Comic Reader Mobi has been Banned for 1 year!?!?!?! NOOOOOO! I went to buy it today for 9.99
Here is the story from the forums:
Comic Reader Mobi banned for 1 year
What happened:
At the beginning of the year, I was contacted by Apple to remove USB support from my app. Despite my efforts, I was never given any real reason as to why I needed to do this (I was told it was not allowed), nor did they ever offer any good alternatives (just use wifi).
This was a tough decision, because I knew a lot of you simply did not have wireless networks at home. Without USB support, you would be completely unable to use the app anymore once you finished the comics on there. Not to mention there were more than a few who bought the app purely because it had usb support, and to take it away would amount to severely crippling the product.
But there was a silver lining. Apple had just announced the iPad, and with it, they would FINALLY have the ability to transfer files through iTunes. Once that was implemented, there would no longer be any need for ComicSync.
So, I decided to try to stall the USB removal for as long as I could. As a temporary messure, I modified the website so that when Apple visited they got a wifi version of ComicSync instead of the usb version.
I was hoping to make it to the first iPhone release with file sharing. This is why the iPad doesn't support ComicSync at all, and also why people who tried the 4.0 OS noticed that ComicSync didn't function there.
Unfortunetely, I didn't make it, and as you can imagine, Apple was none to pleased about my deception.
My developer's license has been terminated, and it will be at least a year before I can reapply.
For my iPad customers, I am truly sorry for how this turned out. Since I am no longer allowed to submit updates or support the product, I feel like I've really let you down here Its extremely unfair that you may be stuck with the initial release because of this.
What happens now:
Ok, well the first thing every needs to do is go to their ipa directory and back up the "comics 2.2.1.ipa" file.
On the PC it will be here: My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Mobile Applications
On the Mac, your iPhone applications are stored in your iTunes folder. There's a subfolder called Mobile Applications, which sits along side the iTunes Music folder, the Album Artwork folder, and so forth.
Copy this file to a safe location. If things don't get resolved with Apple, and you accidentally delete this, it is unlikely you will ever be able to get it back.
I'm still hoping I can get this all resolved with Apple, and I've even talked to the editor at Gizmodo, and he's agreed to help me out with this. Obviously it would be great if I could get reinstated in the store, but if nothing else I would really like to get you guys the latest 2.2.2 update. It fixes almost all of the issues that have been popping up, so it would be really good to leave you with a stable version.
If things don't work out with Apple, I've looked into making a "cracked" copy of 2.2.2 for everyone. The iPad has not yet been jailbroken, but once it is, than I will be sure to get you that update one way or another. Definetely hold onto your ipa files, as they're the only way I'll be able to verify your purchase.
The Future of Comic Reader Mobi:
As for the iphone/iPad... I do not yet know. Certainly if they take me back, than I will immediately get back to working on the networking support, and all the other cool features you guys have requested
If Apple doesn't let me back in, than I will certainly explore other options, but its unlikely much will happen for a little while.
For now, I will focus on the Windows mobile and Blackberry versions. I'd really like to get them in their respective stores.
Once I've established those new revenue streams, one of my dreams has been to modify to my online silverlight demo, so that it can be used on websites. So, if we're lucky, one day instead of reading manga or comics through the crappy HTML interface everyone has now, they'll all use the Comic Reader Mobi plugin, which will allow you to read your comics just as if you were using an offline viewer