Some iPhone application developers and users are befuddled by the mysterious removal of two programs from Apple's App Store over the weekend.
Apple on Friday evening removed Nullriver's NetShare -- an application that essentially turns your iPhone into a wireless modem for your computer. That same day, Apple yanked Metasyntactic's BoxOffice, an app that allows you to search movie showtime listings. Developers of both applications have not received notification for why their applications were removed.
These two examples follow reports of iPhone app developers complaining about the difficulty of working with Apple. Some developers have been frustrated with Apple's lack of transparency in informing them when their applications become available.
AT&T's Terms and Conditions prohibits internet-tethering with iPhone, which may explain NetShare's disappearance. But neither AT&T nor Apple have told Nullriver why its application was removed.
"We thought [NetShare] wouldn't get approved, so when it was approved, our reaction was great," said Maksim Rogov, president of Nullriver. "But when it was removed it was kind of a kick down; we were a little upset. I wrote an e-mail to Steve Jobs with no reply yet."
AT&T deferred commenting on NetShare's removal to Apple, who has not received phone calls or e-mails to Wired.com.
Developer Metasyntactic has received similar silent treatment regarding the removal of BoxOffice. Cyrus Najmabadi, BoxOffice's author, even commented in the MacRumors forum asking for the public's help.
"Apple pulled the app yesterday without giving my any notification that they were doing it, or what their justification was for removing it," Najmabadi wrote. "I've tried to contact them about the issue, but it's been a complete dead end. If anyone has a useful contact number for Apple, please let me know."
On a similar note, Apple was recently under fire for its lack of public openness regarding an e-mail outage in its internet service, MobileMe. The outage left 20,000 users without e-mail access -- with nothing but a vague status message telling them their e-mail was down. After many users and journalists, including NY Times columnist David Pogue, criticized Apple for being opaque, the MobileMe team launched a blog to keep users updated on efforts to restore e-mail service.
But clearly Apple still has not learned its lesson, as it continues to keep its lips sealed -- even to the people developing software that makes the iPhone even more attractive. Were 20,000 people not enough to convince Apple it's time to open up?
Apple on Friday evening removed Nullriver's NetShare -- an application that essentially turns your iPhone into a wireless modem for your computer. That same day, Apple yanked Metasyntactic's BoxOffice, an app that allows you to search movie showtime listings. Developers of both applications have not received notification for why their applications were removed.
These two examples follow reports of iPhone app developers complaining about the difficulty of working with Apple. Some developers have been frustrated with Apple's lack of transparency in informing them when their applications become available.
AT&T's Terms and Conditions prohibits internet-tethering with iPhone, which may explain NetShare's disappearance. But neither AT&T nor Apple have told Nullriver why its application was removed.
"We thought [NetShare] wouldn't get approved, so when it was approved, our reaction was great," said Maksim Rogov, president of Nullriver. "But when it was removed it was kind of a kick down; we were a little upset. I wrote an e-mail to Steve Jobs with no reply yet."
AT&T deferred commenting on NetShare's removal to Apple, who has not received phone calls or e-mails to Wired.com.
Developer Metasyntactic has received similar silent treatment regarding the removal of BoxOffice. Cyrus Najmabadi, BoxOffice's author, even commented in the MacRumors forum asking for the public's help.
"Apple pulled the app yesterday without giving my any notification that they were doing it, or what their justification was for removing it," Najmabadi wrote. "I've tried to contact them about the issue, but it's been a complete dead end. If anyone has a useful contact number for Apple, please let me know."
On a similar note, Apple was recently under fire for its lack of public openness regarding an e-mail outage in its internet service, MobileMe. The outage left 20,000 users without e-mail access -- with nothing but a vague status message telling them their e-mail was down. After many users and journalists, including NY Times columnist David Pogue, criticized Apple for being opaque, the MobileMe team launched a blog to keep users updated on efforts to restore e-mail service.
But clearly Apple still has not learned its lesson, as it continues to keep its lips sealed -- even to the people developing software that makes the iPhone even more attractive. Were 20,000 people not enough to convince Apple it's time to open up?
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