Big Five rejected by Apple!

[Dirk Holtwick]

Dear List,

I really need your help and ideas. I received the following email by
Apple Worldwide Developer Relations people today:

-----------------8<---------------[cut here]
Dear Developer,

We've reviewed your application Big Five. We have determined that this
application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch
user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

Sincerely,
...
-----------------8<---------------[cut here]

In my eyes this is like an act of censorship of free speech. We aren't
in China, aren't we? The idea of free market doesn't seems to be the
philosophy of Apple.

Sorry but this is so very frustrating for a developer, especially for
one who wants to contribute Open Source software for free to support the
developers community.

I would appreciate feedback of what you are thinking about this case.

Thanks for your support!
Dirk

[Liviooo]

Dirk,

I've seen the same here ....

http://www.iphoneclub.nl/13326/iphone-applicatie-pull-my-finger-afgewezen-apple-legt-uit-waarom/

That author got the same message from Apple.

Nothing you can do I guess...

Lieven

[Dirk Holtwick]

> Nothing you can do I guess...

No, nothing than dropping development for iPhone :(

Maybe public pressure would lead to a change of mind...

Let's all hope that there will be a strong alternative (like Google
Android) very soon so Apple will become more open for developers. In my
eyes the current politics of Apple are not good to build a new business
on it.

Dirk

[philippe]

Welcome to the club. My 2 cents advise: fix what they said and
continue submitting.
App Store is a great place to publish mobile app.
Did you try to publish a J2ME app with a phone operator? almost
impossible.
With my own iPhone app, which is similar to yours, I started the app
submission on June 15 and after 12 rejections (even more crazy that
the one you got), it was finally accepted on August 3!
By the way, I discover that Apple review is more relax on paid apps.
Are you surprised to see so little number of free apps?

App Store for Android? I am evaluating the one for T-Mobile (in the
US), worst than Apple, you have to pay for the internet traffic your
app use!

Philippe
Looking for a sponsor (or a job developing iPhone apps!)

[Kapslok]

I guess their justification is valid. The Big5 app is really targeting
the development community, rather than end-users. I also think the
mention of open-source does not help your case, especially since the
NDA is still in force. I don't think you would face these problems if
your application was targeting the general public. Apple is not
opposed to the hybrid application which is evidenced by many
applications on the AppStore.

There's nothing stopping you publishing your source anonymously if
sharing is your main objective. Since you were giving the app away for
free anyway, you would still achieve the same goal. If kudos is what
you're chasing then I'd probably wait until the NDA was lifted and
developers can start sharing and publishing code publicly.

[Michael Stearne]

On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 11:40 PM, Kapslok <jocu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's nothing stopping you publishing your source anonymously if
> sharing is your main objective. Since you were giving the app away for
> free anyway, you would still achieve the same goal. If kudos is what
> you're chasing then I'd probably wait until the NDA was lifted and
> developers can start sharing and publishing code publicly.

It would be great to have Big5 as a library for Dashcode. I find
Dashcode development much easier than ObjC and if I could access the
native features like Location, Info, Photos, Audio, etc that would be
a huge help. You might think of offering it like the Cut and Paste
project does. In reality though these features are methods that Apple
should be offering to Safari/WebApp developers along with the ability
to display an app in full screen mode.

Michael

[Dirk Holtwick]

Hi,

after two days I am calmed down a bit ;) Thanks for your feedback!

@livioo:

I took a second look at the Agreements with Apple and I think I will not
publish the source to a broad public, even if I already set up a Google
Code page http://code.google.com/p/big5/

But I sent the complete code to sintaxi and hope he can use it for
PhoneGap. If anyone needs direct support or code for such an application
feel free to contact me directly.

@kapslock:

I agree with you. It seems that for the market AppStore is targeting
this is not the right application. I just was so angry because this was
my first contact with some kind of "flawor checking". My opinion is that
even useless apps have to get their chance ;)

@michael:

I think I will use the bases of Big5 to write a somewhat "useful"
application for Apple. While doing this a tool set interesting for other
developers might result out of this. Because of the NDA I will have to
think about how to publish such a thing. Hopefully on Tuesday with OS
2.1 things will change a bit.

@philippe:

Your mailing gave me hope and the idea of taking money for apps to speed
up the review process ;) What deluded me was that Google Android isn't
even better. Seems that we are still in Wild West times of mobile app
development. Ok, that's a challenge ;)

Thanks again,
Dirk

[sintaxi]

Dirk,

This is unfortunate. We were all rooting for you. I agree, apple
rejected the application because Big5 targets the dev community and is
not geared for the end user. I think this experience/information is
valuable to all of us working on PhoneGap despite it being rejected by
Apple. Thank you for taking the time to go through this process. I
hope you do not see this as a total loss.

Thank you for sending me your source. Your contribution has been very
valuable to this project. Im sure it will be of use. Im looking
forward to seeing what you come up with next.

cheers,
-brock

On Sep 8, 12:21 am, Dirk Holtwick <dirk.holtw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> after two days I am calmed down a bit ;) Thanks for your feedback!
>
> @livioo:
>
> I took a second look at the Agreements with Apple and I think I will not
> publish the source to a broad public, even if I already set up a Google

> Code pagehttp://code.google.com/p/big5/

[Dirk Holtwick]

> This is unfortunate. We were all rooting for you. I agree, apple
> rejected the application because Big5 targets the dev community and is
> not geared for the end user. I think this experience/information is
> valuable to all of us working on PhoneGap despite it being rejected by
> Apple. Thank you for taking the time to go through this process. I
> hope you do not see this as a total loss.
>
> Thank you for sending me your source. Your contribution has been very
> valuable to this project. Im sure it will be of use. Im looking
> forward to seeing what you come up with next.

No, it wasn't a total loss :) I will wait for Apple to release iPhone OS
2.1 and then decide how to continue. I'll keep you updated.

Thanks
Dirk

[britg]

Dirk, my condolences! I sincerely hope that you're able to use the
time and effort you spent on Big5 and feed it into another application
that Apple will see as useful. As one of the commenters before me
suggested, please continue trying to release Big5! I know that I, and
probably others here, are hinging on Big5 being released so that we
know our phonegap apps can be released when they are ready.

I wrote about the travails of your project, and it got picked up by
macsurfer.com - I'm trying to spread the word as much as so that you
and the other phonegap projects get noticed and have a chance of being
released!

http://macsurfer.com/redir.php?u=353833

[Dirk Holtwick]

Hi Brit,

this is great! Thanks for your effort! The comments on your article are
also very informative for me, because they show me where I should
explain some more about the functionality of Big5.

Well I think I will continue the work and maybe I get Big5 on the
AppStore in a different form, maybe as a game, a pocket lamp or
something else ;)

Thanks!
Dirk

[voodooz]

Charge 10 bucks and put some blinky lights on it :!) It'll workout,
what you learned willly probab pay dividends even if it does not make
the store.

[Tim Langley]

Hi Dirk

I don't suppose you could use this method to distribute Big5

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/podcaster_developer_uses_little_known_ad_hoc_to_distribute_banned_app.php

T

[Dirk Holtwick]

Hi Tim,

my developer account says that I am just able to register 100 devices.
There is another account available for companies, but I think if you
apply there you agree that it is just for your employees. More infos here:

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/apply.html

For me personally this seems not to be an option. Since the bases of
Big5 are now relatively stable and solid I think I will distribute this
stuff directly to developers, because I see no chance to get it to the
App Store for the moment. I'll keep you informed on my web site

http://www.big5apps.com

But thanks for the hint. I am very curious about how this experiment of
Podcaster is going on.

Dirk

Tim Langley schrieb:

[Fanatical]

I notice that AppStore just listed (Sept 16) a new app called "Web
Apps by Alifsoft" that, at least on the surface, appears to be just a
simpler version of the Big5 idea. Perhaps they are loosening their
restrictions...

[Philippe Furlan]

If you submit the same app as free, you will be rejected. The
rejection email will say that you need to launch safari.

It is for this reason, I personally give up on free app.

Are you not surprised that only 25% of the apps are free.

Philippe

[sintaxi]

I think we need to abandon the idea that if you charge for your app,
you will get accepted. Our focus should be on building a quality
application with a good user experience. I think we will see most our
problems go away if this is the case. It may be true that Apple is
harder on free applications, but I dont think that is a good enough
reason to charge for your application.

-brock

On Sep 26, 7:22 pm, "Philippe Furlan" <philippe.fur...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> If you submit the same app as free, you will be rejected. The
> rejection email will say that you need to launch safari.
>
> It is for this reason, I personally give up on free app.
>
> Are you not surprised that only 25% of the apps are free.
>
> Philippe
>

[Philippe Furlan]

It is not an idea, it is a reality. I finished 3 iphone projects that
was free apps, we are still waiting the approval. We are now waiting
for more than 3 weeks.
In another hand, I did 2 other paid apps that was accepted in less
than one week.

I keep getting rejections on free apps and got no rejection on paid
apps (and I should if I applied the same rules).

Apple do not care about the quality of your app (look at all the bad
apps in the store), they only care to apply their internal rules and
nobody really knows them.

So far, I submitted 6 apps in the app store and as a developer I am
losing money with free apps because I am not going to be paid if not
in the apple store and I need to spend extra time because of the
rejections.

[sintaxi]

Im sure people are downloading free apps with much less reservation
than paid apps and also developers are likely submitting applications
with less reservation. It therefore makes sense to me that Apple would
be harder on their approval process. All Im saying is, as a developer
we need to stay focused on building something that is useful to the
user and gives the user a good experience. Not focused on apple and
their shenanigans.

- brock

ps. your experience with apple is valuable information. thanks for
sharing.


On Sep 27, 10:18 am, "Philippe Furlan" <philippe.fur...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> It is not an idea, it is a reality. I finished 3 iphone projects that
> was free apps, we are still waiting the approval. We are now waiting
> for more than 3 weeks.
> In another hand, I did 2 other paid apps that was accepted in less
> than one week.
>
> I keep getting rejections on free apps and got no rejection on paid
> apps (and I should if I applied the same rules).
>
> Apple do not care about the quality of your app (look at all the bad
> apps in the store), they only care to apply their internal rules and
> nobody really knows them.
>
> So far, I submitted 6 apps in the app store and as a developer I am
> losing money with free apps because I am not going to be paid if not
> in the apple store and I need to spend extra time because of the
> rejections.
>

[Dirk Holtwick]

Hi,

thanks for this information. This app is really a copy of the App Store.
Apple is so funny ;)

Okay, newly motivated by this I will try it again by redesigning Big
Five into a Web App managing application too. And I will take the
smallest amount of money for it. Maybe this helps too. If it works like
this I can try to make it free afterwards again.

Thanks for all the support!

Dirk

Fanatical schrieb:

[sintaxi]

right on Dirk! Ill be the first to purchase Big Five once its in.

-brock