What's New in the Updated App Store License Agreement and New Review Guidelines

http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/app_store_guidelines

by mudgemeister • 16 years ago

40 14 16 years ago

tomjen34• 16 years ago

>This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this.

In other words - you (still) can't use this list to see if your app will be accepted. Only whether it will be rejected with certainty.

This isn't unexpected, but as long as apple works hard to make this the only way to install your apps, it is still unacceptable.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

I disagree with that, and I was very solidly on the other side when they had their previous set of rules.

The list given here shows 'intent'. Now you can go and interpret it to the letter as if it is a kind of legal document, but that's not the right way to approach this, just as it isn't very clever to try to live by the letter of the law but to ignore the spirit of it.

Apple has clearly set a bunch of rules here that indicate what is the desired way you should develop your app and how you interpret these rules is up to you. If you're going to do your best to squeak by the guidelines they're warning you up front that they may amend the guidelines and ban your app anyway, just in case you decide to go 'legal' on them.

Is's a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do.

I'm surprised at the magnitude of this about-face, anybody with a clear conscience can take this list, self-validate their app and have a very good idea of whether or not it is going to pass.

No doubt there will be smart asses that will try to abuse the fact that the list is now published to find loopholes and Apple has pre-emptively closed those.

All (or as far as I can see it) of the dealbreakers are gone and I would imagine they're gone for good.

tomjen34• 16 years ago

The Eucalyptus app could still be banned under the current rules because it makes it possible to download sex books of project gutenberg.

It isn't mentioned directly, but combine the protect the children with no obscenity (which I personally find Obscene) clauses and you can ban anything.

muhfuhkuh• 16 years ago

I think DF was right in its analysis: These changes are likely coming straight from Jobs. Perhaps it was Apple Legal dictating the rules and it just didn't seem "human" enough. Perhaps Jobs wanted to unify the left and right hand to know what both were doing. Maybe they're scared of the Probe.

Apple is showing here that it is one of the biggest small companies around. The wording in the App store review guidelines reads like something out of an up-and-coming Webapp startup run by a 20-something ne'er-do-well.

It's clear that Apple wants to get back to its "Designed by Apple in California" jeans and mock-turtleneck 'tude. The draconian rules and BS were antithetical to that. Hey, maybe the gyrating silhouettes will make their comeback to replace disembodied hands in their commercials.

raganwald2• 16 years ago

> it is still unacceptable

Can you clarify what you mean here? Unacceptable to whom? And for what purpose? Your words imply that Apple has submitted this document to some party or group of parties for review. I don't think that's the case, but I'm open to education.

tomjen34• 16 years ago

To me. And to those who wants to make sure that they don't get burned by Apple some day.

SeanLuke• 16 years ago

> We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.

The proper quote, from Justice Potter Stevens, was:

> I shall not today attempt further to deﬁne the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

How do I know? Because by wild coincidence, I quote it on the first page of a free book I wrote (http://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/book/metaheuristics/).

sz• 16 years ago

So is an iPhone scripting environment now allowed?

CGamesPlay• 16 years ago

Yes. For more commentary, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1675131

gokhan• 16 years ago

On April:

"My opinion is that iPhone users will be well-served by this rule. The App Store is not lacking for quantity of titles." (He's talking about 3.1.1)

http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_...

Today, he doesn't comment on 3.1.1 but says "The existence of this document is a very welcome change" regarding the rules document. I'd like to see some comments on 3.1.1 as well.

What's New in the Updated App Store License Agreement and New Review Guidelines

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