Apple kicks prolific developer out of iTunes shop Developer Molinker has been kicked out of the iTunes store for posting too many positive reviews, reducing the size of the store by almost one per cent. Molinker is a Chinese developer who, before the weekend, had more than a thousand applications listed on the iTunes store. Now they have none at all, after an e-mail to Apple' …
I don't see why Apple has to explain to Molinker. If I run a shop and decide that I'm going to stop stocking, say, XYZ batteries because they are inferior copies of Duracell, my decision. Do I then have to explain to XYZ? Not as far as I can see..
move along, nothing to see here
Put your example on it's head.
Imagine your shop is Tesco, and you've decided not to stock Heinz. Heinz maybe a little pissed off, and as a customer it's not like you can go elsewhere because everywhere else went bust when Tesco moved in a couple of years back. As you say though Tesco don't need to explain nothing to no one.
>> I don't see why Apple has to explain to Molinker. If I run a shop and decide that I'm going to stop stocking, say, XYZ batteries because they are inferior copies of Duracell, my decision. Do I then have to explain to XYZ? Not as far as I can see..
But in the IWorld, once you stop selling XYZ batteries, XYZ can't go and sell them via any other shop in the high street - you've locked people down so hard that they can't buy from any shop but you.
If iPhone users could go and buy their apps from anywhere without having to take risks by unlocking their phone, then it wouldn't matter - but here Apple decide if you have a business, and can decide to end it without appeal without warning, explanation, or right of appeal. I don't like what this guy appears to have done, but that's not an excuse for Apple's behaviour.
"But in the IWorld, once you stop selling XYZ batteries, XYZ can't go and sell them via any other shop in the high street - you've locked people down so hard that they can't buy from any shop but you."
Er, yes they can. Symbian and Windows Mobile have had third-party developers producing stuff for those platforms for *years*. (And there's Android too.) None of those platforms are closed. None of those platforms have a review-process in place in their stores.
If you aren't writing portable code, you deserve to go bust.
If you are putting all your company's eggs in one basket, you deserve to go bust.
The iPhone is NOT the only fruit; it's merely the only phone to be designed by one.
This is simply a case of Apple changing the goal posts.
What kind of a contract is it that a developer has that can be torn up by apple and re-written at the drop of a hat without any disclosure.
This kind of heavy handed business practise may be encouraged in the USA but it is more likely to fall foul of competition and fair contract law here in the more civilised eurozone.
Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 8th December 2009 16:25 GMT --- This kind of heavy handed business practise may be encouraged in the USA but it is more likely to fall foul of competition and fair contract law here in the more civilised eurozone.
That is why The Internet was created by the United States. (The iTunes store is just another internet presence... you don't like it, choose another of millions of internet stores to sell your goods... when self-regulation does not work, the market regulates quite effecively.)
America encourages people to: take risks, find a simple elegant solution, manage themselves (i.e. self-regulate), and when self regulation fails, the market regulates by not giving you any money in exchange for your services/ideas/products.
The "civilised eurozone" encourages people to: not take risks, choose complex political solutions, submit themselves to the government for management, and sends people to prison/concentration camps/gulags when the government considers your actions 'uncivilized".
One need not wonder why Fascism & Communism took hold so easily - an unhealthy trust of government (which has the power of the gun among a "civilized" people who do not.) Will an Islamofascist Caliphate take root at "civilised eurozone" as easily in 20 more years?
Over 1,000 apps from one developer? That's more than two apps *per day* this "developer" was releasing. Anyone with half a brain has to comprehend that there's no development company on earth that could deliver that volume of apps unless they were a) stealing others' source code or b) re-releasing the same crap with slight variations over and over. Then they faked their ratings by creating accounts and rating only their own apps?
This is a blatantly obvious case of abuse of the app store, why are people bitching about Apple? Would any of you point fingers at eBay for removing a seller who sells fake Rolexes claiming they were originals? Likewise if an eBay seller set up thousands of accounts and rated themselves high would you consider that seller trustworthy or expect eBay to remove them?
AC - "That is why The Internet was created by the United States"
UkForest - Was it now!?!?!?!?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_Suite
"The Internet Protocol Suite resulted from research and development conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the early 1970s..."
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