When the iPhone first came out, I wrote a simple puzzle game with OpenGLES and attempted to get it approved for the App store. The process took months and was incredibly frustrating. Running the game the first time showed a demo of the high scores table. Rather than leave it empty, I populated the list with the names of great scientists that I admired.
The rejection letter said that I was is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states (as quoted directly from the rejection letter):
"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or
defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images,
photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's
reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod
touch users."
Obscene? pornographic? offensive? Surely they had confused my app with someone else's. Of course it didn't take me long to realize the name that some would find 'offensive' and I was disgusted.
After I removed the name Charles Darwin from the high scores table, I was rejected again because I violated section 3.3.6 of the iPhone SDK Agreement:
"Any form of user or device data collection, or image, picture or
voice capture or recording performed by the Application (collectively
“Recordings”), and any form of user data, content or information
uploading, syncing, or transmission performed by the Application
[. ..] a reasonably conspicuous visual indicator
must be displayed to the user as part of the Application to indicate
that a Recording is taking place."
I couldn't even believe this when I read it. My app was totally local and didn't even open a network socket! Just who the hell was reviewing these things? I guess lawyers with no tech sense whatsoever.
I still like Apple products because they are in my opinion the best that's out there, but this experience really damaged my opinion of Apple as a company. And I certainly haven't bothered to do anymore iPhone development. I loved writing the code, but dealing with the walled garden was a truly depressing experience.
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When the iPhone first came out, I wrote a simple puzzle game with OpenGLES and attempted to get it approved for the App store. The process took months and was incredibly frustrating. Running the game the first time showed a demo of the high scores table. Rather than leave it empty, I populated the list with the names of great scientists that I admired.
The rejection letter said that I was is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states (as quoted directly from the rejection letter):
Obscene? pornographic? offensive? Surely they had confused my app with someone else's. Of course it didn't take me long to realize the name that some would find 'offensive' and I was disgusted.
After I removed the name Charles Darwin from the high scores table, I was rejected again because I violated section 3.3.6 of the iPhone SDK Agreement:
I couldn't even believe this when I read it. My app was totally local and didn't even open a network socket! Just who the hell was reviewing these things? I guess lawyers with no tech sense whatsoever.
I still like Apple products because they are in my opinion the best that's out there, but this experience really damaged my opinion of Apple as a company. And I certainly haven't bothered to do anymore iPhone development. I loved writing the code, but dealing with the walled garden was a truly depressing experience.