Apple Rejects Read It Later Update For Requiring An Account To Function?
August 23, 2010
The folks over at Read it later are telling us a very curious story today. Apparently, Apple rejected their latest update this weekend because it's requiring users to register for an account to function:
"We’ve reviewed your apps, but cannot post these versions to the App Store because they require customers to register with personal information without providing account-based […] Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content; such user registration must be optional and tied to account-based functionality. […]"What is this about? I mean, I'm having a hard time to grasp even the meaning of Apple's letter, let alone the explanation. The first part seems to imply that Apple doesn't want apps to ask for email addresses or credentials when it's not necessary. Yet, read it later does actually offer account based functionality. As to the second part, it seems to ask for user accounts to only be optional. This would mean that the Facebook app, Google readers and so on would have to offer a no-registration way to use their apps or some sort of test account for people who don't want to register. Is that it? The most likely explanation here is that this is just an error. Yet, who knows? This could just as well be some new random privacy-enforcing rule. What do you think?