I think there must be more to this than is in the article. I think some of the Apple sample apps use and I've bought apps that use it. There's no reason for Apple to not want developers to use common gestures. They even made it easier with one of the recent SDKs by adding gesture recognizers so you can reuse gestures more easily.
I think it has more to do with pinch to "peek" at photo albums.
The idea that you can expend an icon to reveal a preview of the content is an innovative idea, which differentiate their products / apps.
It makes sense for them to protect it.
Nautilus in gnome used to support resizing icons to show more of the file content. I never found it that useful (and this feature seems to have been removed).
I don't think patents have to be defended like trademarks and even if they do Apple could definitely license the patents to people who pay for the developer program. I don't think this helps their case against HTC at all.
If this approach is indeed the case, then it is extreme and counter productive.
I hope that the case is actually what was stated above, and that apple releases this in their next API version, its a sensible approach.
then again, since there is only one way to load in apps, they can dictate whatever disabling of technology they want, with poorly explained reasons, and it stinks.
The headline is a little bit misleading. The app was rejected for using the peek interface not the pinch to expand. Tons of apps use the pinch to expand gesture it's just what the gesture does visually that Apple has a problem with. This is a subtle distinction and I still think Apple are in the wrong but the headline of the original article is unclear.
The iPhone OS 3.2 SDK (which is used to build iPad apps) provides explicit developer support for detecting the pinch gesture, in the form of UIPinchGestureRecognizer:
We don't know the whole story here, but those saying that this rejection happened because Apple only wants its own apps to use the pinch gesture clearly have no clue what they're talking about.
I did code this using the uigesturecontroller, no private Apis involved and it seemed exactly what it was for.
I don't think the pinch gesture specifically was the issue, but instead the "pinch to expand" meaning spreading out a stack of items with a pinch. We asked the reviewer to clarify what exactly constituted a "pinch to expand" but they just replied with the exact same wording, kinda frustrating.
What's happening here is probably similar to Apple's position on coverflow imitations - there have been lots of rejections for apps that imitate coverflow poorly, even without private APIs.
Speaking with somebody directly about this, and basically, their stance is: coverflow is an experience owned by Apple. If you imitate it poorly or inaccurately, users will have a bad / confusing experience (Apple's call what 'poorly or inaccurately' means, of course).
I wonder if this is because of claimed patents around pinching? AIUI, patents are allowed to be selectively enforced, but I would actually prefer that they choose to be consistent about it.
If software patents are evil, then at least predictable evil is easier to deal with than unknown lurking evil...
Apple should rightly be roasted for this kind of bullying. There's nothing about pinch-to-expand that would threaten Apple's control over the user experience in any way.
Once we had Microsoft imposing restrictions on how we could use their system and now we have Apple dictating how their system can be used. But Apple 's got one drawback; iPad's got very viable rivals such as WePad, ChromeOS, MobLin Microsoft had no really threatening rival at the time.
Apple 's attitude of power is therefore ridiculous, they seem to think that their tablet PC is something only they can develop and master, however it's not. Soon there will be millions of free and of equivalent quality Tablet PC's around and Apple 's iPad will only constitute a minority of them.
I agree. Microsoft was required to open their APIs for 3rd party developers. I don't see why Apple should get away with it. I hope you are correct and iPad's alternatives provide decent market competition, forcing Apple to review it's preposterous position on 3rd party apps. But I fear they won't stop until someone takes legal action against them - their market position is too strong, and I think the rivals you mention aren't really any thread for them.
Apple 's attitude of power is therefore ridiculous, they seem to think that their tablet PC is something only they can develop and master, however it's not. Soon there will be millions of free and of equivalent quality Tablet PC's around and Apple 's iPad will only constitute a minority of them.
If nothing else, some non-US company is going to come up with their own tablet tailored to the local language and use the dual advantages of openness and cultural expertise to trounce them in those markets. In face several companies could do this at the same time. It's very easy to see how Apple could lose market leadership on the international stage this way.
I'm scott, the developer that was rejected. The other app was 1000 ultimate experiences by lonely planet. After seeing it in the app store i can see how they might use the same gesture.
We asked the reviewer to clarify and they just replied with the same unclear language but specific to our app. They did specifically ask us to remove the "tap and pinch to expand gesture." When we replaced it with just the tap they let it through.
One thing I have to say is after trying the gesture on the device and not just the simulator it's was a little slow but still usable. We've since fixed it so we'll see if it gets through in the future.
I don't think they're trying to make the experience worse for users per-se, but trying to drive customers to use the native Apple applications.
Why?
Here's my theory. Let's say you have a fantastic application such as Web Albums HD (I'm assuming it's fantastic for the purpose of my argument). Then presumably once there are competitive tablets on other platforms, the developers would port their application to other platforms. The user would say, "Gee, I can get this application on any platform. So what's the big deal with the Apple tablet".
But if you end up primarily using Apple applications because they are the only version available due to app store restrictions (web browser, email, voicemail) or they have a superior experience due to app store restrictions (photos, ebook readers), you'll be less likely to switch to another platform.
Although, by using these techniques, the end result is a worse user experience, which seems very anti the Apple I knew. (I say this as a former employee)
I can understand Apple refusing apps where the experience sucks, but forcing developers to modify their app to make the UX worse than Apple's bundled app seems a little ridiculous and anti-consumer.
