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Apple Bans iPhone App For Competing With Mail.app
recoiledsnake writes "Another submission has been rejected from the iPhone App Store, this time for 'duplicating the functionality of the iPhone Mail application.' The author claims that his application allows the user to log into their multiple web email accounts and that Apple seems to be confusing Gmail and Mail.app. This comes on the heels of Apple rejecting an application for competing with iTunes and rejecting other silly but harmless apps as being of 'limited utility.'"
ComputerWorld has an update to the rejected Podcaster app mentioned above. It seems the developer has used Apple's "Ad Hoc" service to begin distributing the software despite the fact that they blocked it from the App Store.
The Iphone is an orwellian police state where everything you do on it is carefully censored and controlled by Apple. Certainly i would never use one. I wish Google or someone would come out with a phone which is based on a completely open OS like Linux and where people can write their own programs and so on for it. People often fear government as a threat to their freedom, but right here we see with Apple, an obvious violation of peoples rights to use a device that they purchased in a way they wish, and a corporation deciding what people can and cant use it for. This leads in fact to stagnation, a lack of innovation. Many interesting developments and innovations come from innovation and improving and tinkering with an existing platform. A platform that allows a person to develop software provides excellent conditions for new innovations, like new games or mail apps to be developed.
Isn't duplicating functionality the basis for competition? The 45 different flashlight applications don't exactly support the claim that duplicate functionality is why these applications were rejected.
Seems to me like they're trying to reserve the right to develop their own alternative to any application on the store and pull the third party version. Don't you just love closed platforms?
It's a waste of investment. It's just that simple. The moment Apple wants to do something you're doing, they just get rid of you. No serious business should ever invest money into the iPhone because they are completely at the mercy of Apple here, in a way that makes Microsoft look like they're selling an open source platform.
It's Microsoft's platform, Microsoft's SDK, and Microsoft's store. Why should they allow any product on the shelf that competes with their own business? Why should they allow useless products? You don't get mad at Best Buy for not selling maps to Circuit City. You don't get mad at Circuit City for not selling empty cardboard boxes for $999. Why should Microsoft's store be any different?
Sound's pretty silly now, doesn't it?
Anyone got a light for my sig?
Because it's pissing people off in a way that's bad PR, firstly to the developers and secondly to the users. There's a reason why so many of the latter have jail-broken their iPhones - Trusted Computing sucks to be bent over for.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I am an Apple fan to the highest degree, but this has to be the stupidest analogy I've ever heard. It's one thing for Apple to ban apps that violate privacy, harm the network, or even that go against AT&T's TOS (like the tethering app). But to ban an app that competes with Apple's free included apps? If Best Buy won't sell your software, you can always try getting Circuit City to sell it or if that doesn't work, sell it from your own site and pay for advertising. If Apple won't sell your app on the App Store, you have no alternative. I have a regular old Samsung flip phone on the Sprint network. The included web browser sucks. I went over to Operamini.com. downloaded it, and now I have a great browser. Apple would never allow a competing browser,
The average consumer just wants something simple that works and is secure and looks great. They don't care if they're making things worse for themselves. Just look at MS' monopoly. People love it.
By closing the system up it's more secure and they can guarentee their software remains popular on their system.
I can't think of any reason other than Microsoft is a monopoly, and users have next to no choice but to use Windows for many purposes. However, if you're talking about Windows Mobile, or some other MS platform that isn't a monopoly, then it really doesn't sound as silly as you might think it does.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I think it was fairly clear that the grandparent was talking about developing software for the iPhone, not just using one. And I agree completely with his points. Of course, any company can develop a free program that duplicates yours, but being able to ban your software from the only place you can sell it is much worse. Even as an user, I find their attitude unacceptable, and will not buy their stuff.
the grandaprent obviously means that developing on the Iphone is a waste of investment. Most people do that kind of investment with a plan for a small reasonable return and a reasonable hope for great riches if their application happens to hit a sweet spot. With the iphone the situation is that, if you do hit that sweet spot, Apple can, and will just eliminate your application whilst introducing their own one. You end up doing free (or even profitable) R&D for Apple.
Others have compared this with Windows, but actually it's very similar. Microsoft has shown a willingness to kill any partner which gets too big for it's boots by competing against them. E.g. look at Borland which was wiped out by microsoft's compiler suite; look at Netscape; look even at Oracle: they were only saved because they had other platforms. Even so Oracle is in a much worse position because of MSSql than it would be otherwise.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();