Dex pulled from the App Store
It was with sadness I found out this morning that Dex, my beloved Pokemon browser for iOS, was pulled from the App Store. Nintendo legal had been sending copyright notices to Apple for some time and while I tried to have a conversation with Nintendo to work something out they weren’t very talkative.
To the best of my knowledge this isn’t part of a larger plan of Nintendo or The Pokémon Company to lock down their intellectual property. While they continue to turn a blind eye to fan sites like Bulbapedia, Serebii, Marriland and Smogon they seem to really dislike apps serving the same data sets such as my own Dex, Timothy Oliver’s iPokedex and Nolan Lawson’s Pokédroid.
I suspect part of this is because they view these devices as competition against their own struggling handheld platform. Additionally Apple’s distribution is centralized making it that much easier to shut things down.
I’ve read a lot on the topic of Selective Copyright Enforcement and the legality/benefits of fan sites over the past few months. I’m not really prepared to do a larger write up only to say I think a move like this was in the disinterest of Pokémon fans and the Pokémon brand.
If you’d like to let your disagreement with this action be heard I’d recommend sending respectful feedback to The Pokemon Company directly. My contact there was:
Kim Warren
k.warren@pokemon.com
Paralegal
The Pokémon Company International
333 108th Ave NE, Suite 1900
Bellevue, WA 98004
United States
+1.425.274.4895
legalnotices@pokemon.com
To all the Dex fans out there, thank you so much for your support and well wishes over the last year. I’m happy I was able to improve your experience of the great Pokémon franchise.
Posted on: December 6, 2011 – 3:57 PM
Hi. My name is Mike Zornek (
10 Comments
Hay it’s not fair! My cousin has it and it’s very helpful!…. Please try to get it back!
Uff i want it!!
Ugh, that really sucks, I just updated my Ipod and apple deleted all my apps, so I’ve lost it. So sad.
Your APP was AWESOME, I realized today 10/20/2012 that I do not have it (I have not played Pokemon in a while) I used it all the time to get basic stat info while playing. It is really stupid that Nintendo shut you down. If they are not going to put their own app on the Itunes store there should be no reason for them to shut down yours.
The App was kick ass
I loved that app so much! I think that you should do a petition & get people to sign it & show how many people how support for this app!
Apparently Kim Warren is going down taking a lot of unlicensed Pokemon things all over the board.
It’s 2013 and I still have this fantastic app! Really hoping we can get it back up because it’s super helpful and I love it!!
I really love your app as it is really useful.please try to add it back to the app store.thanks
This same person (Kim Warren) had one of my Pokemon fanart prints removed from my Etsy shop…one, out of five, the other four were untouched, and so are thousands of other Pokemon items on Etsy.
Your theory on why they shut down your APP makes some kind of sense, but then why the hell would they randomly target ONE print from my tiny Etsy shop which no one ever buys prints from? xD
Aww, so sad! Good luck I’ve downloaded before the shut down :o It’s a fantastic app! I was already wondering where in the App Store it was, to review it. Really sad to hear this news. I hope this awesome app will nbe available again in the future!
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