T’s hard work – [...]
It was no surprise that Apple now rejects AdMob apps for this, but here we have examples of OpenFeint being rejected. OpenFeint is primarily a social network, partly masquerading as a high-score system; both aspects have obvious value in location checks. But not enough, according to Apple:
We’ve reviewed your application Battle for Wesnoth: The South [...]
With Apple’s announcement that they would no longer allow apps that ask location purely for advertising purposes, I wondered how long it would take to see some rejections. If Scripture Only is anything to go by, that was pretty quick:
I got the following email after submitting an update to an app already in the App [...]
This one brings up two major long-term issues (read to the end). Flash of Genius is an educational app. It came 10th in its category in the recent Google Android Developer Challenge, so the developers thought to use that in their marketing materials. Apple wasn’t happy:
During our review of your application, we found that your [...]
So, you’re a cop. You just arrested someone, and you have to read them their rights, quickly and accurately – or risk screwing-up later prosecutions / court-cases. Is there an app for that? Yes – POLICE MIRANDA WARNING. Is it simplistic and easy to use? Yes. Too simple:
“Apple actually rejected the application at first because [...]