App Rejections

[editor note: catching up on old submissions in the queue, this one is a couple of months old]

Hopefully this will be the last time an app gets rejected for parodying public figures (since that’s a legally protected right in most Western countries – Apple can reject it, but they can’t be sued for it. So they have no pressing reason to reject it, unlike libel/defamation/obscenity/illegality/etc). In this case, Mark Fiore’s NewsToons app was initially rejected for the infamous “objectionable to Apple” test:

“may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

How did this one get overturned?

Well, at first, the developer just gave up. This is tragic, and something I’ve been predicting for a while we’ll see more of: Apple’s terrible process scares-off people who simply want to make good apps:

“mainly because it seemed like it would be so daunting. … It’s not like I had a phone number for someone at Apple,”

…but then, a few months later, when he won a Pulitzer prize for his work – the first online-only cartoonist to do so – he mentioned his previous rejection in public. Great story – pounced on by several news outlets – “Pulitzer says yes, Apple says no”.

Obviously, following the media protest, Apple got on the case and requested the developer to resubmit the app, which duly got approved. As regular followers of AppRejections.com will be well aware, Mark could *probably* have got this accepted just by hassling Apple’s review team over email, and pointing out the error in their rejection. Eventually. If he persisted enough.

However, I really don’t blame him for his actual response. The rejection process is opaque and presents itself as mostly automated and robotic – as Mark points out, he couldn’t even find a contact phone number for the review team (although in his words “interestingly enough, I do now”). Again, regular readers will be aware that those numbers *can* be found, but finding them is often an exercise in tenacity: Apple’s websites are hugely user-unfriendly to developers, seemingly designed to dissuade you from contacting them. Everything funnels you back to buying hardware from the Apple Store :).

As I said, hopefully this will be the last such rejection. Hopefully the embarassment over this one (Pulitzer ain’t good for you, Apple? O, RLY?) will be enough to stem the flow. Because otherwise, we’ll continue to see developers self-censoring themsleves, giving up in the face of one of the world’s richest, most powerful, faceless corporations (AAPL). Final words go to Mark:

“Sure, mine might get approved, but what about someone who hasn’t won a Pulitzer and who is maybe making a better political app than mine? Do you need some media frenzy to get an app approved that has political material? I wish they would accept decent political material based on merit, not on popularity”