Saturday
Sep132008
App Store: I'm out.
Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 12:37AM
I will never write another iPhone application for the App Store as currently constituted*.
Writing software is a serious investment of time and energy. It also carries the opportunity cost of the other things you could have built. We live in a capitalist economy. Under capitalism, profit is the reward for economic risk. Without a reasonable expectation of profit, the sensible business-person will not invest. Without investment and risk-taking, there is no innovation.
Apple's current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle - submission to the App Store - is disastrous for investor confidence. Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren't confident, they won't invest in it. If developers - and serious developers at that - don't invest, what's the point?
You have to wonder if Apple wants the App Store to be a museum of poorly-designed nibware written by dilettante Mac OS X/iPhone OS switcher-developers and hobbyist students. That's what will happen if companies who intend to invest serious resources in bringing an original idea to the App Store are denied a reasonable level of confidence in their expectation of profit.
Some people might have given Apple a pass when they rejected the e-flatulence applications iFartz and Pull My Finger. Personally, I didn't. Half of my reasoning is that selecting for taste is the first step to censoring for business advantage. The other half of it is that, well, who can't think of a million uses for a TCP/IP-enabled whoopee cushion?
That said, Apple is now selecting for anti-competitive reasons. It came to light today that an app that will deliver a capability I really, really want was rejected by Apple because it replaces a feature in Apple's own software. The app is called Podcaster and it would allow one to update podcasts directly on the device over wifi. I sync my iPhone to my Mac Pro - should I have to go home to put a new episode on my iPhone? I'd buy that app in a heartbeat.
Do you want a store in which every app in the "Productivity" category is a to-do list manager? That's exactly what you're going to get because, without some a priori assurance that your idea will be accepted, the only way to know what Apple likes and dislikes is to look at what's already on the store. Clearly Apple can't get themselves enough of those ticky boxes, so why not do "your take" on a list of text cells and checkmarks? Much safer bet than inventing something new.
I said that I wouldn't write another iPhone app for the App Store as currently constituted. What would make me change my mind? Here are a few ideas:
[* Update: Quick clarification. "I'm out" doesn't mean I'm pulling Exposure from the store. All it means is I'm not going to invest time and money into new ideas for the iPhone until this mess is resolved. Sorry for any confusion.]
Writing software is a serious investment of time and energy. It also carries the opportunity cost of the other things you could have built. We live in a capitalist economy. Under capitalism, profit is the reward for economic risk. Without a reasonable expectation of profit, the sensible business-person will not invest. Without investment and risk-taking, there is no innovation.
Apple's current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle - submission to the App Store - is disastrous for investor confidence. Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren't confident, they won't invest in it. If developers - and serious developers at that - don't invest, what's the point?
You have to wonder if Apple wants the App Store to be a museum of poorly-designed nibware written by dilettante Mac OS X/iPhone OS switcher-developers and hobbyist students. That's what will happen if companies who intend to invest serious resources in bringing an original idea to the App Store are denied a reasonable level of confidence in their expectation of profit.
Some people might have given Apple a pass when they rejected the e-flatulence applications iFartz and Pull My Finger. Personally, I didn't. Half of my reasoning is that selecting for taste is the first step to censoring for business advantage. The other half of it is that, well, who can't think of a million uses for a TCP/IP-enabled whoopee cushion?
That said, Apple is now selecting for anti-competitive reasons. It came to light today that an app that will deliver a capability I really, really want was rejected by Apple because it replaces a feature in Apple's own software. The app is called Podcaster and it would allow one to update podcasts directly on the device over wifi. I sync my iPhone to my Mac Pro - should I have to go home to put a new episode on my iPhone? I'd buy that app in a heartbeat.
Do you want a store in which every app in the "Productivity" category is a to-do list manager? That's exactly what you're going to get because, without some a priori assurance that your idea will be accepted, the only way to know what Apple likes and dislikes is to look at what's already on the store. Clearly Apple can't get themselves enough of those ticky boxes, so why not do "your take" on a list of text cells and checkmarks? Much safer bet than inventing something new.
I said that I wouldn't write another iPhone app for the App Store as currently constituted. What would make me change my mind? Here are a few ideas:
- Publish clear and unambiguous rules for what will be accepted and what will not. I don't even care if this is a long and detailed document, but it needs to be The Rulebook from which both sides play.
- Defend those rules against external pressure from carriers (NetShare) or the media (Slasher).
- Design a process by which developers can be given official pre-approval of their idea. Possibly a general nod, possibly conditional on certain criteria. If developers are going to go and borrow money to hire talent or build out services, they need more confidence than "call us when you're done".
- Loudly and conspicuously hire an App Store Evangelist. Preferably someone with an already high profile who does not already work for Apple. In fact, it might even be best if this person was not paid by Apple but an independent developer to whom Apple would give deep access to work with the App Store team. This is an investor trust issue.
- When controversies arise, let the Evangelist get into the conversation and lay out a clear rationale for Apple's actions.
- Send the App Store Evangelist to every corner of the earth where iPhone developers gather. Unshackle them from the usual Apple constraints on public speaking. Get them on podcasts. For better or for worse, Apple has to start talking to the iPhone developer community.
[* Update: Quick clarification. "I'm out" doesn't mean I'm pulling Exposure from the store. All it means is I'm not going to invest time and money into new ideas for the iPhone until this mess is resolved. Sorry for any confusion.]
Reader Comments (54)
Well said! You are absolutely correct.
P.S. to nitpick: "priori assurance" S.P.
I wouldn't want someone to read it and take the focus off of the important message to comment on spelling. Hopefully this crosses Steve's desk.
@ABW
> I think you need to remember where you are in the pecking order of Mac developers -
> somewhere in the lower half. What right do you have to assume your coding skills are
> any more superior than those of others who have produced something like Koi Pond
> or the multitude of ToDo apps?
ABW, if you read what Frasier said you'll notice that he wasn't putting down the writers of ToDo apps. What he *did* say was that there are so many ToDo apps (just a plain fact) and if Apple wants developers to invest serious resources in bigger applications, they will have to give developers more confidence in the process.
There's nothing wrong with ToDo apps. And great! If you're looking for a ToDo app you have plenty of choice. Nevertheless, those are the kind of apps which can be written by a single person in a reasonably short period of time. The consequences of being rejected, while extremely annoying, are not going to bring a business crashing down.
Bigger apps which are written by teams are a different matter altogether. It could take a large team of people several months to write a big app. They may have borrowed money from a bank to pay their costs up front. Being rejected could be cataclysmic, especially if as in the case of the podcasting app, the only reason is that their app competed with Apple.
> If you want support for your proposals you must to get support from everyone at
> EVERY level - *and* withdraw your Exposure app from the AppStore.
Really? Must he now! Because you say so? You've already said that in your opinion Frasier is halfway down the mac food chain and yet you are treating him as if he is the leader of the free world. Make up your mind.
> Making a stand means making a stand - you’re either in or you’re not.
Err... no, not really. Making a stand means doing what you can with the resources available to you.
> As we all know you won’t do that as it would stop a source of income for you -
And what about the legal issues regarding customers who have already bought his app? Is he supposed to just dump them at a moment's notice?
> pity, as I did have respect for you at one stage
Not having your respect could be considered to be a badge of honour.
Are you a ToDo app writer by any chance?
James, you're not exactly helping this man's case by lobbing personal attacks at commenters. And by the way, when you say that "making a stand means doing what you can with the resources available to you", pulling his app is fully within his resources. Also, I believe that part of Apple's ToS for the App Store indicates that products are sold as-is and developers, as well as Apple, are under no obligation to provide additional individualized support. So really, pulling the app IS a resource that is available to him. Is he going to do it, though? No, obviously not, he's already indicated as such. I certainly don't blame him, he worked hard on the program, but I can also understand why people would think that Fraser can't stick by his convictions about the App Store when he's still collecting money from it. If he's still supporting Apple's system, then all the words in the world mean nothing to some people, and you have to understand and respect that people are going to find it unacceptable that Fraser is biting the hand that feeds him.
To those that believe Podcaster was removed because of bandwidth problems: setting aside technical debates about the ability of the network to handle the load, etc, all you've done is introduce more uncertainty into the developer's world. Apple said it was because of duplicated functionality. Now we as a community are starting to wonder if it has to do with bandwidth load.
If I were thinking about starting to write an app, now I have to ponder: do I overlap with iTunes in some way? Do I require a lot of bandwidth? What reason do I believe? Frasier's essential point has nothing to do with Apple's rights, or censorship, it has to do with developers' perception of risk. What are the chances his app will be approved once it is done?
The debate here between iTunes overlap and bandwidth consumption is simply illustrating the point: different developers are interpreting Apple's actions differently, meaning different developers would make different decisions about the apps they would bet on being approved.
None of this is good for the health of the iPhone app ecosystem.
fuck apple!
So, who's writing a competing app store ?
Please send this directly to Steve and report back on his response.
I have purchased the book "iPhone Open Application Development" and will only be producing apps for hacked iPhones. I will join other apps like Video Recorder 3G, Snapture, iLog (sp?), and a variety of awesome apps that violate apple's "rules" but make my iPhone so much better. Also, the above apps all are shareware, where you can purchase a real license and activate it on the phone without a middleman.
Thanks everyone. I think we've mined this topic as far as is worthwhile. Please feel free to follow up on your own blog and link here. I'll see it in my referrer logs.
It's interesting to note that the downturn in comment quality almost exactly coincides with the point at which this post started getting a lot of traffic from Reddit.
*click*
One of the biggest benefit of webapps is no installation required. There are thousand of webapps and I have made a webapp to search all iphone apps easily on iphone. The application list is updated daily from Apple website. It includes all apps approved and rejected by Apple. It is designed specially to use on the iphone so that you can get the application you want instantly.
If you are rejected by Apple to list your application, you can submit your iphone webapps at http://ipoh.blogdns.com/. It is 100% free and searchable. Please make an introduction to your work at the forum.
All are welcome!
I hope you'll throw your talents into Android app development.
Its little more than a year now for me while working with iPhone, no doubt i love the device Apple has come up with, now my frustration is same as yours, Apple have strictly reduced possibilities that their hardware can let us explore and rejection based on reasons unknown
So, is there any thing we can do or simply accept the fact and move along or move on with different platform.
So here ie is 2010. I have a great (I'm not telling) app to write for a platform I know nothing of and care nothing about and the first thing I find is not information on how to create this great new app but a fight over a distribution channel? It is always the same, if it is a hareware product (think IBM) the software on a machine level is solid but the apps, well. Then you have software that does not work (think MS) well on the hardware.
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Yes I agree, the app store definitely has some policies that are absolutely ridiculous. Especially when they take forever to give you any sort of response. With all the money they are making I feel they could definitely step up their customer service to their developers, which in essence, as still customers.
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Yes I am too agree, the apple app store has some terms that are absolutely confusing. Especially when they take forever to give you any sort of response. And you have to wait for a days and weeks. Thanks for info
Why does Apple have to defend itself? It's a company. Either you buy from them or you don't. If you don't the business dies and it goes away. Simple market forces. Why demand of Apple things you are not demanding of EVERY OTHER BUSINESS IN THE WORLD? It's idiotic in concept and idiotic in practice. A company by definition exists to make money. That's it. Take that away, and you can affect change. Why don't all these Apple bashers simply create a 'new and improved" Apple-like company that avoids all the evils of Apple? Make the new hardware and apps. You know all the faults to avoid. Just do it. Put up or shut up, I say.
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