Apple Rejects "Politically Charged" App

[viscousmemories]

Apple rejected a free iPhone application that advocated a single-payer health system, calling the application “politically charged,” according to the app’s developer.

Red Daly, a 22 year-old computer science grad student at Stanford, submitted his iSinglePayer iPhone app for Apple’s approval on Aug. 21. A little more than a month later Apple rejected it on the grounds of its content, Daly told Wired.com.

The iSinglePayer application includes facts and figures that support a Canadian-style health insurance plan where the government insures citizens and reimburses health providers, but doesn’t employ the doctors. The app also uses GPS to determine a user’s political representatives, and how much money health companies have given them in campaign donations. It also gives users a single button to call lawmakers.

Developer: Apple Denied Health Care App for Political Reasons | Epicenter | Wired.com

[Ari]

It doesn't sound like it can do anything that a web app couldn't. Unless the purpose was specifically to see if apple would accept or reject it.

IMO apps should be rejected or at least scrutinized for being "app" versions of webpages.

[viscousmemories]

That's a pretty crazy standard. I'd be surprised if it has anything to do with Apple's decision in this case. Almost all my apps (and most I've seen) could easily be web apps or web pages, they're just optimized for the tiny iPhone screen. Before this case the only high profile rejections I've heard about were for so-called obscenity or apps that threaten Apple's profit model.

[Adam]

Quite a few retailers have published apps that don't do anything that their web pages don't do, beyond being optimized to look nice and function as smoothly on an iPhone. I use the Netflix and Amazon ones all the time. I don't see anything strange about that.

Also, a general purpose app that would link into Thomas or something to let me see how my reps voted and one touch dial them to complain about it would be awesome.

ETA: And, naturally, several such applications exist. Awesome.

[The Man]

Apple's apparently trying to do everything it can to piss me off lately.