[PHOTOKAST USERS: INFO ON HOW YOU CAN HELP AT THE END]
Nothing like an App Store rejection to get one blogging again.
When Apple released their 3.0 OS, it was not entirely backwards-compatible, and users of our photo-sharing social network - PhotoKast - started to experience crashes when submitting photos or sending private messages. We fixed the problems and submitted the application update to Apple. They responded with a rejection.
And this is where it gets interesting.
Those of you who have read our paper Building PhotoKast (and here on Mashable), know we're fairly conservative, and have spent a good deal of time implementing a moderation system to ensure extreme content is removed before going public. Photos sent through PhotoKast are moderated and anything containing nudity, hate speech, et al, are removed before they are released into public circulation.
Trust me when I say this: some of the removed photos would scar you for life. Even veteran porn stars, upon seeing the images, would curl up in a ball in a vacant corner of the room, mumbling to themselves that they couldn't have possibly seen what they just saw.
Back to the point: nude photos are removed by the moderators before going public. Even so, we gave PhotoKast a rating of 17+ for intense and frequent nudity, sexuality, alcohol/drug use, profanity and crude humor just to be on the safe side. So imagine our surprise when we were rejected for...
Nudity.
The reviewer sent us back a collection of photos taken from PhotoKast as an example of the "offensive content." None of the images contained nudity. So our update, which was rated 17+ for frequent/intense nudity, was rejected based on photos that did not contain nudity. Yes, you read that right. Despite the fact that users can bring up any porn site in Safari or purchase Basic Instinct through iTunes, we were getting rejected for something that did not exist. Clearly there other channels readily available on the iPhone to see far worse than what you can view in PhotoKast. We need a little consistency here.
I sent off an email to Apple. No response. Resend. No response. Resend. No response. Resend. No response. Then finally....a phone call. [cue choir of angelic voices singing Hallelujah in perfect harmony]
First, let me say this...it's cool that Apple took the time to call. And the rep who called seemed like a pretty cool guy. But there really was little clarification to the situation. I explained to him that moderators filter out the nude photos, and should they make a mistake, the user community can flag them, which takes them offline and puts them back up for review. Furthermore, the photos that were sent to us as examples did not contain nudity.
Now, I can't be sure, and I certainly am not in a position to speak on behalf of the Apple rep, but I sensed that he understood how fubar the situation is, yet there was nothing he could do. He was just a messenger of an inconsistent and mysterious policy, and it wouldn't help us to shoot the messenger. But I had to press on and at least find out what, then, were the standards we need to filter the photos by. I had to chuckle at the response:
Apple considers any photo that has a person who is presumably naked in it to be nudity.One of the "offensive" photos Apple returned to us was a girl who was covering her breasts. You couldn't see her breasts, but because you may have if you were in the same room when she took the picture, the photo itself must be considered to contain nudity. I explained that magazines filling the check-out aisles of grocery stores across this country violate this policy. I jokingly asked if a picture of a nude person behind a brick wall would still be considered offensive. These calls are typically confidential, but I told the rep that our users would need an explanation on why they couldn't get their app fixed. He seemed cool with it.
But wait, there's more...
A few days after the call, I ran across a review of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit iPhone app. Lo and behold, the very first screenshot SI used in promoting the app is a picture of a topless woman covering her breasts. The fourth, too. The fifth is even more revealing. Let me put it another way: we were rejected on the presumption of nudity, while SI can use the same type of photos as screenshots (which are visible to any user at any age).
So basically, our users are suffering through crashes on their phone while the fix sits in limbo, unable to be approved due to standards that are in direct contrast to their ratings system and, apparently, applied unequally.
How You Can Help
We've tried to reason our way through this but to no avail. I called Apple back about the SI double standard, and they told me they would get back to me with more info the next day. It's been over a week and a half with no callback. If you're a user of PhotoKast, or an iPhone user that believes this process should be more consistent/transparent/dependable/developer-friendly/consumer-friendly, then please voice your concerns to Apple, blogs that cover these types of issues, and sites that promote worthy news stories and causes. SEE LINKS BELOW.
We are grateful for how Apple has revolutionized the mobile industry. As long time mobile developers, we can testify that what they have done is nothing short of impressive. But, while they have done so much to move things so far ahead, their black box approach is an artifact from the past. Here's to hoping that they ultimately revolutionize their own application review process, and soon.


Greg is not a manager here. In fact, I've never met him. So this is what they mean by identity-theft guarantee...