The ill-fated tale of Phoneys, the stupid little sticker pack that went #1 on the App Store

Adam Howell, Developer of Phoneys:

Wednesday night of this week, John Gruber wrote, “This is very clever, and I can see how it could be damn funny, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Phoneys gets pulled from the App Store.” Shortly after John’s post — I mean, you can’t buy press better than that, a post from Gruber about $.99 stickers so clever that Apple was sure to pull them? — Phoneys, the stupid little sticker pack I’d launched just a few days before, climbed to #1 Top Paid and #1 Top Grossing in the iMessage app store.

Thursday night, last night, Bill from Apple called me.

The days leading up to that roller coaster span of 24 hours were a surprisingly efficient example of the creative process.

Fascinating story of the behind the scenes process. Good to see Apple taken a more measured approach. Rather than yanking the app, they contacted the developer to request changes be made.