Apple Says No Location-Based Ads or Android References in App Store
Posted 02/05/2010 at 6:06am
| by J.R. Bookwalter

Apple may have turned around App Store approval times since the first of the year and lightened up on some of the draconian restrictions regarding 3G data access, but there are still a few “no-nos” left for them to rap developers’ knuckles with.
The first one comes courtesy of MacNN, who is reporting that Apple has notified App Store developers that they are prohibited from using location-based information for mobile advertising. Cupertino is restricting the use of any GPS data within an app for “beneficial information” reasons only.
“If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location,” the note to developers reads, “your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.”
Of course, the note -- which is really in the best interests of the app’s user in the first place -- has created suspicion that Apple is planning to use its recent acquisition of Quattro Wireless to launch its own mobile advertising network to serve ads through free apps on the iPhone, iPod touch and soon, the iPad.
“Looks like Apple is going to keep location-based advertising to themselves,” remarked Twitterrific developer Greg Hockenberry on Twitter in response to the news.
Switching gears to a more petty App Store restriction, Apple has requested that the developer of the flash card app Flash of Genius remove a reference to Google’s Android from his app description. “Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store,” reads Apple’s e-mail to developer Tim Novikoff.
According to the Silicon Alley Insider, Novikoff included a sales pitch in the app’s description that reads “Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge.” While we’d agree that it doesn’t make much sense for the developer to boast about his app’s success on another platform -- especially when the App Store is currently the top dog in that race -- it does strike us as a little too “schoolyard” of Apple to strike the reference in the first place.
(Image courtesy of Silicon Alley Insider)