“Each day, Apple is tasked with a near-impossible job: keeping its sprawling App Store free from malware, blatantly offensive content, and spam,” Louise Matsakis writes for Motherboard. “In order to do it, the company requires each of the App Store’s roughly two million apps, from iFart to Twitter, to undergo an extensive approval process.”
“It’s always been this way. In 2010, Steve Jobs famously told a customer in an email that he believes Apple has ‘a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone,’ and that those looking for explicit content should ‘buy an Android,'” Matsakis writes. “It’s not just porn, of course — Apple has rejected apps that are politically problematic, contain malware, put Apple in a bad light, or are just plain juvenile.”
“Apple’s software marketplace is one of the biggest digital economies ever created,” Matsakis writes. “Last year, App Store developers raked in $20 billion, so it makes economic sense for them to them to continue to focus the bulk of their energy on iOS.”
MacDailyNews Take: As always, and everywhere from developers to case makers to car makers, Android is relegated to being an afterthought at best.
“While most developers never run into problems with the App Store, there are plenty who have spent years honing and perfecting their apps, only to be turned away from the App Store for mysterious reasons, often under Apple’s infamous rule banning ‘objectionable content,'” Matsakis writes. “The App Store is the most successful guarded ecosystem in the history of the internet. For nearly a decade, Apple has undertaken a remarkable task—keeping an enormous software marketplace free from spam, malware, and risks to user security. And for the most part, it has been good at the job. But at the same time, Apple has repeatedly rejected apps and refused to clarify its decisions to developers and users.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wherever there is any curation whatsoever, there will be criticism.
SEE ALSO:
Apple rejects game featuring ‘objectionable’ Pepe The Frog cartoon – June 12, 2017
Apple removes New York Times apps from App Store in China at behest of Chinese government – January 4, 2017
Apple App Store rejects Samsung Pay app for iPhone – December 12, 2016
Apple App Store rejects pro-Trump ‘Build the Wall’ game over ‘Pepe The Frog’ cartoon – October 21, 2016
Apple App Store rejects satirical Hillary Clinton game, despite offering dozens of anti-Trump games – July 27, 2016
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Apple pulls ‘I Sea’ refugee rescue app from App Store after it’s outed as fake – June 21, 2016
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Apple assigns App Store oversight to Phil Schiller in apparent nod to developer issues – December 18, 2015