I know, I know. I’m growing a bit tired of having to sift through e-mails from iPhone app developers who have seen their fruits of labor (big or small) rejected by Apple’s team of mobile software scrutinizers myself too. But I keep being amazed by the reasons Cupertino puts forward for not allowing apps into the App Store, and this is another classic example: TweetPhoto, a TwitPic competitor that lets Twitter users share photos quickly and easily, saw its first ever iPhone app barred from entry because its logo is slightly reminiscent of a Polaroid photograph.
That’s right, this is what Apple told the small startup almost 4 weeks after they put the app up for approval: “We’ve reviewed TweetPhoto and determined that we cannot post your application because it appears to include features that resemble Polaroid photographs. Polaroid has previously objected to other applications that include features that resemble Polaroid photographs, and believes that such features infringe its rights.”
Okay, but how did an app like Polarize make it into the App Store then? As TweetPhoto points out, they use the trademark Polaroid shot in their app logo as well, and furthermore, they are all about giving your photos that ‘true Polaroid look’. Compare that to TweetPhoto, which only features a mild resemblance to a Polaroid shot in its logo, something I only noticed when they pointed it out specifically.
Either way you look at it, it’s ridiculous for Apple to block TweetPhoto’s iPhone app but not Polarize. Another testament to the company’s blatantly inconsistent policies, so here’s to hoping Phil Schiller manages to fix things over there.
There is no approval process for the traditional Internet – why should we accept one for the mobile Internet?
Sam
Apple is not an OPEN platform. Go and buy another platform if you are not happy. The problem is: there is not – yet – any compelling replacement for an iPhone…that’s why people are so annoyed with Apple. If there were another option they will buy another smartphone and get on with it.
+1
can somebody write an article about the upcoming android phones? should i wait or buy now?
My intern has an android and was very happy at first. Now, a couple of months into his subscription he’s quite sure there’s still apps running in the background he started up weeks/months ago… You can imagine the slowness. Upcoming phones don’t update the workings of the OS… You should get an iPhone!
your intern should install advanced task killer. it shows all background processes and allows you to kill them. also restarting the phone kills them as well.
Why not Tweet photo make a logo that is unique and becoming of them?
Actually, the bad guy in this case seems to be ‘Polaroid’. From the article:
“Polaroid has previously objected to other applications that include features that resemble Polaroid photographs, and believes that such features infringe its rights.”
So Polaroid has apparently contacted Apple, and asked them to pull other apps on the grounds of copyright infringement. They are the ones who are forcing this issue, not Apple.
Unless of course, you expect Apple to stand its ground, and fight a possible legal battle for allowing content into their app store, after they have been warned of copyright infringement…
All I can say is wow!!! The only Apple product I own is the iPod Touch and I think it will stay that way.
You know… This whole Apple approval thread is getting very tired… Quite frankly I don’t give a toss about rejected applications – I suspect many other people don’t care either…
Techcrunch is starting to become very repetitive mulch of Apple, Google and Twitter analysis… When was the last time you guys broke a truly amazing new service that users might actually adopt… MG’s recent coverage of Twitt Sex is scraping the link bait barrel to say the least…
The whole Apple witch hunt is very shortsighted too… At this rate, Techcrunch will eat itself.
Problem is, is that it’s the middle of the Summer. Traditionally called the “silly season” because there is very little to write about, journalists have to actively go out and find stories.
Twitter, Google and Apple all provide good article fodder for the times when there is very little else going on.
If someone is willing to launch a game-changing service that is relevant to everyone during Summer, please, be my guest, it’d make my life (and that of the TC writers) a heck of a lot easier.
Besides all of that, if you don’t “give a toss”, why read an article which clearly states in its title that it’s about iPhone app rejections in the first place?
Indeed, I don’t “give a toss” for articles covering yet another iPhone application that got rejected… However, I do care that my RSS reader is getting clogged up with such headlines…
Furthermore, my feedback is aimed at the overal Techcrunch blog – not the individual post. I am a dedicated and long time reader of TC and at present I find the current range of themes, angles and stories being pursued by the editorial team not to my taste or interest.
Just an opinion, to which I am entitled.
Apple’s control over apps (and reasons for rejection) is one of the biggest stories of the past 15 months. Please keep reporting, and please keep clogging William’s RSS reader. With the minutes of time he has wasted with his whine here, his eyes could have skipped thousands of headlines in his feed.
It may be one of the biggest stories but there is no need for anyone to MILK it…
As for your juvenile comment about clogging my RSS – I can only assume you need to leave your little bedroom a bit more often.
Yup, I’m one of those people who doesn’t care about rejected apps … very tiring indeed.
+1
This is exactly why I’m gonna send my iPhone back and wait for a decent Android phone to come around. Apple is screwing it’s customers right to choose for themselves with this b-s AppStore screening process. I’m also really considering switching back to the PC with Windows 7. Apple must open up! It’s inevitable.
Most of the world and its potential buyers of the iPhone could care less about this App Store stuff, and they certainly don’t read TechCrunch or care about the drama.
They just want something that works and pleases them, and apparently the iPhone does.
This drama about the App Store is inbred and of interest only to those who inhabit blogs and forums, I’d reckon.
…and developers, of course.
Apple has created new territory with the App Store, and it is still going through a teething phase. Live with it.
Yeah… dasien’s right. You should be on your knees begging for apple to screw it’s customers whenever they feel like it. I mean …it’s not like you paid a small fortune for the phone anyway. How dare you make a LEGITIMATE complaint and not expect to be derided for it? SHAME ON YOU!
I’m actually happy enough Apple even responded in such a constructive manner. My experience trying to submit Firefox addons to Mozilla is far worse. First they said it crashed the browser; end of their response. I tried it on a dozen of my friends computers and it worked fine. Second they it said that I contained obfuscated code, well guess what, my addon never said it was not open source! And also I just happen to like short variable names, my code was never purposely obfuscated! Then I resubmitted and waited 2 months and still no reply from them.
Perfect point on why this *should* be a story. I haven’t read about FF add-in problems. So, guess what, they continue. The more light we shed on the mysterious working at Cupertino, the better the process will become.
Your silence is making Mozilla worse; our criticism is making Apple better. Deal with it, fanbois.
I can understand this.
If you mirror a polaroid so that there is a fat bit at the top and bottom, then curve the corners, then put a circle at the bottom then it resembles an iPhone.
And I can totally understand why a store wouldn’t want any of it’s products to allude to the only way to use them.
Imagine if DVDs were allowed to show DVD players on them, or charcoal was allowed a picture of a BBQ.
I 100% back Apple’s banning of this terrible and controversial app.
I’m not an Apple fanboy, but i think Apple was right and just wanted to avoid further hassles in the future since they already had an agreement with the number one camera maker in the world – Polaroid.
Probably better to find it out before then to get it out on the App Store only to have it removed entirely for copyright problems. It’s nice that they at least told the developer exactly how to fix it so they’d be accepted.
Polaroid is the world’s #1 camera maker?
+1
Sorry, but I am sick and tired about these stories.
There are two possibilities for Apple regarding the App Store:
1) Let everything in. Everything. I don’t care what problems might occur. Let everything in. Nudity. Copyright Infringement and whatever else. And send the lawyers to the developers. Their app, their problem. Tell the customers that they themselves have to decide, whether an app is legal, appropriate and what not. And that Apple is not to be blamed for the crap in the App Store. I have no idea, if this would be possible, but…
Or:
2) Check and approve apps. Try to protect children from porn, violence and whatever else, try to prevent lawsuits because developers are not able to create apps that respect law…
If you choose 1): Apple, you irresponsible company. You do not protect our children. You are promoting pron.
If you choose 2): Apple, you do love censorship. You do not respect the developers.
Either way: Apple will be criticized and get into trouble. Yes, I am not fine with some app rejections, but I am sick and tired about this bitching and moaning about the app aproval process. So, here is a developer “using” Polaroid without being allowed to do so. Ok. And there is another one, who was allowed to do so. So what? Maybe, a mistake did happen when allowing Polarize into the app store. Maybe, it is not so easy and doubtful, if the Polarize thing was ok. Maybe not. Because I do not know the facts.
Message to developers:
Get your homework done: think first and code afterwards. It is not ok to use somebody else’s services, trademarks, intellectual property or whatever without their approval. And stop whining! Or go somewhere else. Learn how to do business.
Who I am? Just a tech enthusiast with an iPhone, who is sick of reading these “news” about App rejections.
Who are you? I have some different, less polite answers. How is it the developer was supposed to do their homework in this case?
I think the real problem is that tech enthusiasts know jack about software and have no idea of the effort (time and money) that goes into apps that can be arbitrarily rejected. You think google voice was coded on a Friday afternoon after a volleyball game and before beers with that new cute intern?
“don’t use image frames that look like Polaroid photos” is a rookie mistake for Crapp Store submission.
It may be annoying to see so many articles on appstore rejections but it’s important to give them space on a site like TechCrunch because then (and only then?) might Apple start to rethink it’s policy on app rejection. Apart from the fact that this kind of policy is a wonderful reason to not learn Objective-C and just go write your app in java and publish it for the Android platform… is this what Apple wants? I don’t think so. Wake up Apple, before it’s too late!
So, wonder if the App Store reviewers have used iPhoto on the Mac lately? Take a quick look at the “Faces” view, and wonder why the Polaroid lawyers didn’t get all lathered up?
The Mother Henning by Apple strikes me as very odd, and potentially putting Apple at risk. Isn’t it the developers responsibility to ensure they have all rights to their app? Can you imagine WalMart or Amazon being responsible for the legal issues around all the stuff they sell?
There are enough twitter applications, i like twitterfon, which i have used since the start, unless twitter actualy releases their own application, with push and it looks and works nice. im gonna stay away from twitter apps.
Apple is losing the plot lately with their app rejections.
Apple should be thankful that people are spending money creating apps like TweetPhoto. It’s crazy that it didn’t get approved already…
It’s been said many times but this is an eventual and direct result of the ‘culture of secrecy’
In an environment like that, people after a time begin to make decisions in a vacuum.. specifically a real-world logic vacuum. It happens in courtrooms and hospitals and boardrooms and any place where people are insulated and become naturalized to an artificial, self-enclosed space.
Apple takes that to the Nth degree so when these internal decisions bubble up and hit the light of the Earth’s Sun… they expose the inane and barely informed thought process involved.
If the App team decides they don’t want an App, they find a reason to deny it. Unless the FCC complains, apparently, they know nobody will raise too much of a stink. By this afternoon another story will make us all forget about the TweetPhoto weirdness b/c the next story will be even weirder.
One time a city boy was driving through the country and he saw a barn with several big targets painted on the side and an arrow in the bulls-eye of every one. Being an amateur archer himself, the city boy pulled over to inquire of the local sharpshooter, what his secret to accuracy was. He found the owner of the barn and asked if the bulls-eyes and arrows were his. “A-yup” said the country fellow, amiably. “‘Well how do you manage to hit the center of the target EVERY single TIME?!” The farmer chewed the piece of straw in the corner of his mouth thoughtfully and said… “Well.. I jes’ shoot th’ arrows in there first and then paint the targets on after.”
Apple waits for the app devs to shoot their arrows, then they paint the targets around them. It allows them 100% control 100% of the time, jawohl.
My theory is that Apple developed the iPhone and iPod touch to give egomaniacal Steve Jobs an area where he could dominate consumers the way he dominates Apple employees. He must cackle whenever he reads the complaints.
After months of gritting my teeth, just bought out my AT&T iPhone contract after one year. Enough of this BS!
Praying for a decent Android phone (but not holding my breath in anticipation). For now, living on a prepaid cellphone (which I was already carrying as a backup, since AT&T is so unreliable), and using the neutered iPhone on WiFi.
Resembles a Polaroid photograph? You mean photographs on the film the Polaroid doesn’t sell anymore? Either way, does Polaroid actually have a trademark on that “design”?
As a matter of fact, they do. Trademark #77208929, filed June 18, 2007. It covers “Licensing of advertising-related intellectual property” and a whole mess of electronic products. I take that to mean you can’t use the Polaroid shape in a logo, or as the icon for a snapshot button on your remote control.
How about the possibility that they have been approached by Polaroid after the Polarize app and are trying to adjust?
Seriously, rejected app store emo developer whining is NOT news. Stop treating it as such. If the app store approval process sucks so bad, why not NOT write apps for it? Or NOT submit them? Use some other vastly successful mobile platform for apps. Oh yeah, there isn’t one. Just change the graphics and get it approved, or don’t. Just stop whining about it to the rest of us!
This the unfortunate reality of trying to distribute products via single retail channel. It’s much easier for companies to go after competitors in this environment – just threaten the distributor with a silly cease and desist letter and they will drop any product you mention in there (or anything that might show up in the future).
Apple has no experience dealing with this legaleese nonsense on such scale (in comparison to Google which deals with this ever single minute with their YouTube and main search sites).
Also, Apple is being really stupid approving thousands of clearly spammy clearly copyright infringing apps from all these crap outfits and elsewhere and rejecting truly unique apps due to some questionable artwork issues. Truly a big FAIL.
I find it amusing that Apple, in it’s recent FCC response, says the average time it takes to review and app is two weeks. Yet, I’ve yet to hear from a developer or read a story that doesn’t mention it took 4-6 weeks to even hear ANYTHING back from Apple.
Statistical anomaly? Or more lies and deception coming from Apple?
One reason this really doesn’t make any sense as a “Polaroid will come and get us” story is that Polaroid doesn’t have a monopoly on instant film or that “distinctive” instant film border with the larger lower margin. Fuji has been manufacturing this stuff for years too – so how can it possibly be a trademark infringement when Polaroid can’t claim exclusivity for the style?
Example of fujifilm photos:
http://www.flic...ana/3210379700/
Apple was just sued by a photographer for the image used by the developers of i.TV in marketing their iPhone app. Yes, he sued Apple, not the developers who used the image. He gave the usual b.s. reasons, but we know it’s because that’s where the money can be found.
So Apple has very real reasons to reject apps that use images that may violate copyrights. People love to bitch and bitch and bitch about Apple, and they’ve certainly earned a share of it, but I’d think that TechCrunch would have an awareness of some of the legal issues that force these things.
I suppose it also looks like the Quicktime player window… or the shape of an original Mac Classic computer.
Also the cloud looks similar to the apple MobileMe cloud. Plus the typeface and color of the text in the logo are similar to the Twitter logo, a well as 150 other twitapps.
Not to mention the logo contains a cartoonish drawing representing two birds of an endangered species and it is expressly forbidden in the Apple Developers agreement to include graphics, texts, or links to any website that “may be viewed as offensive to any and all animal species, endangered or otherwise.”
Sorry TweetPhoto, but I don’t have sympathy for you regarding infringing copyright. Your type treatment of the name is also…hmm…suspect seeing as how it looks very similar to Twitter.
So now you’re infringing twice. Surprised they didn’t actually point that out first vs. the who cares Polaroid.
Why is it that developers being the smartest people enough to create some great apps are complete idiots when it comes to design. Don’t emulate, because most likely nobody is still going to buy your product in the sea of the iTunes store. If need be set the identity in Comic Sans, give it some drop shadow and halftone it and you’d avoid my even more pointless rath and rant given thus far.
Does everyone need to get a Think Different tattoo on their forehead?
Hold on, you can’t use the same font?
I find that hard to believe. Its not like twitter created the font, it’s been around for decades.
How can you use a font that millions of other companies have used, and then declare that from now on no other company can use it.
The problem isn’t Apple, the problem is a designer who doesn’t understand copyright infringement be it directly or borrowed equity.
So the icon art creator made a bad choice that they should have known better about.
But that said Apple does need to get it’s app together.
These stories about rejections might be kinda sorta interesting if they covered NEW reasons for rejections, but the Polaroid rejection is old and well documented. It is very strange that Apple accepted Polarized, but that’s more of a story than them rejecting an app for this reason.
“My App Was Rejected” has become one of the best promo methods for developers of small apps. I with that TechCrunch would recognize this and stop with the flood of rejection stories, or at least research them first to see if they’re old news. There are stories on this type of rejection going back 8 months. It’s so well known that Mobile Orchard mentions it in the second half of their excellent avoiding rejection series.
http://www.mobi...jection-part-2/
Very good
Reminds me of the Apple commercial (Share) that showcases the app “Mover” and the photos appear as Polaroid pics.
http://www.appl...ne/gallery/ads/
Dear Apple:
Polaroid Corp. was a massive FAIL and after the bankruptcy and selloff that stupid film will never see the light of day again…
Surely you use the internet and know that.
so nice post,thanks
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If you are rejected by Apple to list your application, you can submit your iphone webapps at http://ipoh.blogdns.com/. It is 100% free and searhable. Please make an introduction to your work at the forum.
All are welcome!