Apple’s Fickle Friendships
by Eric March on November 26, 2008 at 8:14 pm
If you ever wanted any solid confirmation that Apple has a tendancy to A) play favourites, and/or B) is inconsistent in its approval process, here you go.
Ignoring the BdEmailer vs. MailWrangler debacle for the moment, we have Google Mobile. Sure, it looks all innocent and stuff, but it’s hiding a dirty little secret. Google was naughty. They used used an undocumented call to access the proximity sensor to activate the voice search function. Using undocumented calls is expressly verboten in the SDK rules, because accessing undocumented functions can cause an app to break with any future firmware update if Apple changes it in any way.
They thought they could slip one by the censors.
The thing is, they were right. Google Mobile is still available in the App Store and there’s no indication that Apple are planning on yanking it. (One never knows of course, but what are the chances that Apple wants to incur the wrath of Google?) So the question looms larger than ever: Is Apple playing favourites, or are they maybe — just maybe — loosening the their belts to let a little circulation flow down below? I have a hard time believing the latter if only because there lies a slippery slope. They make one little concession for one little app, and then someone demands another — and another. Pretty soon Apple’s rules are meaningless and you’ve got apps backgrounding and allowing system folder access like a mofo.
Sure, I’m being overly dramatic — though frankly some of the possibilities that could open up aren’t necessarily bad things if approached properly — but the suits at Apple aren’t exactly known for possessing loose sphinchters when it comes to rules and regulations, so that puts is back at Apple’s eternally nebulous approval process and no closer to figuring out exactly where the boundaries lie. Sucks to be an iPhone developer who wants to toe the line between breaking the rules and merely brushing up against them with romantic intentions
Related Stories:
Posted in Application Related, app store
Subscribe via E-mail
Subscribe via RSS
What is RSS?
Recent Comments