Open letter from Amber Alert iPhone app developer to Steve Jobs regarding AppStore acceptance policy

Click to zoom. Posted by james on March 8th, 2009 at 08:09pm Comments

We already wrote (numerous times) that a lot of iPhone apps developers are not happy with Apple’s AppStore acceptance policies and acceptance times.

Now Jonathan Zdziarski, a well known developer and author of books about iPhone programming that also happens to be the developer of Amber Alert iPhone, decided to publicly voice his opinion on the matter. His problem is that until now Apple still did not accept Amber Alert into the AppStore, regardless that it’s been developed in cooperation with and is authorized by government officials, infrastructure was already created for it by the law enforcement authorities… all that and the simple fact that this app can actually save lives, as compared to iFarts and Pull My Fingers. So Mr Zdziarski posted an open letter to Steve Jobs, which we’re reprinting below.

To: Steve Jobs’ Executive Team
From: Jonathan Zdziarski
Subject: AMBER Alert Application

Steve,

The need to send this email represents everything that is wrong with your App Store review process. I’ve been working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to build an App Store application that revolutionizes how missing children are reported to law enforcement. By using the iPhone’s GPS and some geo-analytics, we’re able to build automated search radii and quickly relay sightings to law enforcement agencies. With an audience of millions of iPhone users, the missing kids that are out there stand to gain a LOT more exposure.

Yet nearly a month has passed since my February 14th submission, and the application continues to sit “In Review”. NCMEC has adapted their infrastructure to handle these submissions and has a call center trained to respond to them, as well as their CIO, regional directors, and many others ready to devote time to making this application successful - yet this entire team continues to wait on Apple to approve this application.

I won’t get into the politics of the App Store review process, or my beliefs about how this has hurt your relationship with independent developers. Instead, I’m simply asking that you pick up the phone and help push this application through. If you had to sit and look at these kids, as I have in the time I did developing and testing this application, you’d realize just how urgent it is to have an application like this be able to get information out (and sightings back in). As a developer and a human being, I’m anxious to see this application released. If I were the parent of one of these missing children, I would be unable to withstand the unreasonable delays Apple has taken in approving this application. The reprobate and fearful world these children are surviving in may very well be prolonged because of Apple’s lack of interest in independent developers like me.

Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss this. Otherwise, I hope you’ll do the right thing and light a fire under someone’s seat in the App Store. If there is any application that should be getting reviewed today, this is it.

Jonathan Zdziarski

We couldn’t agree more. And it would be nice if this letter was a turning point for the better for what many see as an inadequate apps acceptance policy.

Another thing we’d like to note, is that as an iPhone news site iPhoneWorld.ca has seen that new AppStore apps usually get accepted within a week or two after they were submitted. We can make an educated guess based on press releases coming from apps developers — it’s really easy to calculate the time between “our app was just submitted to the AppStore” and “our app is now available in the AppStore!”; e-mails that we receive on daily basis. Therefore the simple fact that it’s been almost a month since Amber Alert was submitted tells us that someone at Apple really dropped the ball on this one, for whatever reason it might be.

UPDATE: March 10, 2009: two days after this article was printed, this app was finally accepted into the AppStore. Get it here now!

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Marlene Zenker

As a human being and an iPhone developer I strongly support Jonathan's position. This is an important app and if just one child is found because of its existence it is worth its weight in gold.

Please release this app today!

Steve W

Amber Alert is a very controversial application.

Understand that in the majority of these missing children cases, we are talking about a child removed from an abusive situation by a relative. Most of the children are old enough to turn themselves in if they want to.

If you spot a child being held captive against her will, you don't need Amber Alert to dial 911.

Edward Vogt

Why is the letter addressed to Steve Jobs, isn't he on medical leave?

Gazoobee

I agree with Steve W.

An amber alert type application would of course require greater scrutiny and a long time. I have very strong personal reservations about these kinds of apps and I'm sure others do. To equate not getting your app approved to apple causing the death of innocents is both beyond the pale and shameful of the developer.

How is this an "Amber alert" application anyway? All the screen shot shows is a list of missing children and it doesn't show times.

It looks to me like this is a list of missing children, not an Amber alert tool per se. A million people will download this and report seeing these missing kids all over the world and while that may seem like a help, it actually isn't at all.

Amber alerts have already been seriously misused by the police in my country in that they have been expanded to cover just about any criminal on the run from the law, whether they are just a druggie or whatever. This is the same as those fascist futures we see in sci-fi novels.

james

Hi friend, I must totally disagree with you.

You write: "" "It looks to me like this is a list of missing children, not an Amber alert tool per se. A million people will download this and report seeing these missing kids all over the world and while that may seem like a help, it actually isn’t at all."

..I guess you did not read our original coverage of the app: http://www.iphoneworld.ca/news/2009/02/19/amber...

This app in fact is VERY useful.
#1) It provides you with: a list of missing children, a list of suspects, a list of vehicles that were reported as being involved in the abduction.
#2) If you believe you've seen an abducted, child you can instantly make a report. And you can be sure that this will go all the way high up. And will be investigated properly.
#3) It uses iPhone's GPS feature to give "exact" location of the sighting. This allows for law enforcement agencies to instantly make a search radius, which gets dispatched to all officers in the area. Now, how long do you think it would take to create a search radius as efficiently using only "local" resources = you call 911 and say you think you've just seen a child that might be abducted?

Azazello

Mr. Jonathan Zdziarski is hyperbolic in his claims and hungry for exposure in multiple ways. Did Mr. Z. support a web-site of the same use in his fervor with access for ALL? Why an open letter to one of the best-known CEOs an on the most revolutionary software-hardware platform of the 21st century so far?
Looking for the lime-light, my dear. This is not about humanity, utility or justice.
cheers.

MT

Agreed this is weak. Undoubtedly this is important, but did he write the same letter to himself when he was doing his own development and testing? It hasn't even been a month yet. They get a FEW applications. Maybe you should have busted your own ass to get it done sooner, or built the well-publicized lag time into your release schedule instead of posting some self-righteous message and trying to make Apple look like a bad guy for not psychically picking your app out of the pile as worthy of a trip to the express lane. If it crashes or bricks a slew of iphones or causes some other general problem, I'm pretty certain you won't be there defending Apple from the lawsuits.

hawkman

Mr. Zdziarski : No matter how worthy your cause may be, you have to play by the same rules as everyone else. I'm a strong believer in keeping the playing field level.

Frankly, being so self-righteous about it just makes you look like a git – which is a shame, because it seems like you were trying to do something good here.

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