App Store: I'm out

http://speirs.org/2008/09/12/app-store-im-out/

by joshstaiger • 18 years ago

123 78 18 years ago

> Loudly and conspicuously hire an App Store Evangelist

I agree, but I'd be surprised if we see it happen. Evangelists are needed all over the place and yet so few companies bother to hire any or attempt any serious relationships on social media and the like. Apple are also not known for their openness in situations like this. A lack of information gives them some sort of advantage, I guess.

liscio• 18 years ago

Apple has other evangelists on the payroll already. Some examples: User Interface, Graphics and Media, Developer Tools, Frameworks.

These evangelists have often helped developers shed more light on bugs against Mac OS X which are blocking the shipping of apps. Also, they're often a great first-line contact at Apple for getting help from Apple's engineers outside of WWDC.

To get an additional App Store contact that could field developers' questions about apps that have been rejected with little or no explanation would be nice.

The small group of evangelists Apple already has on the payroll is spread quite thinly between their Mac OS X, and now iPhone, responsibilities as it is.

I suspect developers are already talking their ears off about App Store issues, and I bet Fraser's wish could likely come true eventually. Whether it's in the form of a separate App Store evangelist, or a new iPhone-specific team of evangelists that can also help with shedding light on the App Store process, it'd be a huge improvement.

curiousgeorge• 18 years ago

I know of applications that have been rejected not because they sucked, but because they were similar to ones that already existed.

It's bad for long-term innovation, but maybe it's good for the platform by not confusing users. I personally feel it's legitimate for open platforms to arbitrarily restrict default visibility, but not for them to restrict distribution.

falsestprophet• 18 years ago

I too refuse to write for the App Store until an evangelist is hired!

rokhayakebe5• 18 years ago

Anytime your work needs approval to be live, you are in big trouble.

The problem is not Apple. The issue is the mobile industry. Everyone screams the Iphone is an open platform, but if you truly look at it, it is not significantly different.

You still have to go to an approval process and your application cannot compete with any Apple applications or future applications.

tptacek2• 18 years ago

Carriers had nothing to do with this decision, just like they didn't kill "pull my finger" app.

rokhayakebe5• 18 years ago

I was not reffering to this particular case. I was reffering to applications being shut down left and right by Apple, T-Mobile, Blackberry etc...

The mobile industry roadmap is fundamentally hard to comprehend and if you play it in long enough you will not be surprised when Apple shuts down app A or app B because you knew from the get go that this illusion of the Iphone being open is just that.

martythemaniak4• 18 years ago

You're wrong, it is Apple. And not only are you wrong, you are provably wrong.

Go ahead and write a pull-my-finger app for one of Apple's competitors (Blackberry or WinMo) and no one will stop you from releasing it on your target devices.

rokhayakebe5• 18 years ago

The problem is not apple. The problem is the entire mobile industry

About 5 years ago I set out to do my first mobile startup. Using RSS to SMS to provide near real time traffic updates. In the beginning the problem was to get a shortcode and SMS gateway provider. No possible way for a startup with little money to directly hook to the carrier gateway.

Then I said forget it, let's morphe it a bit and distribute games for small time developers. Cool. I already knew about 6 or 7 games developers who committed to let the startup distribute their games, but we quickly found the pain because some carriers did not allow downloads unless you went thorugh their certification program.

I also built a mobile marketing tool to help merchants geo-target their offerings. Cool. But qucikly enough you find that you have to continuously pay for each SMS, hence there was no sealing (at least not at the stage I was in) and you had to depend on a third party that can shut you down at any given time. Heck even Twitter had its service turned down by T-mobile for a short amount of time.

Anyway you go in the mobile industry, save one, you are dealing with restrictions. That is why I am saying the problem is not JUST Apple. It is the industry in general. If you create apps you will sooner or later hit a barrier. In one case the barrier will be Apple, in an other it will be your SMS gateway provider, in an other it will be T-Mobile, in another it will be BlackBerry certificates.

That is not to say there is no way around. There are applications that are truly independent of carrier rules or mobile platforms. Applications that you write once and they work on every cell phones, every carrier. It is just that developers want to bet on their apps being approved all the way to the top, or they think that if they hit a tiny 1% of the market they will make it big.

ks• 18 years ago

You don't need approval for Symbian, Java or Windows Mobile applications. I doubt anyone would develop for Symbian if the only way to install applications was through a "Nokia store".

I'm not saying that what Apple does is bad, because a company can do whatever they want (so long as they're not a de facto monopoly). But it seems to be more of an Apple problem, and not a problem with the mobile industry.

jmtame2• 18 years ago

After the first paragraph of reading this, all I could think of was "holy crap, this person has really just written every excuse in the book NOT to write iPhone apps."

There are a million excuses to not diet and exercise, to not do a startup, and to not do anything in life. Your job as an entrepreneur is to work around the obstacles. Give Apple an app that they can't afford to reject. Don't do anything stupid that would cause your app to get rejected.

Yes, better rules can always be written, but your job is to deliver kick ass apps to the public. GET 'R DONE!

tptacek2• 18 years ago

This person already produced a well-known iPhone app.

allenbrunson• 18 years ago

just because someone could work around apple's restrictive rules, that doesn't mean that iphone apps are the best use of a developer's time.

it looked like a pretty good deal to me at first. possibly as big of a gold rush as the original dos days. given all the hassles and rules, i'm not nearly so enthusiastic as i once was.

benjamincanfly2• 18 years ago

You have a great go-get-'em attitude, but the issue isn't remotely similar to the question of whether or not to diet and exercise. It's more like, "Should I spend huge amounts of time and effort on diet and exercise in order to enter this bodybuilding competition, only to be disqualified at the last minute because I look too much like the competition judge's nephew?"

jmtame2• 18 years ago

I would just win the bodybuilding competition. Pretty simple.

netcan3• 18 years ago

There is a bit of truth in it. Not necessarily the comparison to a diet, but still.

Becoming indignant & saying 'I'm out' is not useful. There's a potential snag here. It is a man made snag that's unfair, unreasonable or whatever. But that doesn't mean the opportunity isn't there. It's not really more of a reason not to develop then any other reason that isn't unfair: too hard, too much competition, etc. The only difference is emotional.

DenisM• 18 years ago

Have you read past the first paragraph though? His point is that Apple's arbirtary rejection of some applications undermines confidence and will lead to there being no serious investment undertaken by third party developer. If you don't control the outcome you might as well not start the work.

samwise• 18 years ago

Their tune will change in a couple months when android comes out.

aschobel• 18 years ago

According to a Reuters September 23rd is when the first Android device comes out for T-Mobile.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/10/t-mobile-to-offer-android...

nailer2• 18 years ago

That's a really poor looking device. Regardless of the software, Android needs a design conscious handset in order to compete with Apple, HTC or RIM.

andreyf• 18 years ago

A friend who played with the new Android device say that there's no way it's comparable to the iPhone... but yes, this one device isn't what Android is about.

shimi• 18 years ago

I played with both.

Android looks like a serious threat. The big question is how will google treat the Android developers.

Phone vendors don't like developers massing around with their devices, users do like it.

The vendor that will reach the finish line first will be the one that will produce a stable product with a solid API where 3rd party software won't damage the phone performance.

If my theory is correct at the moment RIM (Blackberry) are in front.

axod2• 18 years ago

No one outside the tech world knows or cares what Android is. Unless it's on a damn sexy phone it won't make a dent.

raganwald• 18 years ago

Son! Son!! I don't understand this android thingie you're talking about: where is the hard drive?

Tichy• 18 years ago

I bet the first Android devices will be total crap.

mattmaroon5• 18 years ago

Android FTW?

dcurtis4• 18 years ago

Android FTF. I used it, and it was pretty terrible. If you think the iPhone is slow...

mattmaroon5• 18 years ago

Maybe we should give it a chance to launch and iterate a bit.

RobGR• 18 years ago

Has anyone here played with an OpenMoko ? I have examined one, but have so far avoided putting out the cash to buy one.

I have always disliked the cultist and elitist aspects of Job's company. I see Apple as no better, and possibly worse, than Gate's company.

I think, that if you are trying to make money to live the next 3 years comfortably, writing iPhone apps may be the way to go; but if you want there to be a world where your great-grand kids live comfortably writing apps for an open tri-corder from their apartments in a Stanford torus at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points, then you write apps for the OpenMoko and feed yourself with a day job.

mattmaroon5• 18 years ago

Android is like OpenMoko but with a chance that anyone will ever own a compatible handset.

fallentimes• 18 years ago

Wow - I hope Android fares better but I'm not holding my breath.

pmjordan• 18 years ago

Android (as far as I can tell) faces different hurdles, mainly operator and consumer uptake. Oh, and getting the damn thing out the door.

ashu2• 18 years ago

As for me, I hope somebody builds a spectacular killer app for jailbroken iPhones so that part of the economy gets opened up. I love my iPhone and programming for it way too much.

Also, this dude seems to belong to the typical "elitist" Mac people group. "crapware written by hobbyist students" -- WTF! A student won the official Apple competition for best Mac / iPhone app or something like it.

thorax2• 18 years ago

Well, Apple has already gotten some of our money. We purchased some Macs solely to develop an iPhone application for one of our endeavors. Now, though-- given the lag with even getting approval (so we can get to the stage of installing a test app on test phones), we're rapidly losing excitement about investing in the project.

And then there's this kicker-- once our team spends time developing it, there's a chance it won't even be allowed. Great!

He doesn't really mention in his post the fun fact that you've got to pay a fee so Apple can review/reject your app. Definitely not feeling warm and fuzzy about the investment so far.

zenspider3• 18 years ago

"He doesn't really mention in his post the fun fact that you've got to pay a fee so Apple can review/reject your app. Definitely not feeling warm and fuzzy about the investment so far."

You'd rather they get flooded with an absolute ton of crap? The fee isn't _that_ much and it separates the boys from the men, so to speak.

thorax2• 18 years ago

Nah, I'm not opposed to that, really. Ideally they'd have enough reviewers to handle that, though. A somewhat-non-profit like Mozilla handles it for Firefox extensions.

For us, the annoyance is just that we have to wait on them for multiple steps in the process when there's no guarantee they'll even post a produced app to the store.

We'll hedge our bets, though, and make a slightly useful app to see how annoying the process is, and wait for our larger app afterwards.

So far, we've been waiting over a week just to get into the program far enough to be able to legitimately put the app on our test iPhones. The app we're working on is worthless in the simulator, so to even debug it we need to get it on the phone itself. Waiting a few weeks to even debug your app is a bit demotivating. I whine here partly as a word of caution to anyone on a tight schedule.

ryan-allen• 18 years ago

We already are being flooded with absolute crap! The store is full of mostly toys and 'concept' apps. And to think you have to pay for some of those (remember the several incarnations of 'iPhone Flash Light' both paid and unpaid?). I hope Apple fail to dominate this area of the market as they treat both their end users and developers with the utmost disdain.

jonknee2• 18 years ago

The problem is they are denying apps that aren't crap and accepting ones that are. On top of that the App Store is the only way to sell your app, so if they deny your app you have no chance at success. If the app store were more like the music store and was a non-exclusive sales channel it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

martythemaniak4• 18 years ago

Apple WILL change their tune, and the more users and developers complain and pressure them, the faster they will change their tune.

We know Apple's excuses ("we can't let you have open access, because someone might bad apps and we need to protect our users from themselves") are bullshit. Their competitors have had more open SDKs for years and none of Apple's doomsday scenarios have come to pass.

I'm personally hoping that when Adroid comes out with its own app store and open platform, it will finally convince people to stop excusing Apple's behaviour.

axod2• 18 years ago

This is getting a little boring. Obviously Apple are going to reject apps that are a little too close to their existing apps, or might cause offense, or dumb down their product.

They built it, they own the ecosystem, so they get to decide.

Don't like it? Write a webapp instead.

carterschonwald• 18 years ago

I agree, complaining about it won't change it unless apple has a genuine economic incentive.

personally, I don't see whats particularly troublesome about the current policy. Granted, I'm focusing moreso on cooking up apps that are genuinely distinct in functionality to minimize the need to focus on marketing to begin with.

netcan3• 18 years ago

I'm not so sure. I think it is substantial. Duplicating the devices' core functionalities could be a substantial area of development.

It was never 100% clear that Apple would bar that. It still isn't.

henning• 18 years ago

That's stupid. If someone makes a better podcatcher than Apple for the iPhone, the iPhone does podcasting better than before which sells more iPhones, which makes Apple richer. I don't see why it's such a threat.

Any time you implement a feature for a product you have to do it in a way that can't possibly please everyone. If you let your developers implement alternative versions, it's conceivable you could get close to pleasing everyone, which makes your product better because it then covers obscure use cases that you can't afford to deal with. It becomes as if third parties are developing the product for you for free.

apu• 18 years ago

That might be the logical conclusion, but I don't think Apple sees it that way. They've never been very big on this "third-party" stuff...

zenspider3• 18 years ago

Someone is always going to bitch about apple. period.

Hypothetical example: What if apple is already working on a better podcasting app that works on the iphone, yet they _don't_ reject any apps?

Then, when their podcasting app comes out and kills off the competitors (usually because it is free--but also because they write damn good apps), then some author is going to bitch about how apple targeted them and killed their app. Sounding like that whiny sandvox guy doesn't do anyone any good.

Maybe... just maybe... this is the better alternative.

Personally, I'm going to write the quickest/smallest app I can that gets the 1.0 beta 1 idea into form. I'll apply with that. If I get accepted, great. I'll pump out a lot of releases getting it to 1.0 final. If not? I didn't lose that much time/effort.

abl• 18 years ago

Reminds me of Apple's early days, when they didn't have an easy way for third parties to license their apps, their OS ended up without quality applications, and then Windows 3.1 ate their lunch... Anyone remember AmiPro?

nailer2• 18 years ago

Bloody context. I just read 'AmiPro' as 'Am I Pro?' and thought for half a moment it was another shitty iPhone app.

ryanspahn• 18 years ago

Personally I dont care about apps! There are a flood of them now and it seems reminiscent of all the Facebook apps that flooded that network - not for the better.

I just want an Internet mobile device that provides the full net experience in the palm of my hands; FLASH & VoiP access!

jrockway3• 18 years ago

Get a Windows Mobile phone then. I routinely use Skype from mine.

ReverendBayes• 18 years ago

Apple is evil and in severe need of competition in this space. May Android provide it.

Create• 18 years ago

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that..."

The 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:

    * iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.
    * iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
    * iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.
    * iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
    * iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/why-free-software-and-app...

jrockway3• 18 years ago

Can you quit spamming this comment to every thread that mentions the iPhone?

(See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=303708 for example.)

It is especially annoying because your use of code formatting for text stretches the page and makes the other comments unreadable.

tjr• 18 years ago

I value FSF opinion, but +1 on the code formatting issue.

natrius• 18 years ago

Workaround: Install Stylish (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108) and add "pre { white-space: pre-wrap; }" for this domain.

App Store: I'm out

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