01Apr

Microsoft Backpedals, Tries To Unapprove An Approved App For “Graphic Content”

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

Sorry, Microsoft; we harsh on Apple and Google anytime their App Store policies result in questionable decisions, so we can’t just let yours slide.

Here’s the story so far: one-man dev house Smarty Pants Coding submits their Windows Phone 7 app, ImageWind, which automatically pulls random images from Twitter for aimless perusing and time-killing. Smarty Pants’ Roger Peters is unsure if it’ll get greenlit, as the unrestricted image feed can get a bit risque at times, but.. it gets approved! He submits an update.. and it gets approved again! He drops a few hundred bills into the application and its website, now that he knows Microsoft is down with the idea, and submits another update. This time, however, he’s turned away.

As App Review teams made up of multiple people can do from time to time, Microsoft’s WP7 Marketplace gatekeepers had had a change of heart. The response after Rob submitted his last update:

Imagewind – app unpublish request
[..] While the images shown are dynamic, per your app’s disclaimer, a portion of the images’ content is too graphic for the app to be permissible in Marketplace. In order to be permissible, there would need to be a content filter before surfacing images since users are not querying a specific type of image and are rather pushed to them.

Given this, we ask that you unpublish your app within one business day until you are able to modify your application to comply with the certification guidelines.[..]

Great! As long as Rob could fix things up within a day or two, he should be fine — right? The problem: he’s just pulling Twitter’s raw image feed, and their is no “clean” feed. If Rob wanted to nix all the potentially-dirty images out of his app’s stream, he’d have to hire an army of moderators to keep the feed clean around the clock. Not exactly an option for an indie developer just tryin’ to release something cool.

As crummy as it seems, Microsoft’s well within their rights here. Rob lucked out by getting his app through the review process twice, knowing that it was in a grey area — it’s just unfortunate that no one at Microsoft caught it before false hopes lead him to invest all that time and money.

[Via NeoWin]



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , , , , ,

02Nov

Skyfire 2.0 approved! App to bring Flash vids to iOS (sorta)

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

Finally, the much anticipated (at least by me) web browser for the iPhone has been approved by Apple. Early on Tuesday Skyfire 2.0 was approved for the App Store and you should be able to download the application soon. I have to honestly say that I never expected Apple to give the thumbs up to this particular browser.

Mainly because the big selling point of Skyfire is that it allows you to view Flash video on your iPhone. What it does is pretty cool and actually helped them get around those pesky guidelines Apple has in place.

Just like the Opera browser Skyfire has many servers where the websites are loaded when you want to view a website. But what sets it apart from Opera is that it also converts any Flash video to HTML5 for viewing on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Android users have already been playing around with Skyfire for a while and it has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times since May 2010. And before Android it was already available for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices. But I can tell you that it was horrible to use on those two platforms and only really matured into a real contender in the web browser wars when it was released for Android.

Skyfire 2.0 for iPhone will be available for $2.99 on the App Store beginning November 2.  The only downside to this application is that as it does help bring video to your device it won’t be able to bring flash based games for you to play around with. And Hulu is also actively blocking Skyfire from accessing any shows because they want you to pony up and download their application which requires a $10 monthly subscription.

As of writing this I still don’t see Skyfire in the App Store yet. But If you don’t feel like downloading the application then of course there is always the jailbreak application Frash. But, I think its safe to say nobody is going to skip over this one for a mere jailbreak method. If you get your hands on it let us know how you like it or don’t like it.

Via: Appleinsider

View full post on TodaysiPhone.com

, , , , ,

02Nov

Skyfire 2.0 approved for the App Store

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

Finally, the much anticipated (at least by me) web browser for the iPhone has been approved by Apple. Early on Tuesday Skyfire 2.0 was approved for the App Store and you should be able to download the application soon. I have to honestly say that I never expected Apple to give the thumbs up to this particular browser.

Mainly because the big selling point of Skyfire is that it allows you to view Flash video on your iPhone. What it does is pretty cool and actually helped them get around those pesky guidelines Apple has in place.

Just like the Opera browser Skyfire has many servers where the websites are loaded when you want to view a website. But what sets it apart from Opera is that it also converts any Flash video to HTML5 for viewing on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Android users have already been playing around with Skyfire for a while and it has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times since May 2010. And before Android it was already available for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices. But I can tell you that it was horrible to use on those two platforms and only really matured into a real contender in the web browser wars when it was released for Android.

Skyfire 2.0 for iPhone will be available for $2.99 on the App Store beginning November 2.  The only downside to this application is that as it does help bring video to your device it won’t be able to bring flash based games for you to play around with. And Hulu is also actively blocking Skyfire from accessing any shows because they want you to pony up and download their application which requires a $10 monthly subscription.

As of writing this I still don’t see Skyfire in the App Store yet. But If you don’t feel like downloading the application then of course there is always the jailbreak application Frash. But, I think its safe to say nobody is going to skip over this one for a mere jailbreak method. If you get your hands on it let us know how you like it or don’t like it.

Via: Appleinsider

View full post on TodaysiPhone.com

, ,

28Sep

Rumor: Official Google Voice app approved

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

With Apple revising their application approval guidelines, we have seen a few good apps — which have or would have been rejected in a heartbeat before — actually make their way to the App Store now. One of those applications was GV Mobile +, a Google Voice application that had been previously booted for duplicating features already offered by the iPhone’s system, like the dialer.

Although it’s great to see this finally returning, there is one caveat: There are no push notifications. So I never really know when someone has sent me an SMS or left me a voicemail unless I actually check the application.

This isn’t really the developer’s fault. Google hasn’t released the APIs required for push notifications, so app developers would need to have their own servers set up and maintained for their thousands of end users. For someone like Sean Kovacs, who develops the GV Mobile + app on his own, that’s just not something that would be possible.

Well, now it seems that we won’t have to worry about that anymore. TechCrunch is reporting that “a source close to Google” has tipped them that an official Google Voice app has already been approved by Apple — all it needs is a little iOS 4 refresh with multitasking capabilities.

I have been waiting for over a year for this one. That web app that Google made instead just didn’t cut it for me. And no offense to Sean, who did a great job on GV Mobile +, but once this becomes available, it will be first on my list of things to download.

Via: TechCrunch

View full post on TodaysiPhone.com

, , , ,

26Sep

BlackBerry 9670 Clamshell approved by the FCC

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

The unconfirmed and quite confusing BlackBerry 9670 clamshell that we’ve seen around the place has now been approved by the FCC.

For those that need a reminder, the 9670 will run BlackBerry OS6, with a 360×400 internal display, and a 240×320 external display. Expect the usual WiFi, Bluetooth, and A/GPS, plus a 5MP camera with autofocus and flash.

It looks to be heading to Verizon, Sprint, and US Cellular.

We’ll keep you posted with any more details as they arrive.

[via Phone News]



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , ,

TOP