Another week, another hugely stupid and headline-making App Store decision. This week the story of a very promising looking ebook reader app called Eucalyptus ‘ rejection has come to light.
Eucalyptus is an app that provides ‘the classics to go ‘ and offers content from the free Project Gutenberg library. I ‘ve watched a screencast demo of it and it looks very good “ but it ‘s been rejected by Apple under their infamous and by now ridiculous ‘objectionable content ‘ restrictions “ because their reviewers were able to find The Kama Sutra if they manually search for it within the app.
The apps ‘ developer has even pointed out to Apple that the book that is the cause of the rejection is freely and easily available via a search in Safari AND via other ebook reader apps on the iPhone, such as Stanza, eReader, and Kindle for iPhone!
The exact book (the Kama Sutra) that Apple considers the ability to read ‘objectionable ‘ is freely available on the iPhone in many ways already. You can find it through Safari or the Google app of course, but it is also easily available via other book reading apps. You can get it easily via eReader, though the search process is handled by launching a third-party site in Safari, with the download and viewing taking place in eReader. Stanza offers up multiple versions, some with illustrated covers. Amazon ‘s Kindle app, the latest version of which was approved by Apple this week, offers multiple versions too – although it does charge from 80¢ to $10 per book – and you again purchase via Safari before Kindle downloads the book.
Apple has suggested to the developer that re-submitting the app when OS 3.0 is out would be ‘appropriate ‘ “ which is of course inconsistent and absurd while other apps enable you to access the same content they ‘re objecting to. So it seems the developer is being forced to resort to manually blocking the book in question until somebody at Apple wakes up on this one.
The whole sad story of Eucalyptus vs. Apple ‘s stupid reviews policy is told in a long blog post HERE “ including various times where there is just a complete communication breakdown on Apple ‘s side of the process.
I wholeheartedly agree with MG Siegler ‘s wish that one of the things announced at Apple ‘s WWDC event next month should be a complete overhaul of the whole apps review process.
I want that very nearly as much as I want to see a bigger, faster new model, and background apps. For the App Store to stay ahead of other platform ‘s offerings, they just have to make wholesale changes to this process.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS: App Store reviews, stupid rejections
