Bogus Pokemon evolves into iTunes smash hit An obviously infringing Pokemon iOS port briefly found its way to number two in the iTunes paid app chart, in the USA, despite having nothing to do with Nintendo and garnering buckets of negative reviews. Despite the fact that the game apparently doesn’t run at all, with the vast majority of the 1,300 reviews stating just that …
That's a bit harsh, I feel. It's only a quid that people are spending.
That's the dynamic that the mobile app stores work on I think, people are happy to take a punt on an app when it only costs a quid. if it's rubbish or doesn't work, they just delete it and go looking for something else.
In what way fools? Apple are the ones insisting that their app store is a walled garden because that protects people from exactly this situation. Nobody forced Apple to Lie to their customers like this -- they could have taken the same approach as Google and had no responsibility.
Hopefully Apple will be obliged to refund everyone and make good with Nintendo for their breach of copyright.
"Apple are the ones insisting that their app store is a walled garden"
No, that's what media like El Reg insists on calling it.
Apple only described it's app store as "curated", but like ANY curated platform with millions of items there's bound to appear holes once in a while.
Only if they don't ask a for a refund.
Which they can, via iTunes customer support.
Why should they have to? Surely Apple can and should just process refunds for all purchasers of this app.
It would probably be less costly in administrative terms than dealing with the requests from those purchasers who can be bothered to contact them.
Who cares what Apple call it? They define it as a walled grade and insist it has to be that way to prevent situations exactly like this.
If users are expected to research whether an application is many good or, indeed, whether it's malicious or (as in this case) of dubious legality even if it does work then what the hell is the point of the vetting process and the fact you are forced to get applications from Apple only?
So, going back to my original point: Why is it foolish to trust that the Apple App store only provides vetted, safe applications which do at least something like they are advertised to do?
"If users are expected to research whether an application is many good or, indeed, whether it's malicious or (as in this case) of dubious legality even if it does work then what the hell is the point of the vetting process and the fact you are forced to get applications from Apple only?"
I have some magic beans for sale that you might be interested in, I can assure you they are entirely legit.... the single star? oh... /that's/ the star of quality.... yes... yes they do don't they... no... /fewer/ stars is better... yes...did you? well it /is/ a common misconception... now... about these beans?
The number of stars is irrelevant to this. There are games out there and other programmes that are crappy but do start up and are not of dubious legality.
This is not about how good a game is it is about people trusting Apple to do what they paid Apple to do and vet the applications. I don't think it's foolish to trust a huge IT company to do what you are paying it for.
"The number of stars is irrelevant to this.[...]"
There has to be a certain amount of self responsibility though, surely? Just because it's on the internet it doesn't absolve basic common sense.
"This is not about how good a game is it is about people trusting Apple to do what they paid Apple to do and vet the apps.[...]"
But they only paid Apple by /buying the app/. Apple put a peer review system in place precisely so you can make the purchasing decision before parting with your cash, which seems to have accurately reflected the lack of quality in this case, and was routinely ignored. (by a lot of people who seemed only too happy to then go and submit a rating presumably ignoring the irony in the process..)
Do you actually go into a shop and not examine your purchases? The app had 1 star and lots of reviews pointing out the fact it doesn't work, if you bought it without even bothering to read it then sure, you're entitled to a refund (it doesn't work) you can even complain, but it does just come across a little petulant.
Out of interest, what is your actual point? The app store is a market with millions of apps, is it really that inconceivable that they may occasionally make mistakes? Would you expect, nay demand, every product in a large several square mile retail outlet to be perfectly labelled, displayed and priced correctly 100% of the time? Even if you did, would you do it with such self righteous indignation?
Or maybe someone just made a mistake? The problem was rectified by the sounds of the article, it's infrequent enough to make it newsworthy so it's hardly an endemic failure of the stores review process.
Personally, I'd be unhappy to pay to have every app reviewed completely, as each app would end up costing several thousand pounds. In fact each app would probably end up costing more than it's development costs. you can only ever hope to achieve a reasonable balance. Apples continued success would seem to suggest that they have this about right.
There are several barriers to iOS marketplace, including needing mac hardware, paying $99 and hoping Apple approve you and every app. The approve/censor as they see fit. This is akin to a walled garden.
Apple are not letting everything in and pruning the crap, nor or they seeking out the very best apps that just happen to already exist, so I fail to see how Apple curate anything.
I'm older than 7 and will play Pokemon, it fills my inner desire to catch rare animals and engage them in fights to the death with other rare animals thereby making Darwin's theory come in to practice sooner "you better evolve or you're going to be wiped out as a species!". Or something.
Ash is only in the anime though, afaik he doesn't appear in the games, which is good cause I'd use him to catch Misty and have her in a fight to the death against Brock... Go Misty, use "Nag until he quits!" woo!!
Ash = Red in the games. Personally, I want to take N home and give him a cookie. The best fun about the newer games is trading with people all over the place and using the voice chat to talk to a friend in .au from .us. Got my first complete dex in White after playing since gen 2 thanks to a used game I found with an almost complete dex and the wonders of a working GTS that did not require WEP.
Sure. Maybe some of the busy worker bees in the FruityReview office have never heard of Pokemon.
Could happen to anyone who works in tech.
And it's easy to see why a game that crashes at launch would pass straight through Apple's stringent 'we totally care about our customers, yeah' review pipeline experience.
Still, at least the developer didn't use any undocumented APIs: that would have been *really* bad.
Here they are, blatantly profiting from distributing material that is in breach of Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks; if TPB and Megaupload can't hide behind the "It was our uploading users not us" excuse - and particularly since Apple has no CDA / common carrier defence, as it claims to check everything before it is uploaded, amounting to editorial control - then how come the DHS hasn't seized www.apple.com yet?
Looks like there's one law for rich and powerful corporations and one law for the rest of us to me.
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