Yesterday I purchased an iPhone App called iDOS. iDOS is a DOS emulator based on DOSBOX which allows you to run Naive DOS applications from Zork all the way to Windows 3.11. Having grown up in the DOS era, my childhood is filled with memories of games ran on my IBM PS1, and later my Home Built 386.
I knew from the first moment I read the post announcing iDOS I would have to jump on the program, buying it for 99 cents. Apple has the inane and unprofessional MO of allowing a real cool/useful app on the App store, but the moment some big shot in a black turtle neck and blue jeans finds out, it’s pulled. Needless to say iDOS was pulled down within a few hours.
(When I say “black turtle neck and blue jeans” I don’t mean Steve Jobs himself, but I have noticed that all the higher level executives at Apple all seem to dress like he does.)
I now have an orphaned app on my iPhone. My project over the next few week will be to observe how this App is treated as compared to the other apps. The first event I am looking for is wether or not my credit card will be charged. If it is charged, I’m going to follow up with Apple to ensure that the creator of iDOS receives his/her 69.5 cents.
I will also try to move the app around from my various iOS devices to see if I can install and reinstall it.
