So it's come to this, Apple?
In olden days, conquering armies would put the bodies or heads of enemies on pikes or town gates or roads to warn the people that revolt would lead to death. It would seem that someone at Apple read a history of these actions and decided to do something similar for apps on the App Store. Marco Arment writes about the rejection of an app by Cromulent Labs (Launcher), and how it was deliberately rejected first to be an example to other developers.
You can read the entire story on the blog for Cromulent Labs, but I have to agree with Marco. This is disgusting behavior, and Apple is better than this. It seems like every week the company forgets how much utility Android has, and wants to drag iOS back to an earlier, more restricted day. We reported yesterday about how Apple made Panic pull a big ol' function out of Transmit (which I use and love dearly and unfortunately updated before I realized what had happened -- now I'm just screwed until Apple reconsiders).
Just TODAY, Apple is again trolling Agile Tortoise, which makes the amazingly awesome Drafts app. First its widget was rejected because, horror of horrors, it did something useful and allowed input! Now it was rejected again because it "doesn't do enough." If capriciousness were marketable, Apple would easily be twice the size of Exxon Mobil.
Last week's rejection? Your Today widget does too much. This week's? Your Today widget doesn't do enough. Seriously.
- Greg Pierce (@agiletortoise) December 9, 2014
Why not just be clear with the rules to begin with? How about enforcing them with some semblance of sanity or normalcy? Well, from experience we know Apple has a history of odd, ever-shifting behavior on the App Store. And that's too bad, in the long run. It's also odd for a company made of some of the best engineers in the world.
While we may not need 1,000 fart apps, I can't help but thinking of developers who will look to this gigantic market only to say "no, it's just not worth the risk of bringing a world-class, powerful tool to iOS on the off chance Apple gets a bug up its ass and pulls our app from the store." Too bad. I'm losing faith in the company, and I have to think that so are some developers.
