I really do not want to bang on about this story, but the more I hear about it the more annoyed I get. The best place to start is by reading this transcript between a developer and Apple. It’s a bizarre conversation which highlights the concerns many people have with Apple. The Apple rep has been given no room to help ‘his customer’ and not one person can argue against my annoyance here because Apple refuses to say why it was removed; no mention of terms and conditions apart from bland commentary and an adherence to policy which is somewhat Stepford in the way it comes over. Has Apple built a series of iCustomerServiceAdvisors that all look like Steve Jobs and who all say the same things again and again and again?
There is more to this story, however, and believe it or not it gets worse. The ‘developer’ now has to pay refunds to customers who will no longer receive updates and support. Here’s the quote from Mac Life- “Apple made it impossible for our customers to receive the fixes, updates, and support by pulling the app. We were fulfilling our end of the bargain. Why should those refunds come out of our pocket?” says Duerr. “The refund issue and lack of respect for our mutual customers has further soured us on the belief that Apple cares at all about their developers … other than the dollars they bring in.”
Apple make great products and innovates like no other company in the mobile industry, but there comes a point when you have to ask yourself who you want to give your money to. I will also use the best tool for the job and it takes a lot to make me change for ethical reasons, but this whole scenario is leaving a nasty taste in the mouths of many more people than Apple could have expected. The question is, does it care?
What a crock! This is typical anti-Apple speak. They are within their rights to bar the app and the developer knows that.
Yeah you ARE an Apple fanbuoy.
App got pulled for no reason and now they have to pay money back- ridiculous. Only Microsoft could come up with such an idea, I thought until now!
Am I? Apple have done so much for the world and microsoft shouldnt be said in the same breath.
Apple makes developers lots of money and can choose what they want published. They must have good reasons to withdraw it.
You must be writing this just to wind us up surely? Seriously not worth responding to. Let’s continue with our normal grown up discussions…
Jonnymac, thanks for the laughs…
On a serious note. I am about to release my first commercial app on windows mobile I hope they don’t treat developers on their new store like this?
(though probably modihand will be the first store, to test the waters)..
http://www.chrisdanielson.com/2009/07/28/apple-app-store-scalability-issues-and-subjective-rejections/
interesting blog post…
unfortuntely/fortunately MS do have an approval process on their new app store. It will be interesting to see what they block, will they block apps that compete with their features? or future planned features? i hope not! Though as jailbreak isn’t needed I think MS would have a hard sell of their store if they tried this kind of stuff (mobihand, pocketgear etc will just pick up the developers)…
I think this is awful but please separate the two issues here.
1) apple pulling apps
2) poor customer/supplier service
this type of customer service is becoming all too familiar at the moment. I could tell you my BT broadband customer service stories that would turn you grey. Improvements here are very plausible and hopefully Apple will listen and make changes.
Withdrawing apps is a different matter and the protectionism they exert is on one hand understandable and on the other objectionable.
If in this instance the customer service had been better and the reason for the rejection made clear then this story would be a non-story.
This iPhone is my first ever apple device and I am not a fanboy. Apple clearly need to prove their customer service to prevent this protectionism being seen as so negative. It used to be that peole lauded them for this as it led to a stable and consistant user experience. Poor customer service has changed the tone to a negative one.
Just my opinion.
mmmm back to the google voice app rejection..
http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/31/fcc-now-inquiring-about-atandts-involvement-in-google-voices-iph/
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