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Apple Yanks Toddler's Speech-Enabling App
theodp writes "TIME reports that four-year-old Maya Nieder's speech-enabling 'Speak for Yourself' app was yanked from the App Store by Apple due to an unresolved patent dispute at the behest of Prentke Romich Company (PRC) and Semantic Compaction Systems (SCS), makers of designated communication devices (not iPad apps). 'The issue of whether or not Apple should have pulled Speak for Yourself from the App Store before the case was decided is trickier. Obviously, Apple would rather be safe than sorry and remove a potentially problematic app instead of risking legal action. The problem, however, is that this isn’t some counterfeit version of Angry Birds.' 'My daughter cannot speak without this app,' writes Maya's mom, Dana. 'She cannot ask us questions. She cannot tell us that she's tired, or that she wants yogurt for lunch. She cannot tell her daddy that she loves him.' If you're so inclined, Dana suggests you drop a note to appstorenotices@apple.com."
But its still on her device - so she still can do all those things. If she syncs her phone/ipad with itunes, she even has her own back up of the app and can reinstall it just fine.
An app being yanked from the AppStore doesn't mean it gets removed from your device.
This partial quote is extremely misleading. Apple simply removing something from the App Store does not delete it from devices it is already installed on. They can still use the application. That is part of a hypothetical "What if Apple remote wiped it from our device" which has not happened.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
At which point you could either get it from a different app store or just skip the app stores altogether and side load it. And no, that does not require rooting it. It just requires not using Apple.
So the app was written by a toddler, right? No, it was two speech pathologists, Heidi LoStracco and Renee Collender. So it was funded by the four-year-old? No again. So it's the only way she speaks, at least? Nope, just the one she likes the best.
This headline, most of the summary, and the majority of TFA are an appeal to emotion to cloud what's ultimately a bog-standard legal issue. The app's future sale and distribution has been blocked, just like Galaxy tablets, XBoxes, iPads, and many other products that are banned from sale until patent issues are worked out. The point of the story (I guess) is to point out that patent litigation affects innocent bystanders, but this is nothing new, and I personally find the intense spin disgusting. Somehow, the fact that a four-year-old uses this app supposedly makes it okay to copy someone else's research and development? What about the researcher at Prentke Romich whose income depends on the company's speech hardware, who has a toddler at home to feed? What about the toddler whose lawyer parents are working on this case?
Won't somebody please stop thinking of the children?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
There is actually a slew of them
one list is here
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/augmentative+and+alternative+communication
There are some that are open source.
But please, don't let facts interfere with your rant in the future.
Did you even read the summary? This is not a case of censorship which Apple has done in the past. This is a case of a legal dispute of patents and ownership. If it was on the Android or WP7 or BB store it would have been the same. Apple will put it back on sale once the developer and claimant resolve their dispute. This is the same knee jerk reaction when Apple pulled VLC. The first reactions were Apple was hostile to GPL when reality was one of the developers of VLC objected to his code being deployed in the App store because he felt it was not compliant with GPL.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.