Its interesting that there is so much of an uproar around Facebook and its abrupt policy changes, yet you rarely hear about Apple’s schizophrenic rules (if you can call them that) for application developers. The last we heard of anyone get any notice for the lack luster way Apple treats its army of free employees/revenue generators was when Trent Reznor failed to get his app approved.
Last night (February 18) we received a notice via email from Apple reading:
“The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, iWakeupGirls, contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.
We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that iWakeupGirls complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.
Sincerely,
iPhone App Review”
When Apple says, “If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that iWakeupGirls complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.” How exactly do they think we will know what those “necessary changes” are if they don’t pass along a link or attachment of what the new “guidelines” are? Maybe they could at a minimum send an outline or one-lined description of those ‘guidelines’. Nope. This is only a small bit of the problem. We are a small company that puts its time and money into developing on this platform, abiding by the rules as outlined by Apple. Yes, our app contains girls in bikinis, but they don’t make overt sexual actions, nor do they use bad language. We spent 4 1/2 months just to get approved and that was due to making sure the app did not have ‘overtly’ sexual content. We even submitted the app for use in the appropriate age group so that if you are under 17 years old you can not get the app according to Apple’s parental controls.
During our 4 1/2 months of an approval process we faced many of the same challenges as this recent letter. The communication is very vague and does not offer a possibility for further discovery. The iPhone might be great, but the upside of the app platform has not proved to have too much ‘up’ in it for the little guy. On top of the lost investment due to our removal, we now look like we have a faulty app because it has now gone missing and Apple has not made a public statement with the new guidelines. Apple’s reputation is not damaged, ours is - along with the ability to make money. If Apple would have done right by their free work force they would have give a 30 day notice to comply or risk being turned off. This would have at least given us a chance to communicate with the users of our app and explain what steps we are taking to either move the app to a different platform or to comply and not leave everyone in the dark.
‘Luckily’ today (February 19) we were able to speak with an Apple representative. Here is what he had to say by phone when we asked if he could supply us with the new guidelines:
“the new guidelines are that Apple will be removing all applications featuring bikinis and lingerie in the next 48 to 72 hours.”
He went on to say that it is the public that says what they want and don’t want to see in the app store. However he then conflicted him self by saying that it (the app store) is a retail storefront and it determines what is sold and not sold. They left us wondering, is it the public or is it the retailer? Not sure, especially when the public is downloading the the bikini apps. And the ones who don’t want to look at bikinis have the right not to download.
It sure does suck being the guinea pig that ends up euthanized when the experiment is over.
See techcrunch for more info.
See Apples response to the NY Times.
Follow us on twitter for updates to where the iWakeup Girls app will end up.
Tags: Apple app policy, Apple iPhone, Apple's new guidelines, Bikini apps
Pretty lame and unfortunate but hopefully you can just integrate that platform and migrate it to the droid operating system. What a joke!
Hi, sorry to hear about your troubles. I also got the same email as you and had 4 of my “bikini fart” apps removed. They featured photos to women in bikinis that made a “fart sound” when a button was tapped. They were funny, goofy apps with the intention of making people laugh, that’s it. Absolutley nothing “overtly sexual” about them, and I rated them as 17+ just to avoid any hassles.
If Apple’s new policy really is to no longer allow “bikini girl” apps, then fine, I can accept that. But what I don’t think is fair is, that so far, they’ve only seemed to have removed apps by smaller developers - yet they allow apps by Playboy, Victoria’s Secret, etc. to remain. Heck, they even have Sports Illustrated Swimsuit app on their main App Store page in iTunes!
Your conversation with Apple was interesting… I’m curious to see if they really will remove the apps by the bigger guys…
…still waiting to see what their next move is. Seems as if they give the grace of a heads up to the big guys if in fact they do remove. At least they will have a chance to communicate with their users before their app up and disappears.
A Few Bad Apples:
Wow. I can’t imagine what a blow this must be, for you guys and the thousands of others in the app industry. Can’t be good for Apple’s reputation in the mobile market. With the rise of Droid tech /open-source, this leaves us with a bad taste. The Apple ‘Sauce’ seems to be turning sour…