[From Darcy Boese, in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada] The AppStore review process is hopelessly broken. Today's XKCD strip pretty much sums it up perfectly:XKCD http://xkcd.com/662/
There's a program on my iPhone called "Tris". It's a brilliant take on the Tetris theme, with controls adapted to suit the iPhone touch screen. You don't like the piece coming down right now? Just push it back up and juggle it along with the other falling pieces! There's a few minor problems with it, however, that would be easily fixed in a small update. But that'll never happen, because Apple removed it from the AppStore, apparently because the name "Tris" violates the trademark for "Tetris".
There are several other Tetris clones currently in the store, among them:
Communist Blocks http://appshopper.com/games/
Gamebox Classics http://appshopper.com/games/
Wallbuilding http://appshopper.com/
Clearly the only issue then was Tris's NAME, a trivial fix. If only the AppStore gatekeepers had communicated that to the developer. But the developer gave up, and took his innovation elsewhere. But it would seem that once the "official" version of Tetris http://appshopper.com/games/
Other iPhone developers are protesting similar unfair treatment, joining together in an ad hoc collective. Somebody claiming to own the trademark for "Edge" has been serving Apple with takedown notices for apps using that in their names. http://www.iphonealley.com/
A few other recent problems I'm aware of include "RSS Player" (no link available) which is currently missing from the AppStore altogether. I've messaged the developer and follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/
The developer submitted version 2.0 of RSSPlayer, which was approved by Apple. But the new version simply wouldn't install! All you'd get was a brief, mostly unintelligible error message. In the end, it turned out that the AppStore workers neglected to sign the program correctly! As there is no way to restore the older version 1.4 of the program back into the store, the developer had to remove his program from the store until his newer version 2.1 gets approved. This has been a loooong two weeks, waiting for this update. Every time I sync my phone with iTunes there is a long delay while it tries to re-update my phone with the failed version. Not cool Apple!
And the latest problem with the AppStore approval process, the one that angered me and pushed me over the edge to have to post a rant today, is a program I can't even use, because my computer doesn't happen to operate on either Windows or MacOS. Airfoil Speakers Touch http://appshopper.com/music/
When some of the most popular app developers give up on the AppStore http://www.iphonealley.com/
