Liars when they speak the truth are not believed - Aristotle
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Apple pulls a game from its App Store
THE MAN FROM DELMONTE Steve Jobs has flexed his considerable muscle in knocking out outspoken Iphone developer Tommy Refenes.
Refenes, is famous for producing the $400 Iphone application innovatively titled 'Zits and Giggles'. The application became a social experiment for the coder who kept on increasing the price to see how many people would pay for an overpriced, under featured product. Unsurprisingly given the audience, he was onto a winner.
At the recent Games Developer Conference, Refenes launched into a scathing attack on Apple's App Store, calling it "awful" and "horrible", interspersed with even more colourful language. Clearly this expression of views was too far for Jobs who prefers a "it's my way or the highway" approach to management. Refenes' app was yanked from the App Store, however we understand that he, himself isn't sleeping with the fishes just yet.
The application has seen a number of price rises as part of his social experiment with the developer saying that 14 people purchased the app when it was priced at $299 back in February. Prior to being taken off the App Store, "Zits and Giggles" was going for $400.
It's perhaps not all that surprising that with Iphone users typically being a vain bunch, on 15 March one rabid fanboi splurged $400 on what was described as "the most advanced dermatological simulator".
Apple didn't provide any reasoning for the removal of "Zits and Giggles", however it did send the developer an email with a telephone number to call. This sort of cloak and dagger, melodramatic pantomime doesn't really foster the image of the App Store as a grown up, reliable place of business for any serious developer.
Clearly Refenes was having a laugh at the considerable expense of well heeled Iphone users who would pay silly money for essentially useless applications. However companies who base their whole business model on the App Store would want a more communicative process allowing them to work with an all seeing, controlling gatekeeper.
Refenes has so far been unable to get an answer from Jobs' Mob and unsurprisingly thinks the removal has more to do with his public rant at Jobs' expense rather than the ever increasing price of his application. The first price rise, to $15, occured over five months ago and it's unlikely that Apple would want to curb prices too tightly as the firm takes a cut from each sale.
This is the latest episode in Apple's daft developer policies that have seen chosen Ipad developers having to jump through hoops just to get the oversized Iphone a few weeks early. Refenes has shown that should you speak out against Jobs' Mob you will be banished to the wilderness.
For those fanbois who are blinded by Steve Jobs' self-positioned neon halo, the App Store has now brought the industry's version of Caesar control of both hardware and software on his devices.
No longer content with simply providing an application programming interface to developers, Jobs has gone the whole hog and bestowed upon himself the power to decide not only what hardware his operating system runs on but exactly what applications can be run on the operating system. Where will the egomaniacal needs of Jobs end? Last week we reported that Jobs requires developers to keep devices in a particular room. Perhaps developers can expect to be told to wear a black turtleneck when coding for Apple devices, too.
For now the App Store is restricted to devices and applications that meet with Saint Jobs approval, but many of which are of questionable usefulness. Yet, judging by Steve Jobs' need for ultimate control, maybe we can expect to see all Apple products tied to the App Store. µ
Tags: Apple
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@Perisoft - A better analogy: you set up a booth at a flea market, sell stuff at absurd prices, and then go to the bar and say your customers are stupid and the flea market management sucks, but the management overhears and won't let you have a booth there anymore.
But they still let you be a customer. You can show up, you can pay, you just can't profit.
It's not about being unwelcome.
EU is attacking Microsoft for not shiping Windows with Firefox and Opera, and Apple could ban some application from its OS/hardware.
I wonder what would EU do if Microsoft banned Firefox from Windows 7.
You write a useless piece of code and a distributor takes you on, for a cut he'll distribute your program which does nothing at all.
Then you tell the world+dog that you sold a useless piece of crap at exhorbitant prices and not only that -you got one of the most prominent technology companies in popular culture distribute it for you.
Let's look at this a bit differently. Suppose the iphone app store was a physical place, like, say, a flea market. You go sign up to be at the flea market, agree to their terms, and put your booth up.
Then you sell stuff at absurd prices, and mock your customers as they leave. And then you go to the management office and scream obscenities about how much the flea market sucks and how stupid its customers are.
Then, when you're told you're not welcome, you whine about how it's all not fair.
Sounds reasonable...
It would have been better if it rhymed.
"Wrong
I've got a iTunes account and didn't enter ANY credit card details.
Google it."
Maybe it's only for US people, it's common knowledge that you can sell them anything. And, of course, that common knowledge is not known there :)
"To even begin to get to use iTunes you have to enter valid credit card details, whether or not you're going to download load free or paid content. Right?"
Wrong
I've got a iTunes account and didn't enter ANY credit card details.
Google it.
So the app. store is the internet's version of Disneyland. Apple try to keep the worst of the bad guys out so that the public can feel safer. What is so bad about that?
There are several other platforms for people that want a fully open experience. Personally I am glad that my family can download applications that have been approved by Apple.
Disneyland may not be have stalls selling porn or open it's doors to known con men but it is a place I like to go.
Inquirer how about a little less link bait and a bit more objectivity?
To get the most out of an iPhone or iPod Touch you have to connect it up to iTunes. To even begin to get to use iTunes you have to enter valid credit card details, whether or not you're going to download load free or paid content. Right?
So imagine this. Parent buys their very lucky child an iPod Touch. It's christmas, and the child has been pestering for months and months and months for an iSomething, or at least an iAnything. The present is opened, the joy is immense, but of course it doesn't yet do anything because it needs to be plugged in to iTunes. The Christmas dinner is over, the dishes are done, parent sits down with child to 'set it up'. So iTunes is installed, and run, and what happens? "You must enter your credit card details to proceed". So parent, despite being painfully aware that they're about to give their excited young child unfettered access to their credit card, proceeds to enter those magic numbers. They tell their child to be careful, and not to download too much. And the child faithfully promises, for this is Christmas after all. So does that promise last? Is the child an infallible, self censoring purchasing machine?
BOLLOCKS, no. First time an app called 'Zits and Giggles' comes in to view, the buy button is hit quicker than you can blink and the parent is down $400. Parent's fault? No-ish. Child's fault? No. Apple's fault? Yes.
This very thing happened to my cousin (though not to the scale of $400), and was rightly incensed. I don't know if Apple have recently made changes to allow more parental control. Have they? But given that this scenario probably accounts for a large chunk of the money flowing through the iStore there's no incentive for them to do so.
Fanbois Incoming!
O-right, rise and whine;
spit the dummy in démodé
and put all your hard-lucked quids in,
all for the pastel pound of flesh.
There's no prohibition on selling a damp squib!
Apple are the demon weed!
You'll go blue at the coalface describing how low-hanging the fruit,
all the while spouting old chestnuts on a soapbox.
Such meat as poison Apples...
Who polishes the one scraping Apple which spoils the barrel's
leaving a bad taste in your mouth?
And who has licked the candy from your Apple lolly?
Who is rotten to the core?
None other but the dyed-in-the-wool for Apple
and perfidious England, the fanatic boy sect.
These louts fancy themselves keen as mustard
but are tart as relish in a pickle.
One desparaging word upset the Apple cart,
and they quick become the bear with the sore head
who's taking sand to the beach through gritted teeth
and growling maw!
Give them some stick with dirt on it,
their just do of swings and roundabouts,
and then put the kibash on them,
so that it sticks to the sticking point
in their craw and just will go down
like a pear-shaped cup of cold sick
which will gnaw at their vitals by the back door,
rising cain and setting the Thames afire!
Because I'm knackered their talking through their hat,
the hind legs off a donkey.
The proof is in the pudding they've over-Apple'd.
Like jaunty peacocks on tenterhooks
who'd argue the tossers throwing vitriol
out of the pram in a well regurgitated
vomit of vented spleen.
Oh No! They are not the skin in the game
what's pulling leg woolies
with brass bells over the eyeballs!
You disassemble to reckon an Apple faithful
to a wrongly shot root hog!
And next they be away with the fairies,
moving the goal posts
beyond a black stump in a 'Scotch Mist',
while screwing the pooch
with the bit between their teeth
to be nailing jello to the Windows,
and demanding their pleasure of you
to pay a king's ransom as Job's comforter
is rich as old Croesus, hisself.
And all that'd be in apple-pie order, dont'cha see?
A hunky dory cats-to-be-herding by the shedloads.
If I were they, I'd not be one to be
taking a bone to pick
in a dog and pony show
while smart Alec takes the Mickey
to Noah Vale,
but like a shaggy dog in the manger,
my tail is told
of a certain "je ne sais quoi",
and I don't know "what-all";
"sais que vous"?
Another remarkably balanced Apple-based article from the Inquirer. How DO you do it?