Apple bans App Store’s 3rd-most prolific developer

I am really happy that Apple did this. There are multiple developers who are trying to do exactly what Khalid is doing with copyright infringement and taking advantage of dumb/stupid people (surprisingly some of his apps were in top 100 with 5 copied pictures @ $4.99).<p>This will definitely give a sigh of relief to legitimate developers.

Clearly, Apple approved those apsp because (though useless) nothing was outwardly <i>wrong</i> with them. And clearly they revoked because of a pattern of brazen violation of the IP rules of the app store agreement.<p>Saying Apple was wrong in this is to suggest they must personally validate the ownership of all intellectual property of every app before approval.<p>And that's just absurd.

Hey, Apple actually leveraged their "we run this market" position in a positive way. Props.<p>So can we get Google Voice now?

I'll play devil's advocate here, since (almost) everyone seems to be applauding Apple for this.<p>The issues, as I see them, are:<p>1) high volume of apps,<p>2) low quality / low utility apps,<p>3) copyright infringement<p>A lot of the cheering seems to be related to 1) and 2) - getting an "app spammer" out of the app store, improving the user experience, etc. IMO, these are precisely the wrong reasons to cheer. They are perfect examples of the problems with the app store from a developer's perspective - arbitrary judgement calls which often end up being inconsistently applied. Apps do get rejected all the time for having "limited functionality" - these two concerns should be addressed during the approval process, and, if necessary, by removing specific apps, NOT by outright banning a developer AFTER the apps are approved (thus signaling to the developer that Apple is OK with them). If there are "too many" apps, throw in a per-app listing fee after a certain number of apps. If the app is low quality, don't approve it. These are messy, hard to define rules otherwise.<p><i>intellectual property complaints concerning over 100 of your Applications</i> - Say a developer has 8 apps in the app store, one of the eight apps uses unlicensed images, and Apple bans the developer instead of removing the one app. I suspect the reaction here would be a bit different.<p>The ONLY acceptable reason in this case is repeated copyright infringement - easy to define, easy to detect, and simple for the developer to avoid in the first place. And yes, that is the reason Apple is giving - but it doesn't seem to be the reason most celebrated by the comments here, it's mostly that something bad happened to someone we don't like.

It seems like he was banned primarily because of repeated third party intellectual property violations:<p><i>Apple has informed you of numerous third party intellectual property complaints concerning over 100 of your Applications and reminded you of your obligations to obtain the necessary rights prior to submission of your Applications. Nevertheless, we continue to receive the same or similar types of complaints regarding your Applications despite our repeated notices to you.</i>

He's submitted 900 applications and he's only the third most prolific developer? Who are 1 and 2?

<i>We have a strict work schedule of 12 hours a day 6 days a week.</i><p>Maybe that explains how he's able to test all of his 5 apps that are made everyday in his company.

It's about time. There are good developers that are being pushed off the boards by crap like this. If your app isn't in the top 20 or top 50 than chances are it won't get bought by enough people. This guy has 900 apps of absolute crap. And some of them manage to clog up the leaderboards.<p>If you base your entire business model on another company than abide by their fucking rules. So Apple pulled your apps because you weren't playing their game?! Too bad, you know who else does this. Google Adsense and Secondlife. I also don't see anyone sympathizing for the people who get booted from Adsense when they try to game it.<p>You are more than welcome to create your own appstore, put in the infrastructure and people to support. Oh and develop a delivery method for it.

The app store is <i>not</i> a free market, regardless of what developers would like to imagine.

Apple creates App store. Developers apply and agree to Apple's terms. They get accepted.<p>Apple does something 100% within their power and terms of use.<p>People cry "unfair".<p>Nothing to see here, move along.

This is also amusing:<p><i>We develop iPhone applications exclusively using Objective-C and the Mac. We have a strict work schedule of 12 hours a day 6 days a week.</i><p>I thought Objective-C developers were relatively hard to find. Who would work 12 hours a day 6 days a week with such specialized (and presumably in-demand) knowledge?

As just as this is, I can't help but wonder at the timing. It looks like an attempt to distract people from the GV affair. If that's the case, it's just another, albeit subtler, abuse of the same power.

Oh, I so have seen this Khalid type before. They are called "spammers".<p>The guy has assembled a team of the blackhat-coder type and spammed the AppStore successfully with random crap for <i>months</i>, looking to cash in on the 6-to-9 percent social engineering toll (anything works for this percentage of people if you have a big enough audience). Props to him for acting quickly.<p>Props to Apple for recognizing spam. <i>Shame</i> on Apple for not labeling this type of app-spamming as spam. It's crawling up the Top-Paid list, it's all over the AppStore's search results, and will bring the AppStore down if it continues (you can't quite install an <i></i>anti-app-spam filter<i></i> on your iPhone/iTunes).<p>Next on the AppStore: Apps that take your C.V. and hand it out to money-laundering types, with catchy descriptions like "find your place within an international team of highly-paid professionals!" and "99% employment success rate!", etc.<p>Creeping jumping limping Jeesus...

I'm surprised such basic errors in math made it past any editors.<p><i>Khalid Shaikh ... [has] published 943 applications ... . That’s roughly 5 apps a day, every day, for 250 days.</i><p>(5 apps per day) * (250 days) = 1,250 apps.<p>943 applications is roughly 4 apps a day, every day, for 250 days. Or 5 apps a day, every day, for 190 days.

They were sending a copyrighted PDF to their job candidates. O_o

I want to review some "offline maps" apps. There are 2 nice apps that let's you download maps from OpenStreetMaps...<p>If you search for "offline maps" here:<p><a href="http://appshopper.com/search/?cat=&#38;set=&#38;search=offline+maps" rel="nofollow">http://appshopper.com/search/?cat=&#38;set=&#38;search=offli...</a><p>You get one offMaps, and the developer of the second result also has another nice app (oMaps).<p>But there is also a guy that has spammed the app store with hundreds of "offline maps" apps, one for each major city in the world, using the same OpenStreetMaps source. I think that he does that with an automated script, and he is not going to stop until he has an app for every city or village in the world.

Can they force him to pay refunds? I suppose customers who bought his (cr)apps would need to delete them because they contained unlicensed content. (A bit like the Kindle/1984 issue only I think Apple has no technical possibility to kill apps that have already been bought). Anyway, everyone should be entitled to a refund.

The process and the outcome (gaming the system) reminds me a great deal of the current state of the patent system.<p>In both cases, I think that the original reason for the process has been lost in the actual implementation, and there is a great risk of losing true opportunities for innovation.

Apple could make searching the store return the best match "per company". Doesn't help Apple with the review process, but it might be slightly harder for somebody to hurt the user experience...would have to incorporate dozens of companies rather than just submitting 900 apps.

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"prolific" is an ambiguous term. bad headline.

It boggles me as to why a programmer would willingly submit to a fascist scheme like app store.<p>I wonder if it is something in human nature, where the presence of a big brother makes you feel secure.

That's pretty bullshit, I don't care if the guy's apps were questionable, don't approve them. Killing an entire business in 1 day, is pretty fucked up.