Archive for November, 2009
ACCEPTED: Toginfo (despite using private API)
This will either attract great joy and happiness … or mass wailing and gnashing of teeth. Apple has just accepted an update *despite* acknowledging its use of a private API:
During our review of your application we found it is using a private API, which is in violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement section [...]
LIBRARY REJECTED: Google Toolbox + Torque2D (for “deprecated” API)
According to Apple reviewers, the word “deprecated” (which usually has a specific technical meaning) is now a synonym for “private” (which usually has an entirely distinct meaning):
games being rejected based on “a private API”, which is funny because its actually an Apple OS API function that has merely been deprecated – they just like those [...]
REJECTED: ShakeCharge (”we will never accept it”)
Inspired by “all kinds of fart apps”, one developer created a joke app that pretends to recharge the battery by shaking the phone:
[the Apple reviewer] on the phone told me : “Please don’t ever re-submit this application, we will never accept it. Spend your time and energy on other applications.”
LIBRARY REJECTED: NimbleKit (private API names)
Nimblekit (create applications for iPhone by writing an HTML page with Javascript) is apparently being rejected for – yet again – private APIs that … aren’t actually being referenced. But, you know, they have THE SAME NAME as some private APIs, so that’s bad enough, no?:
NimbleKit will instantiate your obj-c/js class and call setParameters, in [...]
REJECTED: Grand Tour-3D (for a joke about money)
Add another to the list of “pedantic interpretation of the rules, with no regards to common sense” – Grand Tour 3D []:
The concern was with a statement about the “cost” of my app in the description as it might cause confusion in foreign markets
…
“Costs about $149,999,995.01 less then the Voyager probes.”
[site update: About pages]
Among the many links in the past 24 hours, a handful of sites have gone digging to try and find out who *I* am. It never occurred to me that this would be newsworthy . I setup this site with no links to myself or my background, leading to some misunderstandings, and some confusion [...]
OVERTURNED: iPhone:The Missing Manual (for the text: “iphone”)
Among the rejections for “app that mentions or depicts anything to do with Apple”, I believe this is the most extreme example. But buried in this is also a larger issue (see below).
Our book about the iPhone has been rejected from the App Store BECAUSE IT CONTAINS THE WORD iPHONE.
OVERTURNED: Airfoil Speakers (community FTW…)
After a blizzard of press, commentary, blogging, and reporting, Airfoil Speakers [] has been re-submitted, and re-approved on the App Store:
Following a conversation with Apple last week, we submitted this update to Airfoil Speakers Touch on Friday, and it has already been approved (in one of the shortest reviews we’ve ever seen).
…
we were contacted [...]
ACCEPTED: Star Wars Trench Run
Released just last week, Star Wars Trench Run [] got through submission OK – despite having a blatant image of an iPhone embedded in the game itself:
(in case it’s not clear: the whole image is a screenshot of the app itself – approx 2/3 of the screen is taken up with a bitmap of an [...]
REJECTED: Airfoil Speakers (for displaying YOUR Mac)
Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil Speakers [] is a classic example of a common rejection reason: they used an image of a Mac … to tell the user when they were connecting to a Mac (as opposed to a Windows PC).
(using an image of an iPhone to represent … the iPhone … gets a similar rejection)