X gets big exception from Apple with one-letter App Store listing

AppleInsider

Elon Musk's rebrand of Twitter into X has fully made it to the App Store, with Apple making an exception to a long-standing policy preventing the existence of single-character app names.

X in the App Store

The extensive rebranding effort turning the blue bird logo and the Twitter name into a stylized X has impacted many areas of the company, including a contentious sign change to its main offices. However, over the weekend, Apple seemed to enable X to bypass the App Store's naming policy, allowing for the rebrand to impact its digital storefront.

The rebranding of the Twitter app to X is more than just renaming the app in iOS and iPadOS, as well as a logo and UI changes. For a complete rebrand, the app's presence in the App Store also had to undergo changes.

However, while most of the changes are straightforward for developers to make, like the icon, screenshots, and the main body of the App Store listing. The problem for a while was the name of the app.

Under Apple's App Store policies, there are limits to how long a name can be. Developers changing the app name need to enter text that is at least two characters in length to be accepted, but no more than 30 characters.

Developers attempting to use a single-character name in App Store Connect are explicitly told that an app name "must be 2 characters or more." It's not clear why special permission was granted this time.

On iOS, the situation is distinct as Apple does not permit any app to have a single character as their app name.

If they manage to obtain approval, it would mark the first instance since the inception of the iOS App Store that such a permission has been granted. https://t.co/EtzAj76fwx pic.twitter.com/Dzx0HAsz9b

-- Nick (@nickjsheriff)

July 28, 2023

While there are workarounds such as "X - Tagline" that are permissible under Apple's rules, X instead decided to leave it as "Twitter" in the App Store until it was changed.

On Monday, Apple seemingly stepped in to help Musk's X Corp get their desired name, with it now appearing in the App Store under the "X" title. It has the new subtitle "Blaze your glory!" in reference probably to the fight it is having with San Francisco and it's strobing logo on the roof of the building.

Apple hasn't acknowledged any changes to rules since allowing X to exist under its one-character name, but it is a clear exception to an already established rule that developers have hit before.

Given the animosity between Musk and Apple over content rules, with a change of heart following a guided tour of Apple Park, it could be another step by Apple to keep its relationship with Musk favorable.

Whether other app producers can get away with the same trick in the future is another matter.

Read on AppleInsider

samrod

Are we sure that Apple actually made an exception and that the name "X[non-breaking space]" wasn't used instead? 

eriamjh

Wouldn’t want Musk to Xeet something disparaging about Apple.  🙄🙄

mayfly

Big deal. Twitter's (X) future is the same as Facebook's (Meta) and AOL's (AOL Time Warner, AOL Verizon).

No one but superannuated geezers, too bored to migrate their accounts to something relevant.

cpsro

At this rate, by this time next year, Musk will be masturbating in public.

mikethemartian

cpsro said:

At this rate, by this time next year, Musk will be masturbating in public.

He basically already is.

Alex_V

Countdown: 85 days (under three months)

Counting down the days until the X brand and logotype are shelved, and the Twitter brand, logotype and symbol are restored. 

9secondkox2

It’s only right. This isn’t some frivolous indie app.abbreviating the name to be cool.  This is a social media giant undergoing a legitimate rebrand. X is its name so X should be its listing. Anything else would be asinine. 

surgefilter

This is all about the optics of Tim kissing Musk’s backside to get CarPlay into Teslas - finally - imho.

hagar

9secondkox2 said:

It’s only right. This isn’t some frivolous indie app.abbreviating the name to be cool.  This is a social media giant undergoing a legitimate rebrand. X is its name so X should be its listing. Anything else would be asinine. 

Tell that to Google. Search for X and see what happens. 

This is the most insane rebrand ever. 

thinkman100000000

Apple continuing to kiss Musk's ass won't keep him from crapping all over them at the first opportunity. Musk is a seriously demented humanoid—an Xopath.

mikethemartian

9secondkox2 said:

It’s only right. This isn’t some frivolous indie app.abbreviating the name to be cool.  This is a social media giant undergoing a legitimate rebrand. X is its name so X should be its listing. Anything else would be asinine. 

So an independent developer isn’t entitled to the same treatment as a major company?

foregoneconclusion

Lame. Very, very lame. 

jbdragon

You left out Alphabet (Google).  That is about as dumb as naming can get.  Meta is pretty bad also.  X is early 2000's.  X-box for example. X-Men. X this and that.  Apple doesn't use "i" in front of names anymore.  I think if Apple had to over again, it would just be Apple Phone and Aple Tablet and so on.  

Paid a lot of money for the Twitter BRAND just to throw all that away and rename it X.  It would have been far cheaper to create a new company and just call it X.   Maybe this works out.    Before Elon, Twitter was losing a million dollars per DAY!!!  How long could they keep that up?  Wait it out and buy Twitter for cheaper.  It's a gamble in a few different ways.  I think he is looking long-term.   I didn't think what Apple spent on BEATS was worth it.  It's been paying off for them.  Even that was a fraction of the price Elon paid for Twitter.  There is no hardware division to go along with it like with Beats Headphones.  

baconstang

Sooo, "@X" wasn't on the table?

jimdreamworx

hagar said:

9secondkox2 said:

It’s only right. This isn’t some frivolous indie app.abbreviating the name to be cool.  This is a social media giant undergoing a legitimate rebrand. X is its name so X should be its listing. Anything else would be asinine. 

Tell that to Google. Search for X and see what happens. 

This is the most insane rebrand ever. 

I'm curious what you would be searching for using only the letter X in regards to what this app does.

As I'm sure as the app continues to evolve, it will have a search engine.  Which makes the point of using archaic, biased, SEO engines like Google moot.

Can you imagine when it goes public again, a stock with a single letter?  Maybe we now know the next company to be negotiated with by Musk.

Cisco called and wants its iPhone back.

FileMakerFeller

Next thing you know, Musk will create a division within the company for machine learning and will want to call it "XML"

Marvin

hagar said:

9secondkox2 said:

It’s only right. This isn’t some frivolous indie app.abbreviating the name to be cool.  This is a social media giant undergoing a legitimate rebrand. X is its name so X should be its listing. Anything else would be asinine. 

Tell that to Google. Search for X and see what happens. 

This is the most insane rebrand ever. 

The rebrand makes sense in the context of what the future intention is for the company, which is to handle payments. The Twitter brand is only relevant for messaging. TwitPay, TweetPay, Twitter Pay don't fit.

Elon Musk wants to make another Paypal but mixed with social media instead of eBay. It's resurrecting an old company brand from over 20 years ago X.com, which was renamed Paypal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal

The parent company is X Holdings and there are suggestions Musk might try to wrap all his companies (Tesla, SpaceX, X.com/Twitter) under X Holdings similar to Alphabet with Google.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-x-everything-app-finances-twitter-payments-2023-7?op=1

Online financial services are becoming more popular but haven't replaced big banks: Revolut, Wise, Venmo, Swish etc. Some of them are banks so they offer the same kind of insurance as a bank and are much more accessible. Some also allow direct trading in stocks and crypto ( https://www.thestreet.com/cryptocurrency/elon-musk-x-twitter-dogecoin ).

Most have only a few million users. Venmo has 90 million. Paypal has over 400 million. WeChat Pay has 900 million. AliPay has 1.3 billion.

X.com will be setup similar to WeChat Pay, owned by Tencent Holdings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat_Pay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat

The messaging brand could have been XChat or Xpress (likely all used already) but whatever brands they use for the separate services, X will be the parent brand, which Musk has used in the sense of a Mathematical variable:

https://news.yahoo.com/x-xii-pronounce-name-elon-220808895.html

Alphabet is an alphabet of company names, X is a variable that can be assigned to anything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com (X.com redirects to Twitter)

eriamjh

lmasanti said:

quote: “Developers attempting to use a single-character name in App Store Connect are explicitly told that an app name "must be 2 characters or more." It's not clear why special permission was granted this time.“

Maybe it's really "X " because a space is a character.

surgefilter said:

This is all about the optics of Tim kissing Musk’s backside to get CarPlay into Teslas - finally - imho.

I'm ok with this.

zeus423

Musk almost used XXX but decided to erase two of the X's at the last minute.

humbug1873

Tim either just sucked up to Egon Murks guy. That case booo Tim.
Or at least he got the guarantee out of it that a full carplay 2 implementation will finally hit Tesla. In that case still boo Tim. There is just no good reason to work with Egon Murks or what's that guy name again?