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Tell HN: Rejected from App Store - "customer damaging their iPhone."

51 points by qixxiq ↗ HN
"We've reviewed Airborne and determined we cannot post it to the App Store at this time because it encourages a physical activity that could result in a customer damaging their iPhone."

I had a great and simple idea for an application a while back. It was actually a pretty cool game, and I'm certain it would have spread like wildfire - but its rather understandable why Apple denied it.

The game simply asked a user to keep their phone airborne (i.e. by throwing it / dropping it onto soft surface) and then measured the amount of time it was in the air for. I threw in a looping scream as well as challenges to push further for good measure. There was a high score table too :).

I've been trying to work out a way to get something out of this for a while, but unfortunately haven't come up with anything reasonable -- so decided to just publish the source code.

Its all available at https://github.com/qix/airborne as GPLv3 (to the extent I'm allowed to by the Apple license.) The code is pretty shocking, I was just fooling around while learning Objective-C.

68 comments

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ljf
Rework it for Android, no pesky risk of rejection there ;)

I'd most likely install it on my android phone, if it were free/ad supported. Could see it being a very viral game, with people finding interesting ways to game the scoreboard.

This is what insurance is for, right?

cdibona
I'm not saying this is a good idea, but:

"Similarly, when the device is in free-fall and therefore dangerously accelerating towards to ground at 9.81 m/s^2, its accelerometer reads a magnitude of 0 m/s^2."

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/Sens...

bradleyland
Insurance is for abuse? Insurance is a contract between you and a company who assesses risk by allowing you to buy risk relief at a fixed price. In your contract, there is usually a stipulation that you agree not to intentionally damage the insured "thing" or put said thing at risk.

I hope you'll reconsider the ethics of how you perceive insurance.

bhatau
dont worry dude, in USA the health insurance also takes into consideration the stupidity.

Also by the same logic apple should also ban the SMS and Voice calling app, since driving while using mobile phone is dangerous.

In any case the logic that a user might hurt himself is stupid.

ljf
Sorry I should have included the <joke>tag</joke>.
reason
No, you shouldn't have. I understood the sarcasm. Some people here take things way too literally and seriously.
jdbeast00
I agree, people need to lighten up.
bradleyland
I apologize for the incorrect assessment of the parent's message, but please consider for a moment that rampant amount of insurance fraud that goes on all the time. There's a reasonable amount of ambiguity as to whether or not the comment was sarcastic.
ams6110
True and largely accepted as rational even for things such as life insurance (suicide and death in "high risk" activities e.g. skydiving, piloting experimental aircraft, etc. often excluded).

When it comes to health insurance, though, people seem to have this unreasonable expectation that they should be allowed to be obese, not exercise, and have a poor diet, and then have their diabetes, kidney failure, and heart disease fully paid for while paying the same rates as everyone else, or even paying no premium at all (e.g. government provided health insurance).

rhizome
There was another app that got rejected on the same criteria some time back. It's just the way it is.
Geee
Obviously the winners in this game would be those who damage their iPhones by throwing them from 1000 ft buildings. :)
rbanffy
You can also put it in orbit.
DEinspanjer
I was thinking that you might be able to win it by taking your phone on the vomit comet. While considering that though, I'm actually not sure that the accelerometer would be able to notice 0-g after equilibrium, would it?
listrophy
Indeed, without going into orbit, a vomit comet would be the best. Even if you dropped the phone from the tallest building (assuming it would be tall enough, which it isn't), the phone would soon register more-than-microgravity acceleration due to air resistance.

The phone will most definitely notice 0-g after "equilibrium." Pretty much at all times (unless being accelerated by your hand or your carelessness), the iPhone registers a 1-g acceleration towards the ground... much like almost every other static accelerometer you can buy.

Tichy
Or launch them from weather balloons.
charlesju
Or perhaps something safer, like a roller coaster?
cromulent
I think it would be easier, cheaper, and safer to throw yourself from a plane with the phone in your pocket. You'll get over a minute of freefall from most turbine aircraft.
arethuza
You can apparently get up to 30 seconds freefall on a big BASE jump: e.g.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6X5tV3bGMc

[I knew I needed an excuse to take up BASE jumping]

tesseract
That can't be free fall all the way. 30 seconds of free fall on Earth would be a 4410 meter drop, but the mountain in the video is only 2147m high.
cromulent
4410 in 30 seconds is almost 9km in a minute, or about 540km/h at a constant speed. That's quite the terminal velocity - 200km/h would be normal for a human. How are you calculating this?
tesseract
If you've reached terminal velocity (which I agree, a human would) you aren't in free fall any more and your accelerometer will be reading 1g.
Tichy
Cool, I had a similar idea, which was to make people throw their phones into the air and try to make it do as many flips as possible. Great to see that you actually built something like that.

I was well aware of the "risk your phone" aspect, "iDare" was my working title...

JonathanWCurd
You can push the app and generate buzz by giving away a replacement phone to the top scorer over some period. If its ad supported and grows large enough the money should cover the expense.

Something like:

"Want / Need a new phone see how far you can send yours flying for a shot at new hardware."

rbanffy
Too bad. It would be wildly popular with astronauts... The screaming can be disabled, right?
ljf
Does it need disabling? I thought in space no-one could hear you scream...
rbanffy
iPhones can do amazing things.
raquo
Onboard ISS it's not vacuum though )
gcheong
Sounds like a great game for people switching to Verizon from ATT.
mthreat
There was an app called Hangtime that did this, http://iphonehangtime.com/, but it seems like it's gone. I just searched the app store and found another app, also called Hangtime!, that appears to do the same thing under the guise of measuring how long you yourself are airborne (not just the phone).
damoncali
I ran into a (the?) developer of Hangtime (I think - it may have been a similar app) a while back. He claimed Apple sat on it for a while before finally letting it out the day the new iPhone was released.
koobe
sounds like n900fly, right?
msl
Sure does. Luckily the availability of that program has yet to damage my N900. This can probably be attributed to my good judgment, but not everyone can be assumed to be capable of making good decisions when there are bad options available. A good thing Apple takes care of their mobile phone. Or is it the customer's phone? I'm getting confused.
c2
A lot of the comments here are actually pretty disturbing to me. As if the general population assumes that Apple should be the caretakers of how customer's use their own phones, and that the general population isn't capable enough to make their own decisions regarding their own property. Very 1984 vibe to it.
trobertson
> As if [...] Apple should be the caretakers of how customer's use their own phones

This is Apple's modus operandi with the iPhone, is it not?

c2
To be fair, I have no objection to Apple in this case. I was simply surprised at how fully Apple customers have embraced the "protect us from ourselves" mentality.
kabdib
I had an idea for an Xbox 360 achievement involving peripherals with accelerometers (the Lips microphone, and Kinect).

"One Minute of Free Fall"

The Vomit Comet is about 45 seconds . . .

oemera
Hey I really don't know you and I don't want to be personal but it's ideas like this that make me happy that Apple is taking care what comes to the App Store and what not.

You know I really don't understand how someone could enjoy a game which encourages people to throw a 600 dollar device onto a "soft" surface. You how this ends right? Kids want to play this and they will throw the from EVERYWHERE and BOOM you have to buy another 600 dollar phone.

You want to make money? Write something useful.

However I really like that you put the source code on GitHub.

rick_2047
You want to make money? Write something useful.

Yes like an app which produces fart sounds.

mindcrime
but it's ideas like this that make me happy that Apple is taking care what comes to the App Store and what not.

Yes, because obviously someone is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to install brain-dead apps just because they're in the App Store...

burgerbrain
"Kids want to play this and they will throw the from EVERYWHERE and BOOM you have to buy another 600 dollar phone."

Bullshit. Grow a backbone and just tell the little brat "No, get a job and buy it yourself this time."

carussell
Alternatively, don't buy their first one.
damoncali
I think (s)he's talking about little kids. Mine play with my phone all the time, and have been known to buy apps from time to time when I forget to log out.

I often wish that there was a kid setting on my iPhone that would turn off the app store, filter YouTube, and allow me to hide certain apps.

shareme
change game to user jumps or throws self while holding iphone..or would Apple object to user throwing oneself?
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[dead] mdolon
I had this exact same idea about a year ago, however an iPhone developer friend of mine told me that it would likely be rejected. Glad to see I'm not the only one crazy enough to think of it!

PS - Thanks for sharing your source code!

TimothyBurgess
I made an iPhone app called "HammerTime!"

Round #1 instructs you to place your phone on a hard surface, find a hammer of any kind, and hit your phone as hard as you can.

Rounds #2 and up instructs you to repeat Round #1.

A permanent blank screen indicates you have won and you may receive a prize (a brand new iPhone!!) if you can convince Apple your phone is malfunctioning because of something they did.

kevbin
Bathroom Scale HD: shows a single footprint; users stand on one foot on their iPad, see their weight.

Lots of opportunity for evolution/addl features: time series, weight by time of day, etc. Just one little problem.

tomlin
Another feature: broken screen
huhtenberg
Stress Meter: place a pillow on the couch, throw your iPhone at the pillow, check stress score based on acceleration, top speed and deceleration. Requires initial calibration in unstressed condition.
lipowicztom
Recently i have started taking photos throwing my iphone in the air. Do you think you could extend app functionality to trigger camera while phone is free falling?

Let me know :)

uxp
A picture right as it senses deceleration would be cool, at the apex of the fall, just to see what the phone could see at that time. Video might be fun also, though I don't know if watching blurry spins would be all that enjoyable in actuality. The 3G is the only one that doesn't have real video capabilities, though that's nearly deprecated anyways. Last I heard, Apple isn't going to update it with the next major update. Whether that update is 4.3 or 5, I'm not sure.

To the OP, maybe you could use what you learned about using the accelerometer framework to make an app that background updates the movement of the user, and tracks approximate G-forces of elevators and driving, for example?

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Void_
Thank you! I'm pretty sure it will help people to learn about iPhone development.
izak30
Step 1. Attach to carousel.

Step 2. ????

Step 3. Profit.

adharmad
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Geee
Quite a thought.
adharmad
Sorry about that. That was my 3 year old.
Skywing
haha, omg. that scream is terrible.
kgc
I submitted a similar App in 2009, and it was rejected for the same reasons.