March 10, 2009
iPhone app Tweetie rejected for UGC
Earlier today, Apple rejected Tweetie1.3, an update to atebits' popular Twitter client for the iPhone. Tweetie's developer Loren Brichter complained about the rejection on (where else) Tweeter revealing that the rejection was due to the appearance of an offensive word in Tweetie's Twitter trends section. ars technica reports.
For the uninitiated, Twitter's "Trending topics" feature collects the popular keywords that users are talking about across Twitter. In other words, the terms that any Twitter client collects in its Trends section are entirely user-generated content (UGC), created on the fly by the service's estimated 9 million users.
Tweetie has previously been featured on the main App Store page (as a surprise to even Brichter), and the current version (1.2.1) contains the Trends feature as well.
Apparently, whoever reviewed Tweetie 1.3 didn't understand this feature (or perhaps even what Twitter is) and rejected Brichter's update after seeing a vulgar term in its Trends section.
It sounds like a simple mistake by an App reviewer. Everyone makes mistakes.
UPDATE: Apple relented Tuesday, according Brichter. "Great news! 1.3 has now been approved! Alright Apple!," Brichter tweeted late this afternoon. [via News.com]
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