Tuesday, November 11, 2008

App store rejects... it's time for change!

In following a thread on the macrumors forums about another app (castcatcher) that was rejected (an update actually) on grounds of using too much bandwidth.  This one maybe is a bit too close to home for me, so it's got me a bit more worried than the "pull my finger" app that didn't make the cut. Is anyone aware of a petition to apple to be more open about their acceptance of apps? (too lazy to google but strangely not lazy enough to not write about this).

It seems that if enough registered developers signed a reasonably written, petition (and had some of the major developers of major indy apps) sign on, they may be able to be heard. My guess is that those with a lot of success are scared to "bite the hand that feeds them" but the uncertainly is extremely demoralizing to a developer. I'm not going to stop developing because of the fear, but it does certainly make me want to hedge my bets and not "risk everything" on the hopes that my apps get accepted into the store. True innovation, however probably does require more of the "risk everything" attitude. It may simply take getting some exposure on the front of a few of the apple news sites, and a few big developers in an "open letter" to bring about some change. Does the NDA override our right to unite and beg for some clearer groundrules? Is there any reason the SDK can't include the same tests that Apple themselves are using to vet applications (if such things truly exist? Things are appearing more subjective these days... and admittedly some have to be judgement calls, but something like bandwidth usage is easily implemented in a test suite).

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