Daring Fireball Retracts App Store Rejection Story After Being Misled
Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection
John Gruber retracts his previous post about an App Store rejection, admitting he was misled by developer Terry Godier. The app in question was actually an astrology app named Asterly, not the astronomy app Dark Hours, and Apple's rejection was correct. Gruber apologizes for besmirching App Store reviewers and for the error in his reporting.
Obviously it was I who was mistaken. This article is my correction, and I apologize to all who read and believed my now-retracted post, and to the reviewers at the App Store whose competence (if not literacy) I besmirched.
- Aurornis
> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”.
Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant.
This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for himself, using other people’s work. He flew too close to the sun and got caught out on every level.
- ogou
And that is how you handle things like this. He ponied up and took the hit. More importantly, he gave the back story. After years of reading so many circular psuedo-responsibility posts (by others) trying to squirm out of awkward situations, it's refreshing to see his thoroughness.
- ventana
This is the right way to handle the situation like that, and kudos to the author for writing the second post.
This is also a reminder that people lie or just hide some part of the story all the time, and we as readers should question every story if it only presents an opinion of one side, and not the other's.
That being said, hearing Apple's own opinion is probably not what we could reasonably expect.
- springtimesun
I have not that many things in life that I try to live by.
One is that when presented with contradictory evidence, evaluate it honestly and, if you evaluate it to be correct, in full or in part, change your belief freely and without apology.
The other is when you decide you have made a mistake, say so plainly and openly.
They often go together, but not always. I can’t speak to the author’s belief, but I will file this article under Epistles from Gruber to the internet because it is an inspiration to me.
- 1123581321
Good retraction. The plagiarism part further down in the article shouldn't be missed. The developer has significant character issues.