Net Neutrality Testing App Rejected From the App Store
An iPhone application that attempts to detect whether ISPs are throttling online services was rejected by Apple when its developer tried to get it into the company’s App Store.
David Choffnes, a Northeastern University professor who researches distributed systems and networking, built an app called “Wehe” that tests the speeds of YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. Abnormally low speed results for one or more of those services might, in theory, provide evidence that your mobile carrier is throttling a service.
But as Motherboard reported today, Apple refused to let the app into the iPhone App Store, telling him that “your app has no direct benefits to the user.”
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Hours after this story was published, Apple reversed course and approved the app.
This was after they continued to reject the app, following a dialog with Choffnes where Apple insisted that it was intended to mislead users. As always, going to the press seems to help.
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Yep, going to the press always seems to help, despite Apple specifically recommending developers don't pursue such an action.
I don't blame the developers even one iota, you have to do what you have to do. The other option would be to completely ignore iOS devices which harms the developers in the short term, but in the long term could cause irreparable harm to Apple. I remember when a lot of apps that were Mac only went Windows and Mac, then some left the Mac market completely (for a number of years anyway with some of those apps eventually returning after OS X matured).
