Another day, another capricious decision by Apple to pull a fairly innocuous application. This time it’s BoxOffice, a diabolical system for finding and displaying local movie times. Quoth the developers at Metasyntactic:
Apple pulled the app yesterday without giving my any notification that they were doing it, or what their justification was for removing it.
I’ve tried to contact them about the issue, but it’s been a complete dead end. If anyone has a useful contact number for apple, please let me know.
I’m in regular contact with all my data providers, and none of them have had an issue with my app. Indeed, the response was the exact opposite. They like my app and have even asked if i would do custom application work for them in the future. Furthermore, all the data i use is licensed by the owners as ‘free for non commercial use’. i.e. precisely what BoxOffice is.
So i’m stuck here not knowing what has happened, or what i can do about it. If any of you have any ideas, please let me know. You can respond here, but i’d actually appreciate a reply at cyrusn@stwing.upenn.edu since i probably won’t check back here that often.
Dude, I just installed that over the weekend. What the ****!
I was looking for that app all weekend. I knew I didn’t like the movies app. That’s a real bummer!
I can’t understand why Linux and Open Source people like Apple. They are nothing but a black hat company. Apple is evil.
guess what? i like linux but i never liked apple.
Steve Jobs is an asshole
And Alex Linhares is a spammer. So what?
Maybe it’s the fact that they changed the name of the app from Box Office to Now Playing and it’s currently going through the review process again?
Also, who works at 7:30am taking screenshots?
Perhaps Apple should take a page from the Debian repository paradigm and simply categorize applications into varying groups based on the level of testing and trust that the application has. A Main/Universe/Multiverse approach would, I think, all but extinguish the constant frustrations developers have due to the iron first control that Apple holds.
Talk to the Konfabulator guys about AAPL’s ethics.
I like the OS and other products, but I’d never develop for the platform if I thought I might be developing a product competitive with apple’s product roadmap.
sounds like someone friendly with apple is making a competing app…. ever seen the movie times widget for os x?
For all you know it could have been pulled at the request of AT&T. One of the things that Apple has to watch out for is how the application affects AT&T’s network. There was likely an issue with how the app was written.
Maybe the App competes with a service provided by AT&T, as long as we’re thinking along the same lines. I know some mobile providers have a mobile movie look-up service; does AT&T have something similar?
Apple is the new Walled Garden
http://abhishek...-walled-garden/
All I’ve read about for the past 2 weeks is how Apple is about what Apple is doing wrong – and that aint good. On every blog there is a story about how people are getting ripped off or misled. I wouldn’t say that this concept is anything new in the tech world, but for a self proclaimed consumer-centric company like apple, its ridiculous. I would think they would be the best at serving their customers because of the hype surrounding many of their products. Maybe some corporate realignment is needed?… http://www.read...ex.php?RTA=web2
Seems like anyone will criticize Apple these days to get a link.
Listing his email address in plain text is pretty cruel especially on a site like this…. Hi spambots
How about Apple make a real platform for developers. If they reject apps and remove apps because they compete with their offerings, they might as well not even have the appstore. They should just have a suggestion box where people submit ideas on applications apple should develop on the iPhone. That would make them happy.
Even if it is the result of AT&T, Apple should have enough respect for its developers to at least notify them of “what and why” their application was pulled.
Pretty fucking shitty on Apple’s part if you ask me. Although, it probably won’t stop me from getting a new iPhone. lol
Steve didn’t like the font.
Sorry to hear about your app. If you find anything out please let us all know. We’re developers of a jailbroken only app and are following this issue closely in hopes there might be some way to have Apple ease up a bit on the App Store restrictions.
Could it be because the App shows RottenTomato ratings. Per RTs TOS it is not kosher to show those like that.
Might be because the source code is freely available, which is against the NDA for the SDK I think.
http://code.goo.../source/browse/
Thanks to @justin
This true, uploading the source is against the NDA for the SDK, same reason Adium is not making an app for iPhone
BoxOffice started crashing my iPhone at some point (not when I first downloaded it, though) after being open for a couple seconds. Same happens on my brother’s iPhone. I had to delete the app altogether.
Maybe there was a glitch among some users. It might be back.
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
There’re more loopholes in Appstore that some apps make use of to promote themselves. If you look at the top 10 paid apps list, you’ll see two games BreakClassic and Break, both of them used to be free apps. Suddenly they changed to paid app and their download count was not reset, looks like. So, these not-so-worthy apps are at the top! If Apple doesn’t fix this bug asap, developers will lose confidence in the system.
ANDROID !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So a developer can spend months creating an app (at significant cost I bet) and apple can remove the one’s they don’t like at will? Or not even accept apps they don’t like?
It would be like Firefox or IE banning sites they don’t like!
That’s your fault, you should have developped a web application optimized for the IPhone screen.
No review by Apple in their black box.
Easy to make changes and deploy them.
Different business model but you keep control on *your* soft.
Apple should set a pull standards for all iphone apps, and notice developers to improve their apps.
It seems that if the problem were related to a bug in the code the developer should have been the first notified. Assuming its an app that has been well received it seems like it would be in both apple and the devs best interest to get the bug fixed ASAP. It wouldn’t be that diffiult to automate the initial notification. Apple can’t be dropping the ball like that so it seems like its something causing it to be pulled.
My guess is either:
1. Like others have said, it’s a code/security issue
or
2. Apple had an issue with the app serving up movie trailers, since the Apple Store does that.
Either way, Apple needs to do a better job of communicating. An App Store blog from Apple would be a nice start.
Ahh – the rise of the tethered appliance continues apace.
One day, oh Apple fanboys, you will regret your blind faith. What we are seeing here, oh swooning girls, giggling pipsqueaks, is the erosion of the very thing that brought you TC and all that you hold dear on the net: the ability to innovate at the content layer.
DO NOT SAY YOU WERE NOT WARNED