Update: Wow, this is a buggy app. We got it to work..just barely. More below…
Knocking Live Video (app store link) hit the App Store today. Its journey there was an unusual one however. The application is simply a peer to peer video streaming app. IT allows people to connect via social media application Facebook.
The major roadblock was that Knocking Live Video uses undocumented (and therefore unusable APIs) to stream video from iPhone to iPhone. Naturally, with the automated API checking tool, the app was rejected for this reason initially.
According to Ars, however, the developer sent an impassioned email to sjobs@apple.com….
But Meehan was convinced that his app was worth fighting for. “When it was rejected, I decided not to give up and reach out directly to Steve Jobs via e-mail,” he told Ars. “I reached out to Apple to reconsider our application due to its potential to culturally change how people share live moments phone-to-phone.”
He made his case “in a way that was not about me or our app, rather about being a life-long user of all Apple products, about how I believed in Apple and that I believed Jobs would respond,” Meehan said.
Meehan ended up composing a passionate plea to Apple’s CEO, explaining he has been frustrated and disheartened with the app approval process, which often leaves developers wondering and waiting with little or no response from Apple about any potential problems. He pointed out that there are other apps that had been approved using the same private API call
Very cool. As always Steve is the man. Or deity.
This App is definitely not ready for the AppStore. It’s very unstable and after an hour trying with a friend, we never got a decent video link to establish.
He’s on a 5bar 3G and I’m at home with WiFi.
Crashes when we’re trying to open the app (takes about 10 tries).
Then crashes when streaming a video (my “video”, which my friend say it’s more like a frame every few seconds, only lasted a minute, my friend’s stream only lasted 3 sec and I couldn’t even see anything on my end)
Then crashes again when you try to reopen the app and try again.
Cool app, great concept, awesome backing making it to the App Store, but runs poorly.
Both of our phones are 3GS.
I’ve got the same exact problem but I’m using the iPhone 3G. I’ve been trying for a while now with my girlfriend’s iPhone 3G and it just constantly crashes. Maybe that’s the reason why it got rejected in the first place?
yeah strange it would get approved considering how buggy it is. I still haven’t been able to launch it. Crashes every time on iPhone 3GS via wifi
tried rebooting after installing?
did a hard reboot, home+power. App launches, then crashes when knocking on a friend :p
Same thing here, just crashes, iPhone 3G, no jailbreak.
Not really unstable, just doesn’t run : )
still crashes on launch
I’ve tried reinstalling, rebooting, etc… Just doesn’t work. Title screen comes up for 25 seconds and then quits. 32 gb 3GS. Can’t get to website either. Is this a joke?
to bad it keeps crashing.
Just a hunch: something tells me that it’s trying to connect to his server upon launch and the wave of new users is crushing it. I picked it up earlier in the day and I was able to launch it many times and it got worse and worse as the day went along. Now, it’s completely unlaunchable.
Yep, confirmed it. As soon as I turn on airplane mode, the application launches quickly, but complains that it can’t connect to the server. So, it’s definitely trying to do a connection at startup. Just wish it gave an error instead of exiting without warning, that drove me crazy trying to figure it out!
maybe that’s why the appstore rejected it?
maybe app store rejection isn’t as random as everyone thinks?
This is going o revolutionize phone sex lol
Still I can’t open it………
This is great. Finally something good to report on the AppStore front.
Doesn´t even start on my 3GS
I have the same phone, but fortunatly it’s on contract I never really use any of the advanced features so performance has never been an issue for me.
Many of our users were initially facing a few issues with the app. Taking into account their feedback, we recently released 1.1 version of the Knockinglive Vid app and it is now available at the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id335489392?mt=8
The new features include — Improved Video Quality, Better Performance, Enhanced User Interface, Privacy Settings,Invite your friends to download, Improved Search to easily find friends, Easy Sign Up and Device Recognition.
You can visit http://www.knockinglive.com for more information.
Cheers,
Team KnockingLive