Last week the news that Tom Richmond and Ray Grigg’s “Bobble Rep” iPhone app had been rejected from the iTunes App Store went viral across Mac and cartooning blogs. Saturday, Tom was notified that Apple had reversed its decision and the app is now in the App Store.
Bobble Rep, the iPhone app conceived and produced by Ray Griggs and featuring my caricatures of all 540 members of the 111th U.S. Congress was APPROVED by Apple late last night and is now available on iTunes for the low, low price of 99 cents (cheap). This after my innocent little blog post of a few days ago caught fire and was picked up by major news outlets and high traffic tech blogs.
Apple came to its senses yesterday and approved the app. You have to wonder how much of the decision was based on the press covered and image hit Apple had taken, and how much of it was simply that some overworked approval person rubber stamped it as a reject. My less cynical side is hoping for the latter, but I am pretty sure any reconsideration at all was facilitated by the many responses and support of people on the internet who were dumbstruck that such an innocent and innocuous app would be determined â??defamatoryâ? to the members of congress we depicted.
Mind-bobbling that it was ever rejected in the first place.
Just downloaded the app. Looks and works great, Tom. Nice job!
Great news, congrats!
Now is the time to stretch the envelope and do a rogue’s gallery of the world’s tyrants.
True, This! â??
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! â?? itself a nothing! â??
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! â?? Take away the sword â??
States can be saved without it!
~Edward Bulwer-Lytton
I’m a big fan of the free market, and letting Apple do what they want with their business.
And in cases where the free market doesn’t like what Apple has done, I’m a big fan of the free press, too.
This is good news not just for Tom, but for all of us cartoonists with apps in the queue. Cagle’s got one waiting in the wings, I believe.
I’m pretty sure they reconsidered because of the negative response. Hopefully this will cause them to not be so wimpy in the future.
No such thing as bad publicity – it worked to Apple’s advantage.
That’s cool Apple reversed their decision on this. I guess ever since the “Baby Shaker” app incident, they have been more cautious.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=38957
Congrats to Tom, Apple’s reasoning was unfounded. I follow Tom’s site regularly, and his App should be very useful.
Richmond’s caricature app is denied while KAL’s caricatures are
used as fund raisers on M&Ms.
http://www.kaltoons.com/wordpress/2009/11/kal-caricatures-on-mms/
as soon as I can get access to a wifi network, I will download this app!