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Apple Has Removed Dash from the App Store (kapeli.com)
Popular API documentation browser Dash was pulled from the App Store this week after a routine migration request, its developer Bogdan Popescu wrote in a blog post. He said the migration was successful, but some features in iTunes Connect weren't available during account migration, Apple warned him. Later in the day, Apple sent another email saying the app has been pulled because of "fraudulent conduct," and did not offer any explanation. From the post: Today I called them and they confirmed my account migration went through and that everything is okay as far as they can tell. A few hours ago I received a "Notice of Termination" email, saying that my account was terminated due to fraudulent conduct. I called them again and they said they can't provide more information. Update: Apple contacted me and told me they found evidence of App Store review manipulation. This is something I've never done. Apple's decision is final and can't be appealed.Apple blogger Federico Viticci said. "This seems like a major screwup. Apple dev relationships should fix this soon." Marco Arment, the co-founder of Tumblr and founder of Instapaper, said This is a story with two major paths: Either the developer did something to deserve the rug being pulled out from under, something worthy of their developer credentials being cancelled. Or there's a colossal misunderstanding here. I suspect there's more to this than meets the eye. Either way, don't think this is the way this should have played out.
>I'm not sure what the Dash app does or how it works
It is an application that lets you easily pull in documentation for hundreds of libraries and languages for offline reading and searching.
I find it immensely useful. I use it to keep the docs for for pretty much anything I have ever used (languages, libraries, tools). Pulling the documentation in is a case of typing in the name and clicking on the thing you want.
I comes into its own if you travel on planes and find that an ideal time to do some uninterrupted programming.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Breathe
Konfabulator
Patenting an app's features, using pictures of the app itself.
Examples of features taken from apps (not necessarily kicking them out)
Blog post of dev whose animated weather app was refused shortly before Apple implemented the same thing
I'm sure there's more, but it's too depressing to keep searching for them. Honestly, as an academic/scientific programmer I feel like I could never try to write a commercial application. Any idea you have is already present in an overbroad patent owned by someone with deeper pockets than you.
.:Semper Absurda:.
Good luck making any appreciable money on any other mobile platform.
Good luck making any appreciable money on the iOS mobile platform.
I assume you haven't watched any of the WWDC Keynotes. I think the 2016 one mentioned over 50 BILLION DOLLARS (!!!) so far paid to Developers from App Store "Royalties".
So SOMEBODY is making some money. And it's only your own damn fault if that's not you.
I've just spent four days on the phone with Apple.
I work for a school.
We have iPads. Lots of iPads.
We were blocked by their automated system for reasons unknown, so we couldn't create iTunes accounts, given that it's a few weeks into term this is our device roll-out period.
Four people from Apple, from four countries, and four days later, I was still no closer. I'd been told I needed to sign up for Beta/Preview services in order for it to work now, then that the school wasn't eligible for that exact service, then we were but I had to provide contacts of the IT Manager (me!). When I did, they then refused it because I hadn't included a verification contact. Did the verification contact need to be anyone higher? Oh, no, I was perfectly capable of signing the forms necessary - I just needed a random employee. So I added the cleaner. Yep, they then accepted it.
It was then discovered that that WASN'T the problem at all. Four days of shouting, I got one guy who "would lift the restriction on our domain for 30 days". Great. What about the rest of the year? No, they can't do that at all, ever, for anyone. Agreed to at least get it working for now - more paperwork. More bullshit. To sign up student iTunes accounts into a school domain for what is quite clearly a government-authorised school in the UK.
In the end, I'm just preparing my record of the entire farce to pass to senior management. Google have offered us an iPad buy-back scheme where they'll take in our hundreds of iPads and give us Chromebooks instead. Our Chromebook trial was a raging success after the shit that was an iPad rollout and we have nothing but trouble with Apple.
I told the Apple guy on the phone that they don't care about education, they don't even HAVE an education line you can call in the line (he literally confessed they don't even have a number they can publish for that team), and when you call on the published numbers, it takes FOUR DAYS to get through to the guy who can actually do the bare fucking minimum of what you need to do and nothing else. He was utterly powerless and useless, there's no escalation and no customer service that I can see at all.
I told him I needed something longer-term if I'm going to plan deployments like this. He said he wasn't able to commit to anything like that. Game over.
I wouldn't mind but I inherited the iPad deployment and we have very expensive MDM and Mac servers and everything you need. And yet all we EVER get from them is hassle and people on support lines that know nothing and can do nothing. I would never have chosen them.
Hell, their Apple School Manager "preview" (i.e. Beta) that they forced me onto - you can't even create users that can download a free app. You can't customise the user types. You can't even turn the users off (it takes 30 days for a user you "deactivate" using that to disappear, and in that time nobody can create another with their same email). And their "student" user cannot download apps - not even the approved MDM apps that push the paid-for apps. It basically is incompatible with any third-party MDM, so it's useless.
Apple way or the fucking highway, and no care for anything slightly different to what they TELL you you will have.
I've honestly had enough of them to NEVER voluntarily deal with them ever again, and I was never too pleased with them in the first place.