Michael Tsai app store retraction is a slightly misleading search phrase. Tsai did not formally retract a report of his own. He added an August 10 update to his August 7 post after John Gruber retracted Daring Fireball’s widely shared account that Apple had rejected an astronomy app as astrology. Tsai said he was unhappy to have helped spread a false story and worried about the damage it could do to credible criticism of Apple’s App Review process.
The original account came from developer Terry Godier, who said an iOS version of Dark Hours, described as an astronomy site, had been rejected because Apple considered it astrology. Tsai quoted that claim in his post. Gruber then amplified it in a piece arguing that Apple had made an obvious review error.
On August 8, Gruber withdrew that article in full. He wrote that the premise was wrong enough that editing the post would not suffice, while retaining the original text online with a link to the correction. Gruber said publishing the story remained his responsibility and apologized.
What did John Gruber retract about the Dark Hours rejection?
Gruber reported that the app Apple reviewed was called Asterly, rather than Dark Hours, and was an astrology app. According to Gruber, Asterly included a “Tarot card of the day” feature, and Apple’s original rejection and its later affirmation by the App Review Board were justified.
That distinction is the whole mess. Dark Hours was the name of an astronomy-focused web version cited in the original reports. Gruber wrote that Apple had not reviewed that version, making the original claim that Apple rejected “Dark Hours” inaccurate.
Gruber also reproduced a later revision to Godier’s original post. The revision said the project started as an astrology app, that the astrology material had been removed, and that App Store review had apparently not received the updated build. Gruber said he could not establish whether Godier had ever submitted an astronomy-only Asterly build and had no reason to think one had been submitted.
Why does Tsai think the correction matters?
Tsai said the episode could weaken efforts to improve App Review by giving skeptics a ready-made reason to doubt future reports of bad decisions. He wrote that genuine unreasonable rejections exist and that he had experienced some himself, but that this story gained credibility because it fit that history and because Godier was known for other well-regarded work.
The record available here does not independently verify Apple’s review communications or the contents of the submitted builds. The conclusion that the rejection was correct is Gruber’s account of what he learned after publishing his original story. Tsai’s update concerns a different failure: the cost of repeating a claim before its key distinction, Asterly versus Dark Hours, had been checked.
This story draws on original reporting from Daring Fireball.
