Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Week Cal HD - Gone!!!

WTF, Apple?

After I spend all these posts drooling over Week Cal HD both before and after it was released, it looks like I was lucky to grab it when I did - it's no longer in the app store! What's more, the developer claims that Apple pulled it without ever telling them why... But Apple's new calendar coming in iOS 5 apparently seems to have suspiciously incorporated a lot of the features that many of us bought Week Cal for, such as weekly and year views and tap/drag/drop functionality (all things they really should have had from the start, IMO).

First off, iOS 5 isn't widely available until fall - why deprive users of these features for several more months?

Second, and much more importantly, if this is really why Week Cal HD was pulled, this is just horrible behavior from multiple standpoints. It's a shitty way to treat an app dev, a popular one with a high quality product at that, when Apple's big market advantage right now is more and better third-party apps thanks to devs like Utilitap. Plus, it's rather anticompetitive - the company who owns the distribution channel shutting out those who compete directly with their (future) product? Super fishy in a way that the DOJ doesn't tend to like, if it's done on a large enough scale.

I love OS X because it's a terrifically-designed GUI over a Unix heart. iOS gets the first part, but Apple's lockdown of things like the file system just annoy and frustrate me (and make me look forward to the day that the iPad 2 gets jailbroken). If these allegations are true, it's further proof at apple is going too far with the lockdown of their mobile system - which I'm sure does make it more stable, but eventually will cause people (even loyal Apple fangirls like me) to turn away from it if a competitor can offer the same level of UI experience with more freedom.

3 comments:

  1. Almost 2 months after iOS5 (wich made my installed Week Cal HD inoperative), still no changes : the update still blocked by Apple's team. I'm loyal to Apple, but Apple is disloyal to me when it prevents me from using an excellent application duly bought and paid ! I really appreciate Apple, but that's a behavior unworthy of Apple, a blatant abuse of dominant position, and a total lack of respect for the customer. I wrote to Apple, they don't even deign to answer… >:-(

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  2. I haven't upgraded to 5 because of my jailbreak, I didn't realize that it would screw with Week Cal! And they're not even allowed to release a fix. Crazily, on the dev's twitter feed they say their updates get approved but never make it to the store! I don't know wtf Apple is thinking wit this one.

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  3. On Twitter, for all those who ask the question, the developer has unfortunately the same answer for weeks now : "Apple is currently still blocking the app"…

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