[Infowarrior] - Fwd: conversation with App(le) Store

[Richard Forno]

(c/o D)


A summary transcipt of the conversation the VoiceCentral developer had  
with a representative of Apple's App Store after Apple pulled the  
developer's iPhone application:

<http://www.riverturn.com/blog/?p=455>

There's No App for That
July 28, 2009

As has been widely reported at this point, we are very sorry to  
announce that Apple removed our VoiceCentral app from the App Store.  
This happened suddenly, swiftly and with virtually no advance notice  
from Apple.

Repeated emails yesterday to Apple have still been ignored at this  
point. We did receive a voicemail at our main office from the same  
Richard who called our competitor. Unfortunately it wasn't until today  
that we were able to connect for our "conversation". The word  
conversation really doesn't cover it because what transpired was not  
informative by design and felt like theater of the absurd. It went  
roughly like this:

    Richard: "I'm calling to let you know that VoiceCentral has been  
removed from the App Store because it duplicates features of the  
iPhone."

    Me: "I don't understand that reasoning. By that logic wouldn't  
apps like Textfree, Skype, fring, or iCall be considered duplicates?"

    Richard: "I can't discuss other apps with you."

    Me: "It's not the apps themselves I want to discuss just the lack  
of consistency in rule enforcement."

    Richard: "I can only say that yours duplicates features of the  
iPhone and was causing confusion in the user community. It's against  
our policy."

    Me: "So what has changed that it is now against policy? It has  
been in the store for the last 4 months with no problem. There wasn't  
a problem for the 1.5 months prior to that when you were 'reviewing'  
it. And this didn't come up with any of the updates we submitted after  
it was already in the store."

    Richard: "I can't say - only that yours is not complying with our  
policy."

    Me: "Can you tell me what portions of the app were duplicate  
features?"

    Richard: "I can't go into granular detail."

    Me: "Is there something we can change or alter in order to regain  
compliance and get back in the Store?"

    Richard: "I can't say."

    Me: "Well if we can't figure out the issue then how will we know  
whether to resubmit the app. And how will we know whether to invest in  
any other development efforts? Future apps could be impacted."

    Richard: "I can't help you with that"

    Me: "So how do we know whether it is still viable for us to  
consider Apple a partner if this is how the scenario plays out. If you  
were in my shoes would you continue to invest blood, sweat, tears and  
money in something that can be killed off at any moment without your  
say so?"

    Richard: "I understand your point but I can't help you with that."

    Me: "Surely someone there at Apple asked you to make this phone  
call. Can I speak with that person about this?"

    Richard: "I am the only one you can speak with on this subject."

    Me: "There has to be someone there I can actually have a back and  
forth with so that we can make some strategic decisions on whether  
this partnership makes any sense."

    Richard: "You can only talk to me"

    Me: "Nothing personal since I know you have just been tasked to  
make this call but we aren't really talking here. There's no back and  
forth and you aren't allowed to answer any questions. Can I implore  
you to ask your managers if there is anyone who would be willing to  
speak with me and have a real conversation? I don't care if it needs  
to be off the record or we need to sign another top-secret NDA but we  
really have nothing to go on at this point. We will need to make  
business decisions on whether it makes any sense to continue  
developing."

    Richard: "I will relay that to my managers."

Now please understand some things lost in the writing of the above  
dialogue:

    * First and foremost, the above is quoted just for grammatical  
presentation and none of it should be considered actual quotations.  
The conversation followed that basic path but included several other  
pleasantries and elements that I eliminated so it didn't get any  
longer than it already was.
    * Second, while I knew early on that our little chat wasn't going  
to go anywhere I felt it my personal mission to make him understand  
the difficulty of the position it puts us in. As in: We are just a  
small business trying to make it in these tough times and yet we will  
have to answer to our shared customers so give us something we can  
tell them.
    * Finally, Richard was extremely professional and very nice in  
every way. He was however absolutely impenetrable when it came to  
getting useful information. But in the end he was the messenger and we  
will not shoot him. We simply hope that he does in fact relay my  
heartfelt request for a real conversation to his management. Hopefully  
one of them will be empowered enough to take us up on that.

Where do we go from here?

There's a lot of speculation all over today about who's to blame. Is  
it Apple? AT&T?

I'd like to know that answer too. I have my opinion on it but that's  
not all that important. What is far more important is the way it was  
handled. Once again the developer is treated terrible, given no data,  
and left to go back empty-handed, palms up to the collective user  
community.

We won't make any rash decisions until the smoke clears a little over  
the next few days. We are going to do some more digging and weigh some  
more options before we announce our plans. But we will say this:  
someone at Apple owes us a better explanation if not an apology. (My  
preference would be to speak with Steve Jobs but so far we have not  
had a response to our email.)

What can you do?

Complain to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Complain to AT&T: 1-800-331-0500

Stay tuned for more info and announcements here and via Twitter. If  
you have the app already please know that it will continue to function  
"as is" for the moment, it will just be impossible for us to provide  
fixes and improvements obviously.  Also spread this blog post so that  
maybe Apple will get the message even if Richard didn't come through!