iPad Pulse App Flatlines after a Moment at Spotlight
Yesterday, Steve Jobs made light of his own App Store’s ability to approve, reject apps submitted by developers. He tried to explain the criteria they use, and let everyone listening know just how open and accepting they try to be over at Apple. Unfortunately, it was only hours later that the hugely popular Pulse app for iPad got yanked from the App Store, where it had recently been enjoying the number one spot as top paid application.
If you’re not familiar, Pulse isn’t designed to measure your heartbeat. That app is at least a few weeks away . . . Instead, it is a news aggregator, the success of which is probably due to its high style and simple interface. Once news sources are selected, a grid shows a snapshot of the most recent stories in text and photo form. It basically offers a way to glance at a vast array of news and hone in on the topics of interest in a matter of seconds. Developed by Stanford students Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, Pulse has quickly garnered 15,000 downloads and over $40,000 in revenue.
The fatal complaint against Pulse was lodged by the New York Times. It was no doubt brought to their attention when it was featured in Jobs’ keynote speech on Monday. The NYT made the dull statement that infringes on its rights as a company. The $4 asking price for Pulse is said to be “commercial use” and violates the company’s terms of use. Apple likely had no choice but to remove it from the App Store till further notice, which they did in a matter of hours.
Whether or not this is the beginning of the apocalypse for all paid RSS readers, the makers of Pulse are already working on removing the offending content and getting their app back in the App Store. They’d also like to expand to other mobile platforms in the near future.
One thing is for sure: The forums are alight with individuals who see this as plenty of reason to boycott the NYT. Isn’t it a good thing if readers are driven to a featured story en masse thanks to any iPad app? To quote one Mistrblank, “The New York Times just proved its irrelevance to me.”
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