> “I didn’t really expect anyone to download the app if it was in the App Store,” Begley said.
> “That was the point; I don’t think people want to know when a drone strikes.”
So, what was the point, then... to waste a bunch of peoples' time?
(edit: To the people downvoting me: mind explaining what the point was? I run Cydia, the alternative to the App Store that people are saying should host this instead, and honestly if someone came to me with something like this that didn't work the first two times and in the end resulted in tons of questions regarding what kind of response it would have, leading to some massive discussion, and then I found out that the developer didn't even expect anyone at all to download it ever and that was the point I'd be really pissed that he had wasted a ton of peoples' time in the review pipeline working on a project that was designed with nothing more than the intent to troll the system.)
For you to see the app, think "I don't want to hear about drone strikes", and then (maybe, hopefully) realize that you're actively filtering out an undeclared war being waged on your behalf.
As much as I spend my time "fighting the good fight" against Apple (and thereby am not in any way their friend or someone who agrees with many of their decisions, especially when it comes to the openness of their device), their marketplace should not be treated as someone's art project: putting products in the ecosystem whose sole goal is not to be purchased or even downloaded for free but to make someone browsing the store feel bad about themselves may be an interesting conceptual goal but it is not something I believe that anyone, much less Apple, should have to tolerate.
In a perfect world (where Apple did not have sole control), you could download it from this artist's website or even from a random alternative marketplace, but in that world this project doesn't work as it doesn't get the attention (at which point, he may as well not distribute it at all and still claim it was interesting, as it would be a nearly equivalent result); instead, this is just an artist attempting to troll Apple in a way that will cause some press, make even more people feel bad about themselves and, in addition, have some subset get angry at Apple for not letting them feel bad about themselves (which brings me back to asking after the point).
Stories like this, then, simply give the people who are trying to get these devices to be more open a bad name in the larger community, as we end up associated with all of these projects that large numbers of people find distasteful. Now, it would be one thing if the majority of the problem with Apple were things large numbers of people find objectionable or sketchy, but in fact the jailbroken ecosystem is mostly built out of entirely inoffensive things like "better multitasking", "improved address books", "download files in your browser", or even simply "replacement icons that look different".
> As much as I spend my time "fighting the good fight" against Apple (and thereby am not in any way their friend or someone who agrees with many of their decisions, especially when it comes to the openness of their device), their marketplace should not be treated as someone's art project: putting products in the ecosystem whose sole goal is not to be purchased or even downloaded for free but to make someone browsing the store feel bad about themselves may be an interesting conceptual goal but it is not something I believe that anyone, much less Apple, should have to tolerate.
Looking at it a different way, it's the perfect free app. Just by seeing it in the list of applications to download, and the person thinking about whether they want to install it or not, it's achieved it's purpose.
If the app simply occasionally popped up a notification telling the user to remember that drone attacks were continuing to happen, or if it simply displayed a single page when launched reminding the user of drone attacks, and the developer DID expect it to be downloaded, would that make a difference? If not, what about something similar that reminded the user to be a good person or presented a biblical proverb?
The developer seems to want to transfer SOMETHING to the user, even if in this case user is moved from "those who have downloaded and launched the app" to "those who are viewing it in the app store".
There may still be other reasons to reject it from your store as well (I can think of a few, such as guerrilla advertising. The concept IS the message), but wasting people's time may not be the best of them.
> “That was the point; I don’t think people want to know when a drone strikes.”
So, what was the point, then... to waste a bunch of peoples' time?
(edit: To the people downvoting me: mind explaining what the point was? I run Cydia, the alternative to the App Store that people are saying should host this instead, and honestly if someone came to me with something like this that didn't work the first two times and in the end resulted in tons of questions regarding what kind of response it would have, leading to some massive discussion, and then I found out that the developer didn't even expect anyone at all to download it ever and that was the point I'd be really pissed that he had wasted a ton of peoples' time in the review pipeline working on a project that was designed with nothing more than the intent to troll the system.)