The Tweetie 1.3 Fiasco.

Sure, we all know Apple’s App Store review process is flaky, but last night they showed the world, it’s officially broken. Apple rejected to publish an update to the extremely popular Twitter client Tweetie [App Store] solely based on some bad language being present in Twitter trends at the time
of it’s review.

Although Apple saw sense in the end, and the update has now been approved, I and others have been left asking; Why did this happen?! ..

I’m not one for ranting usually, but I felt this needed some airtime. We’ve always liked Tweetie. It’s the one Twitter client you can rely on, and it was about to get even better with it’s 1.3 update, that was until Apple intervened.

As if you thought the App Store vetting process couldn’t get any worse, it has. Last night, Apple stooped to a new low following up it’s app rejection policy we’ve been hearing a lot about recently. Loren Brichter (@atebits) the developer of Tweetie tweeted their frustration:

“Tweetie 1.3 rejected. Because there’s an offensive word in the TRENDS – http://twitpic.com/1zbcs.”

(Source)

Since then, the story has spread like wildlife , and even managed to grab the attention of some of the more bigger bloggers such as Ars Technica, Engadget and Yahoo! So just what is everyone making a fuss about? – Well, if Tweetie and Atebits were responsible for the obscenity itself, it would be different story – but they’re not. Apple has rejected the update on seeing obscenities within Twitter’s trending. Something which Atebits and Brichter are not in control of.

“To clarify: no, I would never submit a screenshot with profanity. Apple sent that to *me* as an example of the objectionable content.”

(Source)

Let me put this into perspective for you. This is like Apple rejecting an application based on it allowing you to enter or select a custom username, or allowing you to change the background colour or style of a window. Tweetie was rejected last night solely on the basis of user generated content. This is the internet. Content is created and managed by users. Sure, your going to run into profanity, but blaming a developer which uses a registered API to access a social network for this profanity? Err .. no, that doesn’t work Apple.

Currently Apple have not yet released a list of criteria, which if found, is sure to seal an application’s fate. The closest thing we have to anything like that, is this photo taken by Engadget from Apple’s SDK talk back in March of 2008:

So you might ask – How is Apple to get round this problem? Well, explicit content isn’t exactly new. In fact you only have to look in the Music and Video sections of the iTunes Music Store. It’s littered with the stuff. What’s different however is that this content is marked explicit.

“There are a couple of changes that could help this situation: the first is to post a straightforward rubric for what merits rejection from the App Store—for both developers and those on the inside.”

(Source)

Secondly, (as of today) Apple doesn’t adopt a system where it categorizes applications into ‘Explicit’ and ‘Clean’. What we’re saying is, it should. To avoid embarrassment like this in the future, Apple needs to devise a system where it does let explicit content into the App Store (within reason) – but more importantly it needs a rating system for it.

Now we’re not saying Apple should completely open the flood gates, and let everything through. That won’t be good for any of us, including Apple. What we are saying is, user generated content no matter how profane should not impact the approval or submission status of an application in Apple’s approval process.

User generated content is user-generated, and (for the most part) is uncontrollable.

Download size: 0.7MB
Released on: 11th Nov 2008
Retails for: £1.79

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G