iPhone developers are not happy right now

While Apple keeps bragging about one billion iPhone apps sold, some developers are fed up with their outrageous payment delays. Some cases are dramatic, deeply affecting indie developer's families in the middle of the crisis:

30 something year old family man with bills to pay owed 1,000's (soon to be 10's of thousands if March is missed also) here.

I'm with you. I am a 30 year old work-from-home Dad of 2 kids. I'm owed probably about $10k at this point ($2k from past months, $8k from the month with no payments or financial reports yet).

This is a BIG deal for me and my family.

Over $10,000 here. Family, kids, mortgage etc. Mails unanswered etc. In dispair. No where to go. They don't reply to emails and there is no number. Can't do anything physically because I'm in the European Union.

Apple still owes me more than $7,500 since September 2008 for US and World regions. I supplied them with a new SWIFT code and a intermediary bank they could use last month, but still nothing. Sent them tons of emails but I never got to know what is really wrong/faulty so I just tried to give them another SWIFT code that DNB (Biggest bank in Norway) uses. All other region payments have been OK.

Apple owes me near $2000 since Feb. Zero payment received. Zero email replies.

Apple acts as a distribution channel for all iPhone OS-based software through their iTunes App Store. They get the micro-payments from the customers, getting a 30% share of each sale. Every month they add the totals and pay developers the 70% in a single money transfer, which—according to the developer contract—should arrive within 45 days of the end of the month.

As you can see, this has not been the case in the quotes above and apparently many others. Months have passed in many instances, and there's still no sign of the money. In fact, according to developers, the situation is so bad that some are threatening to sue Apple for breach of contract.

If you are a developer and have some horror—or good—stories to share about this, you know where we are. [iphonedevsdk forums and iphonedevsdk forums via TechCrunch via Gizmodo]

Circuit City Trying To Screw Customers One Last Time

With Circuit City making its slow walk towards the big retailer in the sky; it seems that they’ve chosen to screw their customers on the way out the door. With the announcement that Circuit City will be closing 155 stores, the retailer has moved to liquidate all inventories within the outlets that are going bye bye. The only problem is the scam that Circuit City is trying to get over on the consumer. Reports have come in stating that they are marking merchandise up, only to receive 10% discount on said item. This is what they are calling an in-store liquidation “sale”, even though prices on the same item from their website are lower. This goes against their “One Price Guarantee” claim that they’re been throwing around.

So why would you shop Circuit City when their “liquidation sale” isn’t really a sale after all? This kind of decision making is the reason that they’re going the way of the do-do bird.

[Crunchgear]

Study Says Techies Are Jags

If you're a technology fan Mindset Media and Nielsen Research says that you're a douche. According to a study of 25,000 American adults who are tech savvy, scored well on traits like leadership, "dynamism" and assertiveness. But not so good on little things like modesty, and even can be perceived as arrogant and conceited.

Well, being in I.T. I take complete offense to this!!!

Just because we hold the keys to your email life does not make tech people jerks. Just because we're the ones who saves your bacon when you loose a presentation somewhere on the network, does not make us think that we're gods. Just because we're the ones who make sure that the Blackberry you just lost doesn't cost the company millions from unsecured email. Does that make us arrogant?

Uh..... Now that I think about it, I am an asshole!

Oh well, at least we make good leaders.

[Engadget]

AT&T to Start Scanning Their Network for Pirated Material

In a move that could send ISPs tumbling down a slippery slope toward serving big media companies before consumers, AT&T has decided to start targeting pirated content being moved across its network.

How exactly they'll do that isn't clear, but there doesn't seem to be any real way of them detecting what materials being sent are copyrighted without them prying into every file people send online. But hey, what's wrong with that?

We should trust AT&T! It's not like they spy on us for the government already or anything.

Read the BS after the jump. [LA Times]