Apple shuts down Podcaster, again

I found the original post text just by putting their URL into Google Reader. Gotta love web-based RSS aggregators that cache. Here it is:<p>It seems that Apple has shut me down. I can no longer provision any more devices. The developers website that had a "remove device" link is now gone. I looked at the help tab but it still lists "removing a device" as one of the options. I guess Apple just shut my account down. I believe that all the copies of Podcaster I released will keep running. I will try to make an update and test it on my iPhone. If it works, I will release it to every user. I would recommend keeping version 1.0.8b around just in case.<p>On a more serious note, what does this mean for me? All I wanted was for someone from Apple to contact me and tell me how we can work it out so that I get into the app store. Instead, Apple took the cowards way out by simply disabling features in my developers portal. This seems like a childish move for a company that has been proving such high quality service and products in the past.<p>I plan to make Podcaster for the Android operating system. At least there, I will be welcomed instead of being walked all over. I will also try to port the app to a jailbroken iPhone.<p>So a final note to developers. Try to stay out of Apples grey area. Don't build anything that would compete with Apple. Don't spend too much time before you submit to the app store because it could be all for nothing.<p>P.S. Podcaster got a 4.3 our of 5 star from 63 reviews. You can read them at <a href="http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.nextdayoff.com/reviews.aspx</a><p>UPDATE: I just wanted to add that I am not surprised that Apple has stopped me. The application seems to still be working and can still be installed if you signed up before 9/22/08 Midnight EST. If you are one of these people and still want to try it, email almerica@gmail.com I will also be making updates to the application and will still fix a lot of the issues users have bene having. Give me about a week.

I think the most telling word in that post was "childish." Apple probably has legitimate concerns here, but by simply shutting him off instead of talking with him directly they are really missing an opportunity to develop loyalty with app developers.

Apple are doing this to a lot of people. Surely this is anti-competitive?

This is going to be a PR disaster for apple, from a developers point of view. He may have been asked to pull the blog post until they get time to talk to him about it.

For anyone interested, the blog appears to have belonged to the author of Podcaster. The cached url is <a href="http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MP2KvHTWHQMJ:almerica.b...</a> .<p>It doesn't contain the last post, though.<p>I'm curious to see how this develops.

Did the author take down the post because of the NDA requirements or because it is a retraction or...? What?

Apple Do no Evil

They even removed the <i>story</i> about Podcaster being shut down!<p>So... Anyone have a mirror/cache or whatever handy? Google cache is failing on this one.