The Apple Watch is on sale, and it looks like Cupertino is working to close its eco-system to outsiders. Pebble developers are reporting that their apps are being rejected for mentioning the Pebble smartwatch in the description.
Apple itself has not banned apps that mention other wearables, but it appears to be clamping down on any mention of anything that isn’t the Apple Watch. One developer was told that the only way to get his app approved for the App Store was to remove information about support for Pebble from its metadata. Another app was rejected for having a Pebble in one of its screenshots.
Developers are currently unable to do anything about the rejections except to comply with Apple’s demands. Interestingly, Apple’s App Store terms and conditions have always prevented any mention of other platforms; however, it appears that the condition was rarely enforced until very, very recently. The timing of remembering that developers shouldn’t be doing this comes suspiciously close to the launch of the Apple Watch.
That being said, the number of affected developers have been very small; and it is unknown if this represents a new corporate policy. It could simply be some overzealous Apple employees getting out of control, but it could trigger anti-trust investigations if it continues.
[Source: Pebble Developer Forum]
