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Apple Extends Non-Disclosure to App Store Rejection Letters

Apple has gotten a significant amount of critical press surrounding its rejection policies in the App Store. A few high profile rejections have been widely reported and inspired at least one amusing comic.

Apparently, Apple has now started labeling their rejection letters with Non-Disclosure (NDA) warnings:

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE

Readers should note that Apple's developer correspondence may have already been covered by the original NDA, but Apple is now making it clear.

In contrast to Apple's approval process for the App Store, the newly announced Android Market claims an entirely unrestricted free-for-all model. Early concerns about that model question how inappropriate, spam, or malicious material may be filtered. It seems that the efforts to prevent issues such as bandwidth abuse have been shifted to the carrier who has implemented caps for the 3G data plans at 1GB per month:

If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less.

Top Rated Comments

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44 months ago
While I don't appreciate how much Apple is trying to close off the system and make it a black box, I don't think a free-for-all approach will be any better. There will be so much junk to sift through to find something good. Not to mention malicious app possibilities.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
44 months ago
I predict the #1 app in the Android Market store will be porn. :) Not that there's anything wrong with that I guess.

(and #2 will be Koi Pond)

arn
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44 months ago
Now Apple doesn't even want you talking about the fact you've been rejected from their store? That's pretty damn weak.
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44 months ago
Hmm...I guess in the android marketplace, people will have ot get outside reviews from places like Giz or Engadget or Pogue and then go specifically find those apps.
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44 months ago
I wonder what purpose it serves Apple to put the letters under the NDA as well, other than to shield them from the press.

Shielding from the press is not the purpose from an NDA... the purpose of an NDA is to protect sensitive information from competitors.

What we have here are two extremes: Apple going off the deep end on secrecy and Google being perhaps a bit too open and opening themselves up for malware. Why can't we have a cool, moderate head in this ballgame?
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44 months ago
Good.

These devs that go running to the court of public blogging (oh how we know how much reasearch and objectivity blogs and their posters put into things 99% of the time. :rolleyes:) to air their dirty laundry is unprofessional to say the least.

They are in a contract with apple, this contract now extends to the rejection letters.

if they don't like it, either swallow their gripes or they can go build an app for that new phone that does not even have a headphone jack.*


*dongles are a joke.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
44 months ago
so instead of addressing the issue of banning competitors, they try to silence them?

Apple is turning into a monster of a company--the kind with traits that all the mac purists hated in microsoft years ago, but worse!
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44 months ago
iDictatorship

Apple appears to have gone power mad. I certainly won't be developing any iPhone apps.
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44 months ago
LMAO!

So you put in time and effort, and we don't like your app since it makes us look bad, cheap, etc. Oh, but you can't comment on how you feel.

Just take it like a man! And you'll like it!

What a crock.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
44 months ago

so instead of addressing the issue of banning competitors, they try to silence them?


What needs addressing?

The podcaster app broke the SDK rules.

And apple and the dev can still address it if they need to, between themselves, not between apple, the dev and the bloggers that don't have all the facts in front of them yet still will knee jerk to "apple is evil" in 2 seconds flat.
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