There is an on going drama unfolding regarding Nullriver's new iPhone App 'NetShare'. Netshare is an iPhone app that implements a SOCKS proxy and allows for limited tethering (without Jailbreaking your phone). Apparently you can buy an additional app for your Mac or Pc that will tunnel all your traffic through the proxy. When the app first appeared it generated quite a bit of buzz. Then it was yanked without warning or explanation. A short time later it was still available via direct link, then back on the store and people where purchasing it like mad. It has now been yanked again. Clicking on the direct link now yields the message shown above. Nullriver does not feel that they violated any of the developer agreements and points out that a carrier's restriction on tethering is not allowed in many countries where the iPhone is sold. The above error message seems to indicate that if Apple does allow the app to be sold, the US will be blacked out.

The only good iPhone is a jailbroken iPhone. Remember when Jobs and co. used to hack the phone system for free calls back in college?

Another app goes down.

That is bad. Does is compete with something Apple has? I don't see anything wrong with that type of app.

The two major things I was pretty sure would get banned on the app store were 1. A tethering app, and 2. Voip. I guess we'll wait for #2. Apple made some comment about allowing it, but not over ATT. I'm not sure how they can control / stop that.

VoIP over WiFi is not a problem for ATTle, you're already paying for voice and data, so they'd rather have you use another network because it's less bandwidth for them. Obviously VoIP over 3G loads their network so they won't want that. They can control it just like this - whacking the app.

It gets worse. Apple has some mechanism in place that allows the phone to automatically check for invalid apps and remove them. In some cases people have had their NetShare app automatically removed when they sync with iTunes.

More info on the App store's performance including Job's comment on the kill switch.

I thought this was a cool article about iPhone restrictions and why we need a black market. Microsoft gets drawn and quartered for having "secret apis", but with Apple it's standard practice.

Well is shows that there is interest in more powerful apps from both the developer and user communities. I guess the question in my mind is if people want those types of apps bad enough, will they switch platforms to get them? You can certainly develop nearly all the types of apps mentioned on Windows Mobile today (many already exist). It is also very likely you will be able to develop them on the Android/ G phone.

Sure you can do these things with the black market apps, but there is no business model there. You are at the whim of the Apple vs. Jailbreakers arms race. My advice is this; if you want to pressure Apple into changing their practices you're not going to do it building black market apps. Instead put your effort into developing cool things for iPhone competitors. Make Apple squirm a bit explaining again why the iPhone can do things you can do on a WM device.

More censorship. Why would anyone want to invest any time in building a fun little iPhone application when Apple can yank it for any reason?

It seems like they need a pre-approval process where you layout your idea and design. At least that way they can shoot it down before you waste time developing it.

The rejection game goes on. As a developer would you risk the Apple Lottery?

Nope. There are too many other things to do with my time than learn a bunch of iPhone specific APIs, only to then have Apple reject you for no good reason. You simply can't base a business on that... your investors would have to be insane.

I'm not even going to write a hello world test application for the iPhone until the policy is changed.

Another app banned for "duplicating functionality".

And now they are trying to silence any reports of app rejection? Sometimes you have to wonder about Apple.

Wil Shipley chimes in on the topic. He makes some interesting points, like what would happen if Apple baned Mac apps for "duplicating functionality".

Opera Browser banned from App Store. Apple really doesn't like competition. But wait - how does this hurt their sales of iPhones?

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