Overwhelming Response to Apple Rejection Tale

November 10th, 2009 | Posted in News

PWNED!

Wow.

The power of the internet is an amazing thing.

Yesterday I posted a little rant here on The MAD Blog about Apple’s head-scratching rejection of Bobble Rep, an application conceived and developed by film director Ray Griggs for which I was commissioned to draw a caricature of each of all 540 members of the 111th United States congress. As usual I just wrote off the top of my head, grammar errors and somewhat acerbic tone included.

24 hours later my blog was twice crashed by overwhelming traffic coming from links on virtually every major independent Apple blog/website including TUAW, 9to5 Mac and Macworld, from Twitter links via the New York Times David Pogue, CNN/Fotune and many others.

Thanks for the suggestions and support. Ray and his programmer guru Stevo Brock are looking into other options including porting the app to other platforms. For those asking about seeing all 540 caricatures, I will make sure that they are published here on my website if the app never sees the light of day or other venues such as a flash-based website are not developed.

Thanks again for all the interest in this little tale. No word yet from Apple, but I can almost guarantee you that few people going to work in Cupertino today have not heard about this story thanks to all of you.

Comments

  1. X O O M i X » Karikaturen von Politikern ‚Äö√Ñ√¨ nicht auf dem Iphone! says:
    November 10, 2009 at 8:56 am

    […] Tom Richmond […]

    • Disaster Dave says:
      November 10, 2009 at 2:54 pm

      Personally, I think Kucinich’s iPhone Icon looks better than he does in person! Now that I think about it, they all look better. Maybe it’s that non-partisan bobble?

    • truthhurts says:
      November 11, 2009 at 5:50 am

      Some of the caricatures are spot on, but Pelosi looks cruel and deranged; that’s probably why the app was rejected. Just have a non biased person look at them and tweak some of the offensive ones and I’d bet you’d be okay.

      This would a great app for the Droid….if you could fit it on it! The DroidDoesn’t only has 256mb of app memory, 1/120th the amount of an iPhone 3GS. That means you can’t download and store game levels, maps, etc. you have to have a network or wifi connection at all times as crucial material is streamed to you, not stored locally like on the iphone.

      So, when you’re in an airplane or a remote area of the country, don’t rely on games to keep you occupied or a map to find your way home.

      Oh, and have fun dragging and dropping music, video, podcasts, etc to your DroidDoesn’t, you know, like people did in the ’90’s, no iTunes support! The DroidDoesn’t, what a concept.

      • Tom says:
        November 11, 2009 at 7:40 pm

        Pelosi looks “cruel and deranged”? and you don’t think the John McCain looks old and crabby? Put aside the partisan bias. These are all even handed caricatures.

      • Timon says:
        November 15, 2009 at 2:06 am

        Although the Droid does have a small memory space for Apps there is nothing to keep the app from using the SD card for everything other than the running code Well written apps can download all of the other data required when they run the first time then never need to access the network again.

  2. Jimmy Pereira says:
    November 10, 2009 at 10:54 am

    If I had an iphone, I would buy it in a heart beat. These caricatures are dead ringers. (no pun intended)

  3. julio cesar naranjo says:
    November 10, 2009 at 11:26 am

    Hi Tom i hope you can put your app in other platform, like Blackberry i have one of those, so i can buy it. Take care.

  4. Karl Simpson says:
    November 10, 2009 at 11:26 am

    Nice to see the power of the internet working for once in a positive fashion, instead of then there young uns saying “Hi watcha doin” reply ..”Nuthin You ?
    and it goes on, Good luck Tom.

    I Like your comment that you wrote it grammar errors and aerboc tone , lol that what happens unless you take 10 mins out to calm down, done it a few times myself. Sometimes you just gotta shoot from the hip.

    Karl

  5. Karl Simpson says:
    November 10, 2009 at 11:33 am

    Someone called me fake on a previous comment, I dont get that ?

  6. Shawn Smith Peirce says:
    November 11, 2009 at 11:38 am

    Glad that folks like me could help out a friend. Keep us all updated on the outcome of this. It’s now Wednesday, ad I’m still seeing stories all over the place on this thing.

  7. ThatGuy says:
    November 11, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    How about releasing this one on the Android Market? I’m sure you woulnd’t have any trouble getting approved there.

  8. bluemoonpaul says:
    November 11, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    Wow, links from both Instapundit and Althouse – you’re gonna get some traffic today, Tom!

  9. Stan Augustyniewicz says:
    November 11, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Love the whole concept.
    Don’t give it away though. I’m sure people would pay for the app., or even a PDF book.

    Need to start it off with a pic of Jobs though. 😉

  10. Leeland says:
    November 11, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Please make this available for the Andriod! I would love to have it!

  11. MC Ertem says:
    November 12, 2009 at 11:36 am

    Ditto Augustyniewicz!!!

    Could we please please have a bobblehead cartoon of Steve Jobs… 🙂 🙂

  12. Brian S says:
    November 13, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    Tom,

    This is why I am glad to see the Flash coming to the iPhone. Apple didn’t like Flash coming to the iPhone as it is a way to develop the same app, however they would have no “control” over the content, and would not be able to decide what they think American iPhone users should or should not see based on internal political bias. Flash is coming to the iPhone, so don’t give up yet. I am an Adobe Flash/Flex developer/consultant and I have worked at Adobe myself. If you guys need any help getting this great app out there, I would be glad to offer any advice or help that I can.

    Best Wishes and Good Luck!

  13. Rob says:
    November 18, 2009 at 7:42 am

    Could you post the screencap they included that they referenced in their letter to you? I’d really like to see what they considered an example of inappropriate for approval.

    Thanks.

  14. TrueSong Media says:
    November 28, 2009 at 11:17 pm

    Wow, Tom. That’s really pathetic of Apple. I mean, it’s not as if you were trying to defame any person or political party. Each image is equally silly and fun.

    But, as another poster mentioned, I suspect the real reason is Apple wanting to be able to call in some political favors down the road. That wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

    That’s why I’m starting out with Android development. There are no arbitrary rejections there, and it’s only $25 to sell in the store (compared to $99 w/ Apple).

    But hey, great app, Tom. I’m impressed. You’re quite the artist! : )

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