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New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

readitlaterlist.com

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Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#11

Post by credo »

letmein2 wrote: post #3

This developer is an idiot. It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) Twitter, facebook, evernote, all have account features so they were approved. Apple was crystal clear explaining this. The poster's muddled logic and inflamatory reaction shows me why Instapaper by Marco is a vastly superior product. My guess is the author is using a…

>>This developer is an idiot.

>>It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.)

>>My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for his product. Astroturfing, methinks.

I think you're being unduly harsh on this developer.

"Read it later" is an instapaper-like app and it makes perfect sense for the app to need an account.

My understanding is that read-it-later collects no personal information other than their read-it-later username and password.

The app has been around for more than a year. The free version of read-it-later is ranked 22nd in productivity. I think that the developer is genuinely concerned about the rejection and don't see this as astroturfing.

Why do you suspect the developer of harvesting user information and astroturfing ?

[edit: The parent post was at 10 points around 40 minutes ago. Now it is at -4. That is really interesting :) ]

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#12

Post by gtufano »

letmein2 wrote: post #3

This developer is an idiot. It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) Twitter, facebook, evernote, all have account features so they were approved. Apple was crystal clear explaining this. The poster's muddled logic and inflamatory reaction shows me why Instapaper by Marco is a vastly superior product. My guess is the author is using a…

I feel that the key is "they require customers to register with personal information without providing account-based features". Instapaper, for example, requires a login, but not requires personal informations, only a login (that could be anything). I could be wrong, of course. I use Instapaper and not this app.

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#13

Post by edd »

Can we please all wait for Apple to clarify before getting too excited at another reason to hate the app store?

As much as a sensationalist 'Apple are evil' might help promote your product only having one letter to go on and not waiting for a response for clarification is really lame journalism.

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#15

Post by dieterrams »

The email is confusingly worded, but I think it's simply saying that

1. you can't require account registration if the app does not provide account-specific functionality, and

2. if your app has both account-specific and non-account-specific functionality, registration can only be required to access the former.

I'm going to agree with houseabsolute and chalk this up to a mistake. That is, the app reviewer mistakenly assumed the app did not have account-specific functionality, or exclusively account-specific functionality. There are far too many (major) apps that require an account to do anything for his interpretation to make sense.

I wouldn't put this sort of craziness past Apple, but reviewer error just seems far more likely.

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#16

Post by mkramlich »

I've rejected Apple's ability to tell me what programming language I'm allowed to use (whether I'm kept back in the 80's in terms of language sophistication, for example) and I've rejected their ability to make me wait weeks only to hear an update has been rejected for some dumb random reason which they shouldn't care about at all. I've rejected a marketplace full of fart apps that somehow do meet with their approval, and I've rejected a marketplace full of dumb content which should never have been an app in the first place.

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#17

Post by barrkel »

credo wrote: post #11
letmein2 wrote: post #3

This developer is an idiot. It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) Twitter, facebook, evernote, all have account features so they were approved. Apple was crystal clear explaining this. The poster's muddled logic and inflamatory reaction shows me why Instapaper by Marco is a vastly superior product. My guess is the author is using a…

>>This developer is an idiot. >>It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) >>My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for his product. Astroturfing, methinks. I think you're being unduly harsh on this developer. "Read it later" is an instapaper-like app and it makes perfect sense for the app to need an acc…

It was at 6 when it was 3 minutes old, IIRC. (Or it might have been 3 at 6 minutes. What I do know is that I was struck by how oddly popular it was for a flamebaity comment from a new account.)

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#18

Post by msy »

I think the wording is poor here but this basically appears to boil down to 'you cannot ask for a bunch of personal information from users for no valid reason'. Which seems entirely reasonable and a good use of Apple's power to stop the harvesting of personal information. But lets not let that get in the way of a good outrage session.

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#19

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

edd wrote: post #13

Can we please all wait for Apple to clarify before getting too excited at another reason to hate the app store? As much as a sensationalist 'Apple are evil' might help promote your product only having one letter to go on and not waiting for a response for clarification is really lame journalism.

That sort of rational, reasoned approach has no place in a discussion like this. Clearly what this situation calls for is a knee jerk reaction based on limited information and pre-existing prejudices and I'm shocked that you could ever think otherwise.

Re: New Rejection Reason From Apple May Have Major Implications

#20

Post by rimantas »

mkramlich wrote: post #16

I've rejected Apple's ability to tell me what programming language I'm allowed to use (whether I'm kept back in the 80's in terms of language sophistication, for example) and I've rejected their ability to make me wait weeks only to hear an update has been rejected for some dumb random reason which they shouldn't care about at all. I've rejected a marketplace full of fart apps that somehow do meet with their approval…

Too bad you did not reject an urge to rant about the things you neither care about nor use them.
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