App Store – Call it Cult of iPhone – Bliss for developers, it has brought nightmares crossing developer’s dreams. App Store has strong rules that all Apps must abide to.
App Store has been successful, the proof is the billion numbers.
But Certain people still think, it’s biased and some behaviors are way to un-justified.
“Farting gets a pass, so does an app that keeps track of multiple girlfriends’ menstrual cycles.”
But some apps are just too racy, too offensive or too something to make it onto the iPhone App store. Let’s look at the lsit of Apps that got rejected from App Store:
Apps that have been Rejected 
1. Baby Shaker
The name explains why this app didn’t make it through. The App featured a crying infant. Users shook their iPhone until the little baby stopped crying. Once users shook the phone hard enough, red Xs appeared over the baby’s eyes, which seemed to imply that the baby was dead. The app description read: “See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!”
Apple pulled the app from its stores, and Apple spokeswoman Nancy Kerris told the Associated Press, “We sincerely apologize for this mistake.”
2. Zombie School
This app, created by Retarded Arts, was attacked for its “Treatment of school violence,” ABC News reports. The site reported that the app read:
“Your local campus has been infected by the Zombie Virus!!! Everyone is infected!!! Will you run or will you fight to eliminate all the Zombies… You have the control over the Zombie shooting tower that your supporters have made you. Starting with a single bow and arrow, start eliminating the Zombies. As you progress, you can buy Grenades, Gun or even upgrade your bow to shoot double or triple arrows at a time!”
Why do they even make such dirty apps ?
3. I Am Rich
Probably, you already heard of this one. The app cost $999.99. For that astronomical sum, all the user got was a glowing red ruby on the screen. The app developer wrote: “The red icon on your iPhone or iPod Touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were able to afford this…”. Reports say that seven people actually downloaded the app before Apple yanked it. I can’t believe there are crazy people who will buy even at that cost without even doing a background check.
4. iBoobs
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to imagine what the iBoobs app involved. ODesk.com reports that “These almost lifelike boobies/bre**** would jiggle just for fun, until Apple gave them a proper bra and sent them home.” 🙂
5. Hottest Girls
Well, naturally, if Apple didn’t go for the boobs, it wasn’t going to go for this app. “Hottest Girls” showed photos of topless women. The developer boasted “this is the first app to have nudity.” Looks like he spoke too fast, as Apple booted the app from its store.
6. Prohibition 2: Dope Wars
Apple doesn’t like drug kingpins. In the “Prohibition 2: Dope Wars” app, users can “pretend to be drug dealers in New York City, trying to make as much money as possible in 30 days by trafficking illegal substances”
7. Slasher
This app shows a photo of a knife and makes slasher sounds when you shake your iPhone. Now you can have a App that has Guns, approved, but why not Knife? Is knife more dangerous than Guns ? MAy be this explains:
It came out during a wave of stabbings in the UK, so Apple may have been getting many complaints from people there. I think it’s a heavy-handed response, though, to kill the app everywhere because of unfortunate timing in one country.
8. Obama Trampoline
This app let you select a U.S. politician, including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin, and make them jump on a trampoline. Palin would end up doing flips; Clinton, who had no pants, would lean to the side; and Obama would turn upside down, ABC News reports. Doesn’t sound that bad, does it? Nevertheless, Apple rejected it saying it “ridiculed public officials”. ROFL
9. NetShare – This app actally let you tether you iPhone pre- OS 3.0. Aple had no tolerace for itas AT&T cried their concern over it.
12. Tris – A Simple Tetris game. This is a special case, in that Apple isn’t the villain here. Apparently, The Tetris Company contacted Apple and threatened some sort of legal action, and Apple contacted Witherspoon with the news, and Witherspoon responded by removing his own app.
13. MailWrangler – Almost similar to the inbuilt mail. Rejected as it had not much extra to do than inbuilt Mail.app
14. Pull My Finger – This wasn’t an app that they approved and later withdrew. I included it because it was one of the early news stories about Apple rejecting apps for taste.
Happily, Apple changed their minds and approved it, three months later. Seems like Apple pulled his finger 😉
15. Podcaster – This was the first app whose reason for making headlines was Apple killing it for competing with one of Apple’s own applications—in this case, the PC (Mac OS X and Windows) versions of iTunes. (Apple killed MailWrangler first, but it didn’t make news until later because MailWrangler’s developer waited before announcing it on his blog.)
For a while, Almerica continued to sell licenses using Ad-Hoc Distribution, but Apple withdrew his ability to do that. (Not surprising—Ad-Hoc Distribution, as I understand it, is intended for such things as beta testing, not full-scale distribution. Remember, the App Store is supposed to be the only way to mass-distribute an iPhone app.)
iPhone OS 2.2 introduced the ability to download podcasts inside the iTunes and Video apps on the device. Only Apple knows whether they were referring to this then-forthcoming feature, or decided to add it after seeing the reaction to their rejecting Podcaster.
On 2009-01-23, Apple approved “Podcasters younger sibling” , an app called Rss Player. The developer says “It is basically Podcaster without the Search Directory”, but that “It has several features that Podcaster does not”. It’s unclear whether Apple approved Rss Player because he removed the Search Directory or because Apple had changed their policy on “duplicating functionality”.
16. Freedom Time – The application shows a pair of clocks, both analog and digital, counting down to the end of George W. Bush’s Presidency. Below the digital clock, a caption reads “…till the end of an error!”. The analog clock features a caricature of Bush, whose arms are the hands of the clock.
After Apple rejected his app, the developer appealed to Steve Jobs by email. Jobs responded: “… I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What’s the point?”
17. Shaker – Tim Robertson interviewed one of the developers of Shaker for his MyMac.com podcast. He sent me the link to the episode, number 204; the interview starts at 24 minutes 35 seconds and runs for about 16½ minutes, and is followed by discussion among the panel without the developer present.
The most interesting thing about the Shaker case is that The Tetris Company apparently asserted copyrightinfringement, not trademark infringement (in the case of Tris, they’d asserted trademark infringement). On the one hand, this makes some sense, as the name “Shaker” bears no similarity at all to the trademark “Tetris”—asserting trademark infringement would be insane. On the other hand, considering the dramatically different themes, is The Tetris Company accusing Phunkware of burgling their code? I’m curious what part of Tetris the Tetris Company thinks Phunkware infringed the copyright on.
I strongly recommend that you listen to the full interview, as there are many other details that I’m leaving out for brevity.
18. Cast Catcher – A streaming Radio application. Apple rejected it for consuming too much bandwidth. May be again AT&T is to blame. Note that 1.3 is the first version Apple’s rejected. Apple approved all three previous versions; in fact, 1.2 was still available even after Apple had rejected 1.3.
MORE
The list is growing and there are more.
It’s sometimes logical and sometimes funny the way App Store is working today. I won’t be wrong if I restate what I mentioned sometime back, App Store has put Apple in a Big Jeopardy. It’s a Vicious circle. I hope they would be able to come out of it.
loading...
loading...
App Store is weirdo.
loading...
loading...