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Comment by alex_c | Hacker News Reader

Trying hard not to downvote just because I disagree so strongly, I don't even know if it's possible to find some common ground for discussion.

It sounds to me like these developers didn't read the app store guidelines.

I'm getting really sick of that defense for Apple. How exactly do you logically go from "Don't make apps that do what Apple devices can already do natively" to "Thou shalt not make a cool picture frame app"?

Yes, it's entirely the app developers' fault, and Apple can never be mistaken. The allmighty App Store Guidelines CLEARLY spell out for developers what they can and cannot do. They are immutable, all-encompassing, never vague, and impossible to misinterpret. If only developers would READ, we would never see any of these stories.

Argh.

(Have I just been trolled? On HN?)

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I'll concede that there may be a jump in logic. And it is upsetting that a developer that plays by the rules gets denied for some unforeseeable reason. But I am tired of reading the same Apple is screwing the developers story. Why so much negativity in this thread?

Its all reflected from Apple, who is torpedoing folks' sales capriciously.

> How exactly do you logically go from "Don't make apps that do what Apple devices can already do natively" to "Thou shalt not make a cool picture frame app"?

When you make your picture frame app look like a desktop.

I feel sorry for the guys, because it was certainly unintended. The path they took to adding value to their picture frame app unfortunately shifted the gestalt from picture frame to desktop, and when you're moving in that direction, you might fail to notice the shift. But it is entirely reasonable for Apple to disallow apps that can confuse the UI hierarchy for the user. Obviously, none of us on this site are going to be confused by it, but they have to take a much broader demographic of users into account.

>When you make your picture frame app look like a desktop.

Can you actually point me to anything in the existing developer agreements or interface guidelines that disallows this? I just looked, and I haven't been able to find anything - but it's not exactly hard to miss something.

From the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines - Creating a Great User Interface:

"As you design your application, be aware of the metaphors that exist in iPhone OS and don't redefine them."

I wasn't aware of this specific guideline/rule until just now, having looked for it in response to your question. But I do think it's an easily intuited rule, given a basic understanding of usability. Still, I don't think these guys knowingly violated the rule. It's a weird case.

Even while I think it's reasonable for Apple to reject the app on these grounds, they could certainly do a better job clarifying how rules are applied and reduce developer risk. The most effective way would just be to maintain a listing of all rejections and the rationale behind them.

I just don't see it. If I sat down today to make an app like this, and read the sentence you quoted, it wouldn't even cross my mind that I might get in trouble. What is the existing metaphor for "picture frame that shows the time, weather, and some other useful info"?

For that matter, where does it say anything about desktops?

It's about as useful as a Rorschach test, or staring at the clouds to understand the shape of Apple's intentions.

Yes, again, Apple's platform means Apple's rules - developers have little to no bargaining power. I just don't want to pretend that the rules aren't completely unpredictable at times.

Edit: I've run afoul of HIG violations before - it's usually relatively minor stuff that can be fixed and should get approved once it's resubmitted. Even "redefining a metaphor" can usually be fixed by changing to more standard controls. It doesn't sound like there's any UI change these guys can make to their app to make it acceptable.

> What is the existing metaphor for "picture frame that shows the time, weather, and some other useful info"?

A desktop with a customizable background and widgets. Seriously, if you take a screenshot of that app and go around showing it to your friends, do you think their first impression is going to be, oh, it's a picture frame with widgets?

> For that matter, where does it say anything about desktops?

The "desktop" is a metaphor. You don't have an actual, literal desktop on your computer.

>Seriously, if you take a screenshot of that app and go around showing it to your friends, do you think their first impression is going to be, oh, it's a picture frame with widgets?

Actually, yes, especially if they're less tech-savvy (part of the assumption underlying this whole discussion is that Apple is trying to protect users from getting confused). It doesn't look like you can interact with it much - you certainly can't put icons on it and use it to launch programs, or have it run in the background and become visible when you close everything else. But that's not even really my point.

>The "desktop" is a metaphor. You don't have an actual, literal desktop on your computer.

Thanks, I managed to get that far on my own. My point is that I still don't see anywhere in the agreements that you can't make an app that looks, if you squint hard enough, like a desktop.

This isn't really going anywhere, and I don't want to spam this thread more than I already have. If you want to continue this discussion, there's some contact info in my profile.

I don't know that this discussion has anywhere left to go, but I thought I quoted the relevant part in the HIG already. The desktop is a metaphor. HIG says don't redefine iPhone OS metaphors. The picture frame app invokes the desktop metaphor. The iPhone OS already has a desktop metaphor, in the form of Springboard. Therefore, picture frame app is redefining an iPhone OS metaphor, and the app gets rejected. This is a reasonable application of the rules. You could certainly quibble with it. But reasonable does not imply optimal, or that the rules couldn't stand revision.

Also, this is the sort of issue we can obstinately disagree over without consulting data, but I really doubt that even non-tech savvy users are going to identify a screenshot of this app as a picture frame. I've never seen a picture frame with a bunch of widgets on it, at least until I saw this app. I'd consider it far more likely that non-tech savvy users have seen a computer desktop with widgets on it and a picture for a background.

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