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Why Won’t Apple Allow This Simple App That Notifies Users of US Drone Strikes?

An app that sends users an alert every time a US drone strike is reported in the news is too crude for Apple. The company has pulled the plug on Metadata+, an app from journalist Josh Begley that simp...
Why Won’t Apple Allow This Simple App That Notifies Users of US Drone Strikes?
Written by Josh Wolford
  • An app that sends users an alert every time a US drone strike is reported in the news is too crude for Apple.

    The company has pulled the plug on Metadata+, an app from journalist Josh Begley that simply notifies people of publicly-available drone strike data.

    Begley also runs the @Dronestream Twitter account, which pretty much does the same thing as his app. It was there he reported Apple’s decision to pull the app:

    Apple’s incomprehensible disdain for this app actually goes back to 2012. Begley had problems getting Apple to approve his app, called Drones+ at the time.

    “If the content is found to be objectionable, and it’s literally just an aggregation of news, I don’t know how to change that,” Begley said at the time.

    Maybe a name change? That’s exactly what he did and last year, the Metadata+ app launched. It lasted for a while, before Apple yanked it on Sunday.

    It’s still available in the Google Play store.

    Apple’s always been rather puritanical with its app approval process – but that mostly has to do with the company’s inability to understand that adults might want to use apps with adult content.

    But as Gawker points out, Apple has plenty of “crude” apps sitting in its App Store.

    And a simple app that reports the news isn’t really one of them.

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