Chicago (IL) – Yesterday, Apple rejected an update to the popular iPhone Twitter client, called Tweetie 1.3. Tweetie had actually been feature on the main App Store page until yesterday, so the rejection came as a shock. Loren Brichter, the Tweetie developer, complained about the situation on Twitter, stating that an offensive word appeared in the Twitter trends section of Tweetie, which ultimately caused Apple to reject it.
The Trending topics feature on Twitter collects popular keywords being discussed by users all over Twitter. Effectively, it’s the equivalent of a real time search based on words individually. The words collected by the feature are all user generated, and created by the 9 million individuals who utilize the site.
The Apple application reviewer wasn’t quite sure of the features function, and more than likely rejected the update after seeing a vulgar term in the Trends section. The reviewer provided a screenshot to serve as proof for the rejection cause.
This incident was ultimately unfair as the developers of Tweetie cannot control what Twitter users are discussing.
Following the rejection, Brichter submitted another application which fully explains the Trends feature. Additionally, he explained to the company that other Twitter clients for the iPhone contain the same Trends feature, and those applications too displayed the same keywords which were shown by Tweetie.
Upon further review of Brichter’s explanation, his application was finally approved and will be available in the App Store.
