REJECTED: eBook (for “mentioning” the possibility of Jailbreaking)
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 guide?
“Exactly what does my book say about jailbreaking? There is a 4 page section (in a 200 page book) that explains the risks of jailbreaking — such as it may void your warranty and “may lead to problems using your iPhone, such as crashes or even startup failures.” Apple publicly offers this same advice in a support article on jailbreaking.
…
The problematic material, if there was any, is where I discuss the potential advantages of jailbreaking and offer a brief subsection titled “How to Jailbreak.” Despite the title, the subsection does not provide step-by-step instructions. Rather, it offers only a vague description of the jailbreak process, noting: “Describing how to jailbreak an iPhone for a book like this is an exercise in futility.”"
Read the linked article for full details, but removing the “How to” section wasn’t enough. The author has an interesting side-point; he didnt believe the claim that Jailbreaking broke the Developer License Agreement, and did some careful reading of said license:
“Apple’s License Agreement includes a catch-all clause that amounts to a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for the company, allowing it to do whatever it wants: “Apple may…reject Your Application for distribution for any reason, even if Your Application meets the Documentation and Program Requirements.”
In other words, Apple can reject your app even if it is not in violation of any specific clause in the License Agreement. Apple doesn’t even have to provide a rationale for its decision. Apple can basically tell you: “We reject your app. We’re not going to tell you why. We’re not going to tell you what, if anything, you can do to revise the app that would change our decision. It doesn’t even matter if another app already in the Store includes the same material that is the basis for our rejection here. And there’s not a thing you can do about it. So get lost.”"
