Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2273-five-rational-arguments-against-apples-331-policy

by sant0sk1 • 16 years ago

184 91 16 years ago

jasonlotito3• 16 years ago

All are good points, but number 2 is the big one for me. That was my first thought when I heard what Apple was doing, and I think it's important to keep that in consideration. While I don't always agree with DHH, he makes some good, rational points here. It should be noted that most of these arguments have been made elsewhere, but it's a great summation.

MWinther9• 16 years ago

It's fascinating. This is the way I look at them, as being on the side of people who agree with Apple on this one.

#1: Don't agree. Apple has 180,000 apps in their App store, maybe a good time to remove incentives for a new influx of non-programmer-written apps straight from Flash? Oh, they're getting rid of other stuff that also encourages people to use other tools than their own? I think they can live with that.

#2: They're not. Tell me where and when Apple said: "You will be able to develop for the iPhone using any and all tools of your choosing." They didn't. They're simply clarifying what's been their position all along, that XCode/Cocoa is the environment in which you create iPhone apps. Sure, other stuff have been able to sneak in stuff, but hardly with an Apple seal of approval. If you're using one of those tools without a suspicion Apple might not like it even before this, I'd say you're a bit naive.

#3: Irrelevant. Apple has told developers which tools they can use from the get-go. I imagine the existing cross-platform products have been too small to have been a priority, but here comes Adobe with something that creates iPhone apps straight from the desk of a designer. Yes, did you see the CS5 presentation? "Create iPhone apps without writing any code!" Sounds like great apps to me.

#4: Of course it's unfair. But there isn't any better way to enforce their rules. Naturally there'll be apps that fall through the cracks. But a "Aw, why can't I when that app could?" whine sounds very 7-year-old to me. They're putting up rules, if you follow them you should be fine. If someone does something that might be within the rules, but they're not sure, they might get rejected. If someone else tries the same thing, they might get rejected, regardless of whether the first guy was caught or not.

#5: Not sure this ia a very good argument either. For me, I develop for Apple products because I love the platform, and I think there are quite a lot of other apps that have been hanging around with Apple because we feel that is the best platform in the world. Not perfect, but best. And I like it when Apple says that what we've learned during the years of sticking by the company because of that conviction, rather than some sense of duty, is going to pay off. Sure, Apple could release the platform to any and all languages out there, implement C#, Java and whatever else might be popular right now. But that would seem to me to cater to the populist crowd, rather than the faithful, so to speak. And those programmers are the same programmers that will move away from the platform when something else catches their fancy. I think Apple wants people like Omni Group rather than the "Oh, lord, another device, another language, who cares? I guess I'll _have_ to learn it, then."-crowd.

jasonlotito3• 16 years ago

I don't have time to respond to each point, but I will say that it's well thought out. I don't agree with many points, but you've clearly thought about it. =)

"They're putting up rules, if you follow them you should be fine."

The big issue is that they are changing rules. They are. There isn't anything you can say that changes this. So even if you did follow the rules, you are still stuck with an unsure situation.

barrkel• 16 years ago

What you've said there is that you are not rational with respect to your position re Apple. You explicitly say that people should work with Apple platform from a "sense of duty", that people should be "faithful".

This seems to me to make you unqualified to counter rational arguments.

mrcharles3• 16 years ago

It seems to me that part of number 3 (about private APIs) is bogus -- it's pretty easy to compare an executable against private API addresses to make sure it isn't linked to any of them. They likely have a tool and it likely results in an instant fail and I doubt there are any approved apps that use private APIs.

reitzensteinm• 16 years ago

I think you mean #3.

mrcharles3• 16 years ago

Curse that 2 key, always next to the 3.

minalecs• 16 years ago

this is not completely true.. when google first released their search application, they were allowed to use an undocumented api (at the time), that detected when you moved your phone from your ear, and was allowed. Not sure if this is the same as a private api, but in general they do reject the use of private api's.

mrcharles3• 16 years ago

Special exceptions aside, of course. That follows with his other point about big players, which I agree with. They get to do things the little guys don't.

MWinther9• 16 years ago

They did start this checking relatively late in the game however, and I seem to remember it giving rise to a number of outraged developer stories on the web.

fjabre• 16 years ago

The problem is Apple has no real competition. They can do almost anything they want without fear of retribution because your average consumer has no idea what any of this means.

That's bad news for all us pissed off developers since Apple's new platform will continue to be extremely popular in which case devs are forced to develop for it.

Google seems to be inching towards being a real threat but they also seem extremely unfocused. Does anyone really need a toaster running the latest version of Android?

Apple needs some competition in this space and Android-based mobile devices seem like a really distant second. It's time for Google to kick it up a notch.

stanleydrew4• 16 years ago

There is tons of real competition. There will probably be 50 Android smartphones on the market by the end of the year, if not sooner. RIM and Symbian are still ahead, even if you see them as waning.

Yes consumers have no idea what any of this means. But that actually works in favor of Apple's competitors. When an average consumer looks at the smartphone market, Apple may stand out, but the iPhone is still just one among hundreds of smartphones. There is tons of competition on features and price.

Finally, Google doesn't need to kick it up a notch. Android is doing extremely well. Keep in mind that Google doesn't need Android to make money. Google doesn't care if Nexus One sales are sluggish. They are in the market to change the game. And I'd say they are succeeding with that.

rimantas2• 16 years ago

  There is tons of competition on features and price.

That's exactly the problem. Apple does not compete on features and price, they compete on user experience.

mtinkerhess• 16 years ago

Google is taking the shotgun approach where Apple is taking the sniper approach. Either can hit the target.

If my toaster did run Android, that wouldn't make the HTC EVO any less appealing. The apparent lack of focus on the Android front isn't because Google's unfocused -- it's because there are a lot of companies besides Google working to make Android happen (Sense UI in particular has been great for Android).

With the rapid releases of Android 1.5, 1.6, 2.0 and 2.1 in the past year, I'd say Google has been kicking it up a notch. The problem is that the carriers wait for way too long to push the updates out to their users. What use is progress if many Android users still can't check out Google Goggles?

clawrencewenham4• 16 years ago

You're taking Apple's domination for granted. How did they get it? There were half a dozen smartphone platforms before iPhone OS, but all of the devices had lousy quality, lousy user experience, and a lousy marketplace for third-party apps.

If you read the rebuttals to the complaints, you'll see that there are several practical, quality-oriented reasons why 3.3.1 was a smart move. It's just one of hundreds of quality-improving measures that Apple has done to make the iPhone "have no real competition".

bad_user5• 16 years ago

I don't know why you're talking in the past test ... like those platforms are dead or something.

bad_user5• 16 years ago

In my city Vodafone has said it's going to start shipping Droid and Nexus One. They are already shipping some Android-enabled LG model.

And they have a big marketing machine ready ... its competitor (Orange) has been shipping iPhones for a while, but I haven't seen many around (mostly because people haven't jumped on the smartphones wagon).

And I think it's the same situation in the rest of Europe. It's the carriers that make it happen ... and Vodafone is a huge player.

zaphar• 16 years ago

Devs are not forced to develop for it. You can go develop for Android. You can go develop for RIM. You can go develop for non mobile phones. Devs develop for the iP* because they want to sell to that market. It wasn't too long ago though that we saw a whole bunch of articles on HN about the myth of the get rich quick AppStore apps. Apple is skating on thin ice because if the developers leave then the iPad loses big. The pain may not have crossed the average developers threshold yet but Apple still has to play a dicey game with how far they can go before they do cross the threshold.

thaumaturgy• 16 years ago

> ...devs are forced to develop for it.

No, you're not.

This is what I don't understand from all of the developer "outcry" over this: you're not forced to develop for this platform. If you don't trust it anymore, then stop developing for it.

There were ways to make money as a developer before the iPhone came along. There are still plenty of ways to make money as a developer that don't involve dealing with the iPad or the iPhone.

These counter-arguments sound so much like the web developer hatred for IE 6 years ago, where everyone was bemoaning having to develop code specifically for IE 6, and everyone was saying that they had to keep developing code for IE 6, because that's what the users are using. But, years later, it has finally become OK to abandon IE 6 altogether; it could have happened a long time ago if developers had just quit supporting garbage.

Android/Google are looking for good applications developers. Go work with that instead.

Otherwise, it's just noise.

donaq2• 16 years ago

Well, I guess everyone is hoping that if the outcry is severe enough, Apple will take it out of the agreement. We can be pretty certain that if there is no backlash, the clause will definitely stay.

c1sc0• 16 years ago

Ummm, I'm working on a site that still generates 20% of its multi-million revenue from IE6 alone. In the same vein, lots of developers will be developing for iP* for years to come: we have to be where the customer is, and unfortunately that customer has locked himself into the platform with his AppStore purchases.

ccc3• 16 years ago

I think you're absolutely right in saying that Apple has no real competition, but it's interesting to look at the trajectories of the various elements of the smartphone market and consider what things might look like in 5 years (remember, the iPhone was first available 3 years ago). Android doesn't compete at the same level as apple today, but it is far more likely to start progressing exponentially at some point when the conditions are right. At the same time the barriers to entry for building hardware are quickly falling, so we may yet see some new entrants.

Apple's new policy won't cause their developers to leave immediately, the market is just too big. What they have done is sent a clear message to developers that if they don't want to do it "the Apple way" then they should be keeping their eyes open for other opportunities. Apple has essentially made a huge gamble that they can be the smartest guys in the market forever. I think that's unwise.

andreyf• 16 years ago

The web is not a carefully curated gallery of web pages and yet we're still able to find the good stuff all the time thanks to intermediaries of discovery

This is hardly a strong argument, as the main "intermediary of discovery" is Google, and most internet users are all too ready to give up their banking information to websites which have an official looking header on the page. Just because it worked for the web doesn't mean it'll work for Apple's AppStore.

dhh2• 16 years ago

So you'd like for the web to be put back in the box and replaced with an AOL Walled Garden of wonder? Freedom can indeed be dangerous, but I'd rather be free to hurt myself than smothered to dead by paternalism.

clawrencewenham4• 16 years ago

The existence of a restricted marketplace doesn't mean the greater internet must become just like it, as if through some kind of relative application of logic.

The internet--and the real world in general--can host a million restricted marketplaces, each designed for specific interests--and still be free in general.

Your reductio ad absurdum is suggesting that the presence of a gated community in the Hamptons means that every neighborhood ought to be gated.

glhaynes2• 16 years ago

The post you're replying to specifically said that it "worked for the web". Nobody's trying to take away the open web.

flogic2• 16 years ago

I believe that forcefully weeding out the crap is detrimental. It's hard to define crap. If a buggy app provides functionality users consider critical, is it crap? Wouldn't it be better to let it evolve into not crap?

duck• 16 years ago

I hope #5 turns out to be bigger than I think it will be, but people end up sticking with what is popular (iPhone) even when it hurts to do so.

GrandMasterBirt• 16 years ago

I been saying this ever since I first got wind of the new TOS. We went away from Windows because MS was holing a leash on us with their API lock-in. Now we're 1-up ing that with Apple's new TOS which takes the MS lock-in to a whole new level.

People say "oh but it will keep the already crap x-platform apps out" to which I say "Yes it will keep the would-be flashy x-platform POS games/crap apps out, but it will also keep out the apps that let me do my business better that run on Android / WebOS / iPhone because the developers of the TOOLS had to cater to a larger market share."

If I am making a tool that takes pictures and uploads them to my website for special needs of people running on the BlackBerry, Android, WebOS, iPhone because it has to be a compliment to my web tool there is no reason why I can't write it with minimal effort and use the iPhone store to distribute it for free with that exact goal in mind! Its not about making a wonderful iPhone app, its about doing my damn business and giving a business process convenience using the iPhone.

Not every iPhone app has to be a super innovative new way to run the world, sometimes its just a piece of crap complimentary tool that's just needed to do some grunt work easier.

glhaynes2• 16 years ago

This is exactly the thinking that Apple doesn't want going into App Store apps: "I'll just put up this good-enough piece of crap because that's all I have time/money to do." They've got a ton of businesses wanting to be on iPhone so they're willing to lose those businesses that will only put out crap. I agree with you that putting out a piece of crap might make the most sense for your business. But it's not what Apple wants for its platform.

A key thing to understand here: the existence of a platform controlled in this way increases diversity, since there are several other prospering platforms that do things differently.

davidw• 16 years ago

> Apple's new TOS which takes the MS lock-in to a whole new level.

Since the days of the Mac, Apple has always been about maximizing control. MS won because the 'settled' for the OS, whereas Apple wanted to control both the OS and the hardware. We probably wouldn't have things like Linux and FreeBSD easily available if that sort of locked-down environment had prevailed.

raganwald5• 16 years ago

Giles "Goatboy" Bowkett:

I even say (sic) DHH enter the fray, which is absurd hypocrisy, given that the first time I ever saw this guy, he was putting a giant "Fuck You" slide on a screen and explaining how he wasn't going to add features to Rails that he didn't agree with, because it was his framework, and he didn't believe that anybody who disagreed with him on that merited any other response but "fuck you". What kind of response does he think he merits from Apple?

http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-his-platform-no...

Tichy2• 16 years ago

git clone rails

raganwald5• 16 years ago

So if I understand your witty reply, what you're saying is that if you give your work product away, you are entitled to do as you please with the fruits of your labour.

However, if you develop a proprietary product, you are not entitled to do as you please with it and must accommodate the needs of those who want to do something else with it and are unable to do so because of your licensing terms.

Is that what "git clone rails" amounts to suggesting?

erichsu• 16 years ago

These are rational arguments for non-ObjC developers to be pissed at Apple. None of them are arguments for APPLE to change its policy. In the medium term it is clearly better for Apple's interests to implement 3.3.1, to maintain control over platform and encourage differentiation of its hardware (the way it makes most of its money!). In the medium term, they have more great developers than you can shake a stick at, so they won't cry about losing a few thousand more.

The only real argument that makes sense is that long-term, enough developer goodwill will be lost that they will go flock to a better platform and eventually tip the balance against iOS. That certainly will not be for the next 3-5 years, which is an eternity in tech.

I am not an iOS developer nor do I own Apple stock, so I'm just calling it like I see it. In short, it's a great business decision for them and I really doubt developers will make them pay for it, either short or medium term.

statictype2• 16 years ago

I don't think anyone is arguing that this is not a good short-term business decision for apple.

What everyone is furious about is the complete lack of respect for the platform's developers.

Yes, Apple has every right to do that if they want, and developers have every right to get furious about it too.

marionogueira4• 16 years ago

isn't that the guy who likes to say "f*ck you" to the developers who use the OSS framework he created and still manages?

bad_user5• 16 years ago

In case you are serious, that quote is out of context.

He said "fuck you" in a presentation on Rails where he tried expressing that Rails is opinionated and that if Rails doesn't suit your style you're better off choosing something else instead of trying to convince core devs to switch directions (or something of the sort).

Say what you will about the guy, but he's a great salesman.

marionogueira4• 16 years ago

So Apple is also an "opinionated" vendor, so what? Not happy? Try developing for Android or something else. Really, what are the merits for this guy to complain about it given his own stand regarding Rails?

BudVVeezer2• 16 years ago

Apple's focus is and always will be: 1) Apple, 2) Marketers, 3) Users, 4) Developers, and #4 has always been a distant one at best (anyone remember the Rhapsody fiasco?) Keep that ordering in mind, the latest changes make perfect sense.

Perceval• 16 years ago

While I think putting marketers in that list is a bit trollish, I think you've hit on something that's broadly true. Developers reacted with rage to Apple's app screening process and are reacting with rage again to Apple's banning of intermediary layers/languages. Whereas Microsoft's slogan is "developers, developers, developers..." Apple's is decidedly not.

Apple prioritizes the end user experience over the developer's experience and aren't shy about rubbing that in. More than that, Apple prioritizes having control over its own fate, and if developers using intermediary layers have to suffer for Apple to retain its relative autonomy then so be it.

Microsoft's philosophy has the logic: if we have all the developers, then the end users will flock to us, so we're going to cater to the developers. Apple's philosophical logic is: if we make something that 'just works' and that all the end users lust after, the developers will come to us, so we have to retain our ability to push things forward.

I'm not sure which philosophy, if either, is better overall. But it seems pretty clear which one angers developers more.

BudVVeezer2• 16 years ago

The reason I put marketers on that list (and higher than users) is because Apple sometimes goes with "shiny" things which are marketing fodder instead of things which truly improve the user experience.

But you expounded on my point nicely -- Apple and MS have different philosophies about developers.

MWinther9• 16 years ago

I would add Support Engineers along with the devs in that list. I was an AASE back in the late 90s, and working with Apple behind the scenes in the retail chain was quite the different experience than being an end user.

Of course, I firmly believe this is as it should be.

rimantas2• 16 years ago

  2) Marketers, 3) Users

3 is 2. The hype about iPhone and iPad was there before Apple said a word about these products.

kevintwohy• 16 years ago

All these arguments would be valid if Apple was in the 'being a nice guy' business. But they're not.

pohl3• 16 years ago

#1 is a bizarre argument. I can't weed my garden unless it is already free of weeds?

mrkurt3• 16 years ago

It would be more like taking out flowers in an attempt to free your garden of weeds. :)

MWinther9• 16 years ago

Actually, rather more like saying "We won't accept another shipment of flowers mixed up with weeds until we sort the weeds from the flowers we already have."

flogic2• 16 years ago

I think it'a more "Don't claim you're weeding the garden. We know you're not."

pohl3• 16 years ago

I would say that adding terms to the document constitutes evidence of conscious weeding.

Come to think of it, so does every headline I've ever seen about an app store rejection.

clawrencewenham4• 16 years ago

They have been. Remember they expurgated all of the "sexy" apps a couple of months ago?

akeefer• 16 years ago

I think it's a reasonable argument, but it's perhaps not stated as well as it could be. It's a response to the (presumed) justification from Apple that they want to do this because cross-compiled applications are often low-quality. So the argument is that if Apple wanted to weed low-quality applications out of the app store, then they should do that based on the quality of the applications, rather than based on the implementation techniques.

Clearly, though, the fact that the app store is already flooded with low-quality applications is indicative of the fact that Apple hasn't been doing that, which makes that justification seem totally bogus: if they really cared about low-quality applications, they could have done something about it long ago without restricting cross-compilation techniques. And if they wanted to put a stop to it now, they could still do it without restricting cross-compilation.

So to extend your analogy: if you want to weed the garden, then pull the weeds already. No need to have this strange level of indirection that will result in removing only a small number of the weeds while also eliminating plenty of flowers.

tmsh• 16 years ago

> 5. For developers it’s about more than just business

I imagine Jobs might reply, 'for business it's about more than just developers'. Adobe's proprietary attempt at creating a cross-platform layer is thwarted. And Apple counts on having enough developers for new apps who already have a background in (or are willing to learn or relearn) Objective-C, C, C++ and JavaScript. It's simple and pragmatic.

That said, I'm a developer and I generally only use FOSS products for software. But I give Steve Jobs and his advisors more and more credit for business intelligence.

A lot of these comments are about Android. Could be that Apple learned from Sun's mistakes, whereas Google wasn't old enough to be around for the full cycle of that. I love Lua and Scheme. I wouldn't be surprised if senior engineers at Apple also love various different VMs, etc. And yet they would fully support this strategic move by Apple.

Why? Steve Jobs' genius has less to do with his douchey presentations and more to do with seeing the big picture dozens of business quarters before everyone else. When you've been seeing that far ahead for three decades, and have all the experience and confidence from succeeding with that like fourteen times, controversial decisions like with Section 3.3.1 aren't as difficult. They are one of 50 decisions that you've made 6 months ago with many different things in mind that won't be released to the public for quite some time -- many of them involving hardly black-and-white tradeoffs (see the Wikipedia entry for Jobs quoting Wayne Gretzky).

Apple has a model that works for them. And free software, free digital rights management, openness -- if it gets in the way of their business strategy, by default they're going to plan around it.

If you really want Apple to change their policy, get the CEOs of businesses who develop apps to voice concern to Jobs. Show that Flash and Lua and Mono or whatever are mature enough technologies from a business standpoint. Make the argument that it's too much of a gamble for the iPhone/iPad 3GS to be without flash support with other tablets on the rise. (Apple is of course betting on HTML5 pretty heavily.)

I guess my point is that: 'Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy' is a good start. But those are mostly developer-based arguments. As a developer whose not in the embedded space, I have no idea what the business strategy arguments would be. But as a developer, I know when a client's use of a library's interface is slighty off. Or something like that. Maybe I don't even know that. Anyhoo.

wrinklz• 16 years ago

Finally a rational analysis of the iPad developer agreement.

adnam• 16 years ago

I liked the comment: "Apple is like Venezuela"

jpcx01• 16 years ago

Extremely well reasoned I think. Much more persuasive than my screeching rants on the subject in the last few days.

Nice work DHH!

Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

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