Tech Gadgets

I wrote earlier about the $1,000 (picky, picky, $999.99) iPhone application called “I am Rich.” It actually made it onto the App Store, but then was pulled after a lot of criticism over it. In actuality, it was a fairly harmless, though useless app — useless except for showing that the owner was rich enough to be able to afford it.

Before it was pulled, apparently eight people managed to buy it, according to reports. However, two of those people asked to “return” the app, with at least one of those saying he mistakenly clicked on the “one-click” order button, not expecting the sale to go through.

That has been a complaint about the App Store; that it’s too easy to accidentally buy something. There’s also no way to “try” something, an omission I hope (and assume) Apple will correct in the future.

The writer, Armin Heinrich, told the New York Times that it was written as a sort of joke.

“I found that some users complain about prices for iPhone applications above 99 cents. I regard it as art. I did not expect many people to buy it and did not expect all the fuss about it. It’s O.K. to return the money. I did not want to harm anybody with my app.”

Meanwhile, the odds of Nullriver’s NetShare app reappearing on the App Store appear to be zero, at least for U.S. The company now says a product page is coming soon, so it looks like it will return, but since AT&T’s Terms of Service forbid tethering, looks like U.S. users will be S.O.L.

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