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Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

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Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#91

Post by klawed »

mcantelon wrote: post #82
klawed wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has never stated that the purpose of the appstore is to support democracy. And I think it would be hard to argue that the availability of apps (or lack thereof) in Apple's store, which is not even close to a monopoly, has any impact on democracy. I think what's really going on here is that Apple wants to avoid providing apps that might be politically divisive. EDIT: qualifying availability of apps as within App…

>I think what's really going on here is that Apple wants to avoid providing apps that might be politically divisive. That's called "censorship". Apple's store has an impact on democracy because Apple is very influential and other companies are likely to imitate their policies. Lots of young people are getting exposed to Apple's flavor of personal computer so, to them, censorship of software will seem normal.

I concede that it may be censorship. So is Walmart's decision not to sell certain CDs or Blockbuster's decision not to stock certain movies. Android Marketplace (or Google Play) has more apps than the Apple App Store (http://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-market-vs-app...). Clearly, Apple's policies have not been imitated. Apple's censorship has, in fact, become a point of differentiation for other markets, thereby drawing more attention to the issue. And I don't concede that young people will accept censorship of software because they're exposed to apple products. It's all conjecture but given that Android phones are cheaper and have more market share then iOS I find that last statement to be extremely speculative.

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#92

Post by mikeash »

randomdata wrote: post #73
slig wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then ask for a password, credit card number, whatever.

I'm not sure how a password can validate a person's age and I had a credit card long before I was 18.

The whole issue is a complete red herring anyway. Safari is accessible by default, and gives children access to a universe of objectionable content that the App Store could only dream of.

If "parents don't bother enabling parental controls" was an actual excuse, they couldn't ship a web browser!

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#93

Post by elehack »

eevilspock wrote: post #7

I think iOS is better than Android. I support the idea of a walled garden in principle (as long as it isn't a monopoly, and in this case it isn't. People can choose Android or others). But the free flow of honest information is fundamental to democracy. This is stupid and gutless editorial censorship on Apple's part (unless there's some detail about this story that I'm missing). I hope someone higher up sees this, re…

I think that this kind of abuse is an irresistable temptation of a walled garden. If the garden's curators don't succumb to it themselves, the single-point-of-pressure is too much of a temptation to would-be government or external private sector censors.

When dealing with situations like this, we have a couple options. We can accept walled gardens and hope that the gardeners are made of stern stuff and love freedom.

Or we can reject walled gardens and demand ecosystems in which this kind of blocking can't happen, not just won't.

I prefer worlds where it can't. Trusting that it won't is setting up for disappointment IMO.

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#94

Post by cageface »

DrJokepu wrote: post #13
mike-cardwell wrote: post #3

I can understand Apple wanting to keep its market place "clean", but at the very least, iDevice owners should be able to opt-in to seeing apps like this. Why can't it just be flagged "adult" or something, and you can then opt-in on your device to seeing apps flagged as such? Why does Apple think it is suitable to make these decisions on your behalf, iDevice users? Are you happy with this? Personally, I'll be sticking…

I believe the following parts of the iOS App Store Review Guidelines answer your question: * We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don't work unless the parents set them up (many don't). So know that we're keeping an eye out for the kids. * We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, "I…

The mobile platform is looking more and more like the central computing platform of the next decade at least and it's way too important to allow one company's Romper Room sensibilities to determine what is and is not expressible in this new medium. I don't want to live in a digital Disneyworld.

"Protecting the children" is always the scoundrel's excuse for pushing censorship and control over the line of a sensible balance.

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#95

Post by bostonpete »

loceng wrote: post #9
eevilspock wrote: post #7

I think iOS is better than Android. I support the idea of a walled garden in principle (as long as it isn't a monopoly, and in this case it isn't. People can choose Android or others). But the free flow of honest information is fundamental to democracy. This is stupid and gutless editorial censorship on Apple's part (unless there's some detail about this story that I'm missing). I hope someone higher up sees this, re…

If you're in the U.S. or many other countries you aren't in an actual democracy anyway. 1 vote != 1 vote.

I hate when people cling to this middle school notion that a republic is not a democracy. An indirect democracy is a form of democracy.

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#96

Post by vaultboy21 »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #85
dlikhten wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android FTW. I know this pops up constantly, but this is EXACTLY the reason I advocate for android. This sort of shit does not fly there. Apple has the ability to censor which even the government can't and worse is that it's fully legal. I really wish people would take these stories as a sign that we need to focus on the android market. FWIW: I am not advocating for the baby & bathwater argument. I think we must focu…

I actually would've thought the MS Windows Phone App Store would be even more fertile ground. Not sure how stringent their policies are, but a quick Google search only turned up a rejected Twitter content scraping app which was rejected. Not to mention if anybody needs more apps, its the Windows Phone App store.

Yeah, as far as I know, the Windows Phone Store certification policies are pretty lax (not sure if that’s reflected in their official terms or their implementation of them; I’m guessing it’s the latter). The only times I hear of apps being rejected or pulled seem to in cases of trademark infringement; and, even-then, only if the infringed-upon company requests them to do so..

I saw this play-out with Vimeo apps not too long ago. Prior to the company launching their (really nice btw) official app there were a few a third-party clients which used the Vimeo name and logo; since then, they've all rebranded or disappeared (I’m guessing at the request of Vimeo to avoid confusion).

Other than that, pretty much everything else seems to fly (I’m guessing security issues and serious bugs that come-up during review aside). This is all anecdotal (I don’t work at Microsoft or review apps for certification) but I’d be pretty shocked if they blocked an app like this.

Anyways, it looks pretty cool, maybe if iOS certification doesn’t go over the dev can port it to WP. For simpler apps (no offense here) I’ve heard it’s fairly quick work and involves a lot less on the testing/optimizing for 1,000+ device SKUs (Android) front.

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#97

Post by cheald »

nivla wrote: post #61
stephengillie wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if both Google's and Amazon's app stores reject an app, there are still other markets. And you can just download APKs from websites/ftp/etc and install them to your android, no market required.

That is until all the three (Apple, Google and Microsoft) decides to only allow installs from the maketplace, you know for "security" reasons. The problem is if one company gets away with it, others follow suit.

How do you propose enforcing that on an open-source operating system?

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#98

Post by daten »

lukeschlather wrote: post #48
rickmb wrote: post #42

As an Apple fanboy, I've been able to rationalize everything Apple has done concerning the app-store up to now, even if I personally would have like to have seen a way more open and liberal approach. And the overblown anti-Apple FUD, using misplaced terms like "censorship" and "monopoly" whenever an app was thwarted by Apples opaque policies has made it easy to ignore the objections of detractors. But I find it impos…

This is not the first time that Apple has rejected an app on purely political grounds. This may be the first time they've removed something and offended liberal/libertarian sensibilities, but a couple clear examples from a while back: http://mashable.com/2011/03/23/apple-removes-gay-cure/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/24/apple-manhattan-dec...

There's also the "phone story" app that was intended to raise awareness of human rights abuses that go into manufacturing devices such as the iPhone itself.

http://phonestory.org/banned.html

"Phone Story was pulled from the iTunes App Store on Tuesday September 13 at 11.35am, only few hours after its official announcement."

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#99

Post by nollidge »

lutusp wrote: post #43
scott_s wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator stated push notifications as one of the main points of the application. Rather than being about getting raw information, this app is more about general awareness.

An issue easily solved by the user pressing "Refresh" on a Web page, or the provider designing a page that refreshes itself at 30-second intervals, and avoiding this entire brouhaha. If the app was something other than an obvious and trivial Google Maps incarnation, this might be different, and I am in no way excusing Apple's paternalistic behavior, but it isn't as though the content is being suppressed by their deci…

Why have meeting alerts? I could just check my calendar. Why have text message alerts? I could just check my inbox...

Re: Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

#100

Post by philwelch »

stephengillie wrote: post #69
nivla wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is until all the three (Apple, Google and Microsoft) decides to only allow installs from the maketplace, you know for "security" reasons. The problem is if one company gets away with it, others follow suit.

If Google decides to only allow installs from their market, someone will just fork android and change that.

And how will that fork get on any phones for customers to use? "People can just sideload the OS" is not a feasible answer here.
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