In July of last year, I wrote about The New Apple Walled Garden. The post was about the irony of developers and advocates who were otherwise open standards and open source champions being absolutely pro-iPhone, a platform that is closed and proprietary in every sense. Since that post, the horror that was foreshadowed by some has been realized – rejected apps, rejected apps, rejected apps. We documented the troubles here at Techcrunch and the overall response was nothing more than long comment threads, complaints, and a few wise people changing their minds. The complaints to date are from some bloggers and a small number of application developers, incidents that Apple are able to write-off as being minor, as they have a dedicated fan base and growing market share to fall back on. That was, until yesterday.
Yesterday, a high-profile iPhone developer became fed up with the nature of the platform and decided it was time to call it quits. Joe Hewitt of Facebook not only pronounced that it was time for him to move onto ‘other projects’, but had the courage to state that his reason was because of the closed nature of the iPhone platform and his frustration with the approval process. Joe is not just the guy who wrote the Facebook application, within 12 hours of the first iPhone launching he released a library for app developers to create iPhone-like applications. This was back in the first generation, when iPhone ‘applications’ were nothing more than websites. Without any documentation from Apple, and with sheer enthusiasm for the new-born platform, Joe created a library for other developers that would help them build applications that would mimic native iPhone applications built by Apple.
As somebody who downloaded the very early releases of Joe’s library, I could immediately see that most, if not all, of the first iPhone applications were built on, or at least inspired by, the iUI library he released. The credibility that Joe has and the work that he did not only inspired developers, but it gave them an easy path to developing the first generation of software for the iPhone. With the statements that Joe made yesterday, Apple has not only lost another developer that it can write-off, but has lost somebody who was an early adopter of their platform and an impetus for others.
Most iPhone and Apple fans would retort that “Apple make great products, and it is winning in a market where the consumer has free choice”. I agree that they make great products, I am writing this post on a Macbook. I was beside myself with excitement when I found out about Rhapsody, about OS X, about the new Mach kernel, about FreeBSD code being used for userland (my code is in there, somewhere). I was so enthusiastic about the second coming of Jobs that I had an email exchange with him about incorporating OpenSSL, amongst other things, when the early dev previews were out. I was totally sold, because an operating system was being built and released that combined the best of UNIX with the best of great interfaces. Finally, the open source on desktops conundrum had been solved, I cheered. The biggest non-Microsoft company had adopted what we knew was good, as a way to compete against the standard. It validated my belief in the BSD license, and I was completely spellbound and a fan (although not in the more recent fanboi sense).
It was not until the iPhone was released that I felt let down. I felt betrayed. I wanted to hack, and I wanted to do so standing on the shoulder of a giant who was gaining market, a giant who was my old friend. I hold a very strong belief in the open market, a concept which at a theoretical level is difficult to argue against. The iPhone took advantage of a market where the competition was completely clueless. It took an intelligent and smart outsider to recognize that. What has shaken my belief in the open market is that an otherwise good company can enter a market, show them how it is done – but do it in a bad way for the overall ecosystem, and at the same time win the support of people who would otherwise philosophically disagree with them, completely on the basis of that company being not-Microsoft and, well, being sexy.
I never believed that Microsoft were evil, first because as a user and developer I had a choice. Second, Microsoft gave me free tools to learn how to code. And last, despite the position Microsoft were in on the desktop they never asked me to send them my code so that they could test it against their black-box of what is ‘compliant’. Microsoft never sent me a letter to say that speech bubbles can not be used in my application. Microsoft platforms let me run whatever-the-hell voice provider I wanted. Microsoft, as far as I can recall, also never told me that I could not have a sense of humor (the ironic 1984 reference has already been done, thanks Jon). Developers today also have a choice with mobile applications, and the sooner more developers raise their blinkers and realize that the popularity of the iPhone is built on the applications they are building, the sooner we can either get rid of this mess and see Apple change, or see a new more open alternative thrive.
Hewitt’s statements, as a model iPhone developer from a large company, can be the tipping point. The only thing holding this back right now are Facebook themselves, who seem keen on preserving a business relationship and casting Hewitt off as a rogue. Facebook came out today, and in a more official capacity (ie. somebody with ‘communications’ in their title, as opposed to ‘developer’), said that “Facebook’s relationship with Apple and our commitment to the iPhone platform remain strong”, and that “There’s been a fair amount of confusion and speculation about Joe’s comments” (chuckle, chuckle) and that “Facebook has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development”. Joe is probably taking some heat from his employer right now, and he probably knew he would before he made any comment. Facebook could have simply shifted Joe to another project (Android, I hope), and many wouldn’t have noticed – but he stood up for what he believes in, and what many have been thinking, and he deserves the full support and credit from everybody who believes in transparency and free opinion, regardless of which side of the iPhone debate your opinions may reside.
If it comes down to Facebook vs iPhone, Facebook wins. If Apple hold to their position on being the gatekeeper for everything on their platform, we only win if the developers say no. An iPhone platform with applications only from Apple and no third-parties is no longer a viable platform, and no longer a device that consumers will purchase — because they are making decisions based on applications and access, not on the brand or suburb engraved on the back of it (I hope).
Facebook should recognize this and back Joe all the way. If they do, it will show that that interest of what they want to do takes precedence over what a handset manufacturer wants to do. Apple can squash small developers, but if a big developer were to set aside short-term business interest for a moment, they will win in the longer term. If only we could all do that and not be blinded, perhaps, well, the free market could work again.
That company might just be one of the rotten apples that George W. Bush Jr. used to refer to .
You have to love capitalism…
I totally agree with you there, its time for apple to speed u pthe process to no more than 2 days for gods sake it takes like 4 to 5 weeks.
I just got mine accepted after 4 weeks. Man that pissed me off.
Not as pissed of as you would’ve been if they had rejected it after 4 weeks.
Trillian has been waiting 90 days to hear anything about their app. All they get are stock responses to their queries. I’ve been waiting for a long time for this App as I find all the IM clients for iPhone substandard. This additional 90 days is an insult.
http://blog.cer...ios.com/?cat=11
Maybe some techcrunch love will help?
Agreed, please look into the Trillian issue. Several outlets did some write-ups at 60 days (and one recently at 75), but now they are at 90 days and claim to have tried emailing, calling, resubmitting, etc. They need to publicity because no one can even think of why they have been (not-officially) rejected.
I’m also trying to get #approveTrillian as a trending topic, but I don’t think enough people know about it and it’s not taking off. Oh, well. If TC could do an article and get the exposure as well, that would be GREAT!
By the way, this was an AMAZING article and I applaud what you said. I agree, Facebook should back Joe and say “no updates to the Facebook app post 3.1 until Apple gets their act together.” Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening.
If apple doesn’t have a approval process then how does one deal with viruses or worms that could make their way through apps? Security is a huge concern is it not? I don’t like the app approval process as a developer either but for the average end user its great because every app is safe. Wide open platforms have viruses, spam, and malware to deal with.
In the same way people deal with bad stuff on desktops. Somehow those things thrive without a great overseer telling us what we can use.
Your argument is that viruses and malware are the unintended consequences of an open platform. However, porn is the unintended consequence of free speech. Does that mean we ban free speech? No.
Moreover, open platforms can exist without viruses. As a PC person I hate that I am about to make this argument but, OS X has very little problems with viruses and it is an open platform.
The analogy to free speech is apt. Apple is essentially attempting to censor speech which historically never works well.
A private company choosing what to allow and not to allow on its products is hardly censorship of free speech.
Not censorship? Would you agree with that if you bought a Windows PC and were then told you couldn’t install applications that were not pre-approved by Microsoft?
this is about what a developer can -distribute- through Apple’s App Store.
Maybe a better fight would be about getting Apple to allow alternate stores (with associated liabilities) to be accessible on the iPhone.
The mass confusion about this distinction is probably one of the reasons Apple feels they are 5 years ahead of the competition. lol
Hitler sold a radio that could only receive broadcasts from his party’s radio station. I guess you don’t think that is censorship.
Good Catch. Hitler’s Radio looked a bit like a huge iPod, and naturally came with DRM-like limitations. You could jail-break it by inserting makeshift wire aerials in the back.
http://www.tran...tlers_radio.php
“Soon after achieving power the Nazis decided to introduce an affordable radio, the Volksempfänger, ” the people’s receiver”, so Nazi propaganda and approved broadcasts, consisting of news, propaganda, volkische (folk) music and classical music (the Reich Broadcasting Corporation was banned from playing populist “negroid” music such as jazz and music by Jewish composers and songwriters)”
I love that you just compared Apple to Hitler. It’s like comparing a mosquito bite to being abducted and tortured for years.
Yes, Apple’s policies are bad, but a little perspective might be in order.
Separated at Birth: Pictures of Hitler’s Radio and the iPod Classic.
http://www.tran...volksposter.jpg
http://cdn.cbsi...d-classic_1.jpg
First, the Hitler comment? Too over the top. Hitler cannot be compared to anyone, period. Anytime you resort to a hyperbolic comparison to one of the worst men in history you have lost your grasp on logic in your argument.
Second, to Bill in NYC. I never said Apple was censoring “free speech” although I did discuss free speech so I apologize for insinuating as such.
All I meant is that Apple is attempting to distinguish what is legitimate speech and what is not. Historically attempts to make such distinctions have generally failed. I think we see the same results in Apple’s approval of Mein Kampf but disapproval of somecards. The distinction over what content is acceptable is a faint gray line. If Apple continues to enforce this rule they will likely continue to alienate developers.
I think the line between virus/malware and legitimate app is a more distinct line. I suspect Apple could enforce that line with much less confusion and conflicting results. However, I may be wrong.
Finally, yes Apple has the right to do whatever it wants. But as a public company we have a right to question and discuss its business decisions. Certainly if Apple came out and said it was going to sell its iPod business to Sony it would be fair for us to discuss this as the potential downfall of what may be the most influential piece of technology in the past 10 years.
Apple’s continued insistence on enforcing this amorphous gray line of approval is no different. Many people right or wrong see this as having the potential to unseat the iPhone from its throne of dominance. Whether or not those predictions are true is a matter of dispute, and that is what we are talking about here.
Malicious apps can mostly be dealt with by the user community. If such apps are produced, they are quickly discovered and reported via forums and user reviews, then removed from their respective stores, repositories, etc. People who run these stores- Google, 3rd parties such as Handango, etc. can’t afford to get a bad reputation if these apps persist so they will eliminate them quickly when discovered. There are many sources of Android apps with no approval process such as Apple uses, yet I have never heard of anything malicious causing problems. Users and distributers can easily communicate and eliminate them if they appear.
Nobody has a problem with Apple approving applications technically. We do have a problem with them questioning their right to exist.
Facebook is bad enough API-wise, so I doubt they can really tell Apple how to be open!
This isn’t much of an issue because the iPhone SDK puts developers in a pretty tight sandbox. Apple could simply reduce the approval process to their current “don’t use undocumented private API calls” and it would mitigate this problem.
I like Apple. It is because of their closed-sense of mysterious community that makes them so damn brilliant.
So brilliant that they have to rely on work done by the open source community.
Do you program yourself? Because if you do, then you most likely have taken other people’s example code online and modified it for your own projects. Before the internet you had books to copy code from. Good developers are willing to share their expertise and are more than happy when others use it (e.g. Linus Torvalds).
As for Apple and the open source community, they also give back. They’ve put a lot of work into WebKit, which is open source and used by Google, no less, for its Chrome browser.
Boycotting development on a given platform is something application writers shouldn’t do on a political basis, but on the business interests of their employer and on the friendliness and capabilities of the APIs. What this article advocates is the opposite.
Employees are just tools for their employers. Intelligent tools perhaps, but they should just do what they’re told. After all, money is clearly a sign of wisdom. Just ask Bernie Madoff.
Look people, if it wasn’t for the iphone some of those apps would never have been built. A lot of people are making a lot of money building apps for the iphone thanks to apple. It has opened up so many opportunities for small development shops and individuals. So quit your bitching and deal with it.
I am glad someone is watching out for me, I don’t want to have to go through all the crap to find a decent app!
Just my 2 cents.
First, if it wasn’t these apps iPhone won’t be so successful. Yes it’s great and sexy but a smartphone with no extensibility? It would be doomed. So the iPhone platform NEEDS apps pretty much the same as these apps need iPhone.
Second, it’s full of craps on the App Store already even there’s a review process. However, we heard a lot of reports that interesting, innovative apps got rejected for unreasonable reasons.
Third, who’s gonna define “crap” anyway? A crap to one reviewer may not be a crap to you. It’s totally subjective. Even a fart app that makes ONE person happy deserve its place on App Store. So let the market decide which app is a crap. What Apple should do is build a better searching and rating (the current one is flawed) mechanism so that you can filter out unwanted apps easily.
As a new happy Droid user, I say let the fanboys get exactly what they want from Master Apple. No matter what, from Google Voice to this latest spat to everything in between, they don’t care. They love Apple. And as long as that’s the case, Apple, and the companies suckling at its teet, have no reason to change.
But you, I, Hewitt and others know better. We see the end-game of the App Store. But that’s what the fans want…they insist it’s great, so let them have it. We’ll take Droid and future platforms that care about engaging, NOT CONTROLLING, consumers and developers.
What’s funny is if Apple opened up the App Store tomorrow, they’ll all talk about how great it is Apple let’s them actually do whatever they want with the phone they purchased…and they’ll continue to worship. Let’s let them.
I find this whole article a bit simplistic. This platform allows probably 95% of us developer to submit our app to the world and that was just not possible before.
I agree that censorship is a bad thing and that the approval team is probably a bit overzealous and close minded sometime. But the hasty generalization making this platform and the whole company evil, soon to be deserted by developers is utterly wrong.
This platform is very young and a few issues need to be tackled. Efficient user rating, mobile security are 2 of them.
This article would have been much more interesting if it would have offered interesting ways to fix them rather than going the easy way of throwing dirt at big brother Inc
+1
By the way, Apple really oonly has an approval process to ensure it gets its 30 percent cut…..it’s a fallacy to think it’s all about protecting and preserving the user experience.
eeer… no.
the store is made for that, the review is a whole different thing.
if they wanted to, apple could just allow developers to put their apps online without any restriction and still get their 30%
I think it would be awesome if there was a group started on Facebook that encourages Facebook to back Joe Hewitt. I’d join.
they all forget about devs at some point once they get big, I am hoping that twitter will always be good to their devs
iPhone – that is not the Droid we’re looking for
Apple App Store policies are shameful. Here’s an example:
Apple has been holding up release of innovative audio mixing and playback software from startups for an unknown reasons.
All the development companies involved experienced the same behavior from Apple – Apps not getting rejected or approved, no communications regarding the delay and months, yes months since Apps were submitted for approval. My guess is that Apple hopes that these dev shops will get the point and move on without them having to reject the Apps for whatever reason they might have…
While these DJ playback Apps are on hold, Apple signs an exclusive distribution agreement with a big audio hardware company to distribute DJ mixers and software exclusively in Apple stores:
http://www.synt...-djay-software/
This is a classic anti-competitive behavior.
There’s now an Internet wide petition for Apple to stop these monopolistic practices in the DJ mixers iPhone space. See: http://www.peti...itions/iphonedj
This is exactly my problem. We were working on methods for inexpensively creating album-experience applications and Apple simply refuses to allow embedded music. Why? Confused users? Please.
The only thing that is going to work is Android picking up steam development-wise, and developer creating innovative products on the platform. Competition!
“DJ mixers iPhone space”
There is such a space? Wow, I am amazed.
How about “brown background, wet-fart app space?”
Just look at the top 50 paid and free apps on the Apple store – there are numerous DJ mixers and players in both categories. The hypocrisy here on apple’s side is that they seem to approve the crappy, cheap and buggy Apps while not approving or rejecting the serious ones that are actually usable. Go to the petition page for concrete examples.
i meant look at the to 50 paid and free apps in the music category.
That’s how I feel with Apple not approving the Trillian app. I think that, once it hits the store, it will be the TOP multi-IM service and even start beating out the native AIM and Yahoo! apps. Yet the expensive, bloated, unattractive BeeJive and IM+ keep getting update after update. Apple needs to knock it off.
This is monumental ass-hattery.
” If it comes down to Facebook vs iPhone, Facebook wins.”
facebook wins??!!!!! Over an iPhone?
What does this mean? One thing is a walled garden on the web. Another thing is a multiple protocol communications device.
Typed on an iPhone, even though TC doesn’t seem to even have a mobile version of the site … That I can find.
I will tell you why Facebook wins, but I will prepend this comment stating that ‘we’, meaning early adopters, are only a tiny percentage of the market.
When I was back home a while ago, my brothers had a party. There were a lot of people there, mostly aged 16-22 or whatever. One of the young guys who showed up had an iPhone, and it was the center of attention. As I watched on, everybody there was nuts about the new iPhone. What caught my attention was that the reason they were so intrigued was not because of feature x, y or z but because of the Facebook application – they could check their status, upload photos, and whatever else they do there – “oohhh I can get Facebook on this, watch.” 95 percernt of the ad hoc demo conducted infront of these impressionable youngsters was about the Facebook application. They couldn’t care about the Apple brand or ‘built in cupertino’, they went home to their PC’s running Windows impressed with the iPhone having a Facebook application. The same application that Joe wrote.
These people are the mass-market. The consumers who make up the bulk of sales, regardless of what we think and do.
Amendum: (only because i am an admin here and can edit comments): I should add that what we, as early adopters, can do is to say that this is wrong – that the app may be cool, but it isn’t right. It leads to a whole point about the hype of the iPhone from blogs and early adopters, which lead to mainstream hype, etc lead to a hype amongst the mass market. That leads to another point, that since almost all new technology passes through us, the early adopters, we should have the balls to say what is right or wrong, no matter how cool, or sexy it is.
A platform requires applications, and without them they are simply limited bricks. This is the future of computers not phones.
How many years do u reckon before the two will be the same?
Btw, Droid runs on 533 MHz processor and one coming out with a GHz, more CPU rate than the one that I learned computer programing on! Do u get the clue? It is heading for convergence. If something works for computers it is NOW or in NEAR FUTURE true for Phones as well.
This developer may have his principals, but business is business. His personal stance, while respectable, is just pissing in the wind.
Thx for reply.
I do agree that we as sneezers (tip: Gladwell) are the ones who help initiate the markets around new products and services.
I know FB is monumental right now and I respect this, but, it is a dangerous walled garden and they need to be on popular devices. Afterall, all the content is available on a web site.
I’d argue that Android, if anything, does more to move the market toward actual mobile web apps (that thing Apple tried in the beginning of iPhone dev) than it does to actually stir up serious throne stealing from iPhone.
To your point re: FB attraction … most people don’t have a clue about computers, the internet, or anything.
You ever tried deleting the Internet Explorer icon off of the desktop of an XP machine? It asks you something like “Are you sure you want to delete the internet” — and I’ve witnessed too many people horrified by the notion.
My point is, FB is ephemeral. We may think it’s permanent but it’s not. Same way with platforms. Just happens iPhone reached the tipping point a while ago and it’s got serious roots. One developer switching jobs at FB is not a canary in the coal mine. FB needs to be on iPhone – period.
great discussion.
Facebook is a free Web site. The iPhone is device for which people opt to sign a legal contract and pay hundreds of dollars for.
No offense to Facebook–it’s cool–but the emotional commitment of a consumer can be measured in dollars, and the iPhone scores much, much higher.
I’m also enjoying the irony of appealing to Facebook (the biggest walled garden on the Web these days) as a defender of freedom and open access.
I don’t get the facebook vs iphone thing
“If it comes down to Facebook vs iPhone, Facebook wins.”
Are you suggesting that facebook should remove its app, rally developers to the cause and protest until the censorship ends ?
that’s nice and everything but i doubt that’ll happen.
Nothing like good’old competition.
If a better platform gains more momentum, maybe things could change
Here’s how to fix the review process: There are 100,000 Apps but only the ones that are getting buzz, are viral or are getting features in the App stores get any big download numbers. Apple should cancel the review process and let ANY app into the App store. The review process should become a review process for getting featured / promoted in iTunes and can work at its own pace and not block developers. As Apps run in a sandbox, they can’t harm the system beyond Apple own security holes – which they should patch with updated to the OS / firmware. This way everybody can be happy – Apple keeps babysitting their users by only promoting / exposing for search / featuring Apps they ‘bless’ and every dev can get into the App store – at least for free Apps with in-app purchases of features
You would have millions of counterfeit apps. If you develop apps, you don’t want this to happen. Your hard work and efforts will be counterfeited before you Day One is over.
I highly doubt Joe’s taking major heat from Facebook. Management there is pretty enlightened and most likely agrees that a more open development process will benefit everyone. At the same time, there’s no way Facebook can leave the iPhone app alone.
I am familiar with Joe and others involved.
I confirm that Joe is not “taking heat” from his employer. No one is giving him any static. If anything, he got a few high-fives around the office.
At the same time, FB is not going to boycott Apple. That’s just daft.
Elliot’s press release is just because TechCrunch made a big kerfuffle out of nothing. Internally it’s a non-event: it’s an engineer passing on responsibility for a project to another engineer because he’s interested in working on other things. The tech-blog muckraking and sensationalising is irksome. We would ask you to stop, but we know that’s how you get the pageviews.
your holiness fb dev, I bow in your presence, please request that your employer send that confirmation for us to stop writing these stories and we will. sincerely, your humble observant.
fb dev 1, Nik 0 on that little exchange.
I wonder how much of this irritation with the app store would go away if the review process took only 2 working days rather than 2+ weeks.
I know the arguments are a lot more complex than that – gatekeepers, censorship, uninformative or quixotic rejections etc, but I wonder how much the pain of these thing is magnified by the massive delay.
Here’s why Apple is evil: they try to avoid bad PR by blocking Apps that they perceive as competitive with their own offerings by simply not approving them for months and not rejecting them. They do not communicate with the developers at all to avoid evidence of this policy. They do that to avoid bad PR and FCC heat. I’m 90% sure this is their policy.
There’s an obvious and distinct difference between Apple Computer (who we all loved) and Apple (the media company).
So Nik, I take it you have absolutely no problem with Facebook’s walled garden?
great argument, which, in summary is that facebook is ‘the lesser of two evils’. if we all carried the same attitude then the most evil would win. always.
I am surprised how open Facebook has been to date, considering that I can create an application there whenever I want, and have full API access to their data.
The next argument, post-iPhone, is about allowing Facebook to friend somebody who is not on facebook.com – but we will leave that till another time.
the lesser of two evils, yet don’t remember reading anything from TC calling out facebook for their walled garden. Why is that? How many negative articles about Apple have we seen on TC compared to facebook? I like TC but have given up reading anything MA writes in regards to Apple. I know how that article will go without having to read it.
as I said, one step at at a time. and my reply about ‘lesser of two evils’ applies to you as well.
saying that one thing is worse than another does not make the first thing good (there, I broke it down for you, I hope you understand now).
If I am hearing things correctly, then Facebook is the lesser of two evils [for developers] because its walls are smaller. But, one might argue that those lower walls are the reason that Facebook has had some unscrupulous developers scamming users lately. So, is the app store the lesser of two evils [for users] because it’s walls are higher?
To my question I would expect to hear a retort along the lines of “a free market is better for consumers” or “competition is better for users”, but those are arguments that deflect my question.
It sometimes seems that at least a few developers have some sort of false consciousness. Some developers say that lowering the app store bar would be better for consumers, but they are really more concerned with themselves (they are after all not making money when their apps are delayed). It is also easier to blame Apple for being slow to release patches than to admit to a deficient testing process.
The whole Apple App store approval process is completely broken.
Apple is capitalizing on the fact that the iPhone plafrom presents a unique value preposition to developers that is hard to beat today in terms of sales potential.
I’ve been building Apps for few months now and having (like many other developers I’m in contact with) an absolutely nightmarish time dealing with the App Store review team.
I’m sure that there are many more software companies and developers out there that feel exactly the same but they are afraid to speak out as they might be black-listed by Apple and their livelihood will suffer. Here are few examples of why the App Store process FAILs
1. Once you submit an App and it is in review, submitting an updated version with your critical bug fixes and last minute tweaks automatically puts you at the bottom of the queue. Yep, you heard it right. So, by the time V1.0 goes live (you never know when the App Store gods will allow it to go live), you already have v1.1 ready but customers can’t get it. Your v1.1 update may get stuck in the review limbo for 4-9 weeks and guess who suffers – your App users and your revenue. You can’t plan anything around the release dates of your App because you simply don’t know them. Can’t plan PR, marketing, etc… just pray to the App Store gods…
2. The App Store Black hole – You will typically get no response from Apple for 2-8 weeks. Yep, 2-8 weeks – no rejection, no concerns just a generic template email and silence – what a great QA process in Internet time! After 8 weeks you may get an App rejection due to this or that silly reason that is easy to fix, submit and pray once more…
3. Brand confusion – You have no way to tell which other Apps with similar names were submitted to the App store, so your App may be rejected after weeks of piling dust in the black hole just because some other shop in Taiwan submitted an App with a similar name few days before you. Isn’t this great? Now go rename your App, your domain name, marketing materials and rewrite your press releases, having fun yet?
4. Unfair advantage to big software companies – so, Wolfram Alpha can take 2 days to get approved and you need to wait 8 weeks. Why? Because it is a big software company that can help raise the iPhone profile.
5. Vanity Apps advantage – it seems that the simpler and stupider your App is, the faster it is going to take for it to go live! Many developers observed this. So, meaningful, non-trivial Apps with decent consumer value are on hold while asian boobs and flashlights go live. Lovely. The sheer amount of vanity Apps seems to clog the review process – Apple should have separate queue for Apps that took less than 1 week to develop (I estimate 80% of the submitted Apps are such) and Apple should use its 30% of Apps revenue share to double, triple and outsource some of the review tasks. It is quite clear that this team is just overwhelmed and probably mismanaged as well.
6. Deliberate community censorship – Apple has free online developers ‘community’ forums for registered iPhone developers – any rant about the review process or any negative comment about Apple will be removed from the forums silently overnight and probably get the developers into the red-list. Apple should use these censors to review more vanity Apps! In general, Apple developers are fanatic devotees so they are afraid to raise these kind of concerns anyhow.
I can go on and on, I just got started, but bottom line – monopolies are anti-competitive and suck out innovation out of software and Apple makes Stalin communications policies look innocent. The only thing that will make Apple change its attitude is Android / Windoz mobile getting more market share – so let’s hope this happens soon for the benefit of consumers and developers alike.
An anonymous iPhone App developer, now back to check if my App got approved and to pray to the App store gods.
Wow. Very good points, some I hadn’t heard before and are valid. Let’s face it, most “apps” are just web content formatted to fit the iPhone resolution. Not real applications and they have no long term value. I love apple hardware and the OS, and some of the pro applications. But I hate the way they’ve handled the iPhone for web and app store developers and I hope it comes back to bite them long term.
I sat in a session on “iPhone and iPod Touch Apps for education the other day. Interestingly, the presenter/salesman was pitching open source web-based apps over iPhone only apps. I was confused until he turned the pitch to how any school or university could easily create custom apps. However, for the necessary public accessibility, even he realized exclusive iPhone apps hurt his case. He went through iTunes U extensively, but never even mentioned to this newbie crowd how the AppStore even worked. Very odd.
What monopoly? The iPhone has less than 5% of the cell phone market. Hardly a monopoly.
monopoly on a platform were mobile developers can make a living by selling apps. No other mobile platform comes close in terms of revenue potential.
Might as well say a liqueur store owner has a monopoly over his magazine stand, and therefore can’t choose which magazines to carry. Its his stand! If he doesn’t want to carry porno magazines, its his business. Same with Apple. Nobody has a right to sell apps in the AppStore. If you think otherwise, you either disagree with having a free market, or you don’t understand what it means to have a monopoly.
Exactly. I think developers need to look up the meaning of “Store”
Write some shrink wrap software and walk up to your local Walmart and get them to stock it on the spot. Go ahead try that.
If you want “open” focus on building a web app Which is exactly what Joe said he would do.
Got a bunch of smart people acting so dumb about this.
You can sell your product to one Store, or another, or set up your own.
To develop iPhone Apps you need the SDK. The SDK’s license agreement says you can only use it to develop Applications that are distributed through the AppStore.
Because you are prohibited from building your own store or selling your apps through another one, the App-store is a monopoly.
Try writing some shrink wrap software, and selling it on the corner lot. Oh look, you can!
exactly, the corner lot is web apps
whoa!
i will not engage in an ad hominem attack, but using microsoft as an analog does not help your argument. they were evil.
i agree that the app approval process is a cluster and is arbitrary and closed. but i also believe that the tools and innovations and awesomeness of the development platform and the phone itself are pretty special.
android and its ilk will make things better, too. so can we please stop with the histrionics? the facebook app is awesome and will suffer from joe’s absence, but he’s already made a huge contribution, and will no doubt move on to other cool things in or out of facebook.
It looks like you didn’t spend the last 6 months building the next killer App for the iPhone only to be ignored and not improved by Apple for 2-3 months. Many cutting-edge developers have but most are afraid to speak out against Apple so they won’t get black listed.
I guess all developers are saints and/or innocent victims.
I really don’t understand all this continued belly-aching over Apple and their AppStore when a more than viable Android platform is sitting there staring both devs and users in the face.
That is unless you’re an Apple shareholder and you are concerned that these policies are doing irreparable harm to Apple and your investment in their stock.
Continuing to buy, use and develop for the iPhone and iPod Touch, while complaining like Apple’s App Store is a monopoly and it’s policies are fueling the end of civilization is nonsensical.
Do you want to market a product to a group of 30 million potential customers or 1 million? If Android gets a few more customers it will be a viable alternative.
1 million Android users? At least try to post something approaching serious figures if you want to have an argument.
RTFA. platforms get users because of applications.
But it’s also true that platforms get applications because of users. I don’t see Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite for FreeBSD.
Great, let the other developers quit.
Less competition.
“It was not until the iPhone was released that I felt let down. I felt betrayed. I wanted to hack, and I wanted to do so standing on the shoulder of a giant who was gaining market, a giant who was my old friend.”
Wow NiK, you really hit the nail on the head with that one. Thats how I ended up on a G1. Great article.
I couldn’t agree more! I’ve been terribly frustrated by the app approval system – I thought approval of my app would be a “no brainer.”
I’m currently a business school student at Harvard and am helping to organize its annual student-run tech conference. We convinced a developer to help us develop a simple, free app with the conference information (agenda, panelist profiles, school map etc) in an effort to save paper for programs. What could be more innocuous?
Unfortunately our app was inexplicably rejected several weeks ago and though we re-submitted within a day, we have yet to hear anything (and the conference is only a week away!) Even outreach to alumni at Apple has been ineffective.
Anyone with advice on what we can do would be much appreciated…we’re beginning to lose hope out here in Cambridge.
Make it into a webapp.
rm and create an android app.
I think other developers may follow suit.
Do Not Feed The Trolls. Thank You.
I started out on Macs – I still have my first Mac-an SE30, my second Mac-a 660av, and my last Mac-an 8500. Even though I use Windoze now I still consider myself a Mac fan. Until the last year or two that is. Today’s Apple is a very different company than what it was in the early ’90’s. It was cool back then – Jobs was one of us. Now Jobs is Mr. Greed and Apple is no better than any of the other huge Corps willing to screw their customers any time any where. Of course Apple wasn’t quite the fad back then as it is today. Back then they provided us with very cool tools to do things that you couldn’t do on any other machine. (The Amiga came very close though! – grin)
Apple simply has too much mindshare with its users at this point for a major groundswell to happen.
The developers who are getting frustrated with Apple are only a tiny, tiny fraction of the users who enjoy the apps that they can get on the iPhone and don’t know about any issues with approvals or rejections.
That pretty much sums it up.
The app developers who are protesting are like the newspapers complaining about Google. I feel for them, but either they recognize who is in charge, or they should take their ball and go home.
your time will come.
It was time for this definitely.
My iPhone contract will expire in 15 months. I expect Android to be much more developed by then. As things stand now, I will switch to an Android phone, solely because I have grown to dislike Apple. And that’s a gut feeling, which slowly builds up due to the way Apple judges apps on content, the way they (don’t) communicate, it just gives the company a sort of arrogant vibe. Even though I think they’ve made great products, I don’t want to support an arrogant brand.
I believe it is very dangerous for a brand to be associated with arrogance and “Stalinesque” behavior. Sure, the fans still probably outnumber the critics, partly because many people aren’t that tech savvy and don’t really care about the app store and it’s approval process. They just like the gadget. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But, there comes a point when the criticism can reach a critical level that will taint the brand even for the non-tech savvy people, a sort of trickle down effect. People will not necessarily understand the discussion, but once mainstream media starts to massively slam the brand for its closed environment, Apple runs the risk of becoming ‘uncool’. And that is the worst that can happen to a company. Especially if Android manages to become ‘cool’ in the meantime. I’m not saying this will happen, but I am saying that this scenario is becoming more likely every day. The more blogs and critics slam Apple, the more the chances increase of mainstream media picking up the story.
I just noticed a tiny smiley at the bottom of the page, underneath the word ‘archives’, has that always been there?
One walled garden complaining about another walled garden. How ironic!
how is Techcrunch a walled garden? please argue your point in a comment here.
boring post!
thanks Fernando, btw I hope the SEO business picks up for you next year.
“Joe is probably taking some heat from his employer right now” => that’s only “probable” if Facebook wasn’t a developer-focused company.
I do find it a bit ironic that the Facebook developer quits just as Facebook tightens control over it’s own “apps”
Perhaps Facebook would not be included in a lawsuit at the moment if it had been a bit more like Apple and focused on protecting it’s users instead of giving free reign to the developers on F8
I know there are other issues apple rejects for that are harder to swallow, like the icon rejections and the nip-slips that happen, but I think that overall, I’d rather have safety from malware/junk apps than the wild west.
by the way, I lead a company that has released an app into the app store, so I’m not speaking from lack of understanding of the process.
This is a non-issue, I hate to break it to you, but users don’t give a sh*t about this stuff. Out of the 100,000 apps on the store, how many have been rejected? I would guess less than 0.05%
It doesn’t matter how many self important developers decide to stop developing for the iPhone, it’s unstoppable.
Android is cool, I’m sure it will do very well against winmob, simbian etc. . .
This is ironic – Techcrunch is busting facebook for lack of controls while at the same time busting Apple for too many controls. Do you not think the same scams that infest facebook would infest the iphone if not for the review process?
David, its Friday-that’s bust Apple’s chops and make Facebook the good guy (or, as Nic tries to justify.. “the lesser of two evils”)
Monday is bust Facebook’s chops. Check your calendar.
Do Telecrunch really believe that 99% of any cell phone users care about “open”? Tech people want to play with the iPhone. Tech people want to play with the PC (and users regret that open ability I imagine).
Most just buy a device that does what they need.
Does telecrunch believe the average person buys an iphone, takes it home and says “damn I can’t hack this thing”? They can write an app if they want though,
The app store needs improvement for developers for submitting and status of their app. But the people using the things really don’t care or know. They certainly have apps that are doing what they want or never knew they wanted.
As in the story, facebook will abandon the iphone. Business is business. Someone else will do the work.
The guy has every right to walk away and to complain. And I can understand his frustration. But expecting a company, apple, to open their platform because a few want it too? No. Time to move on to android or windows.
I gotta love all this! All this whining and complaining about Apple and all this talk of choice with Microsoft.
You all have a choice regarding the iPhone – don’t develop for it if you don’t want to. The reasons so many people want to develop for the platform are:
1) A very large potential audience for your products (because Apple is good at what they do and people love using their stuff)
2) Because of the App Store. As a developer, it completely solves your distribution, shipping and update problem, and it’s not that expensive.
Anything with a reach this big is going to be inefficient and have rules. Someone complained it took a month to get approval. How long would it have taken to get your product listed on a bunch of other website or stocked in actual stores? (Assuming that these “someones” actually did some testing for suitability and safety?)
The cathedral versus the bazaar is an endless debate: who wins each instance depends on the person’s objective. If you’re a developer, you generally side with the open approach because it makes your job easier, faster, and more visible. If you’re a consumer, it’s easy to be swayed by Apple’s “goodness” and equally easy to not care about whether the app took 4 weeks or 10 to get to them after its release, or to not care that they can’t easily switch, or… whatever. Consumers value an object by its contribution to their lives. They don’t give a hoot about the developers’ hassles in making it or selling it. They do care about the support they get if they need it, though, and that is another reason they like to buy from Apple. Great, easy ways to get help (again, as a consumer).
People have been forecasting the death of Apple for its closed approach ever since the first Mac was released as a sealed box. Work with it, or don’t, but their philosophy wins with users because the machines deliver on their promise. And a part of that delivery revolves around Apple being able to control what happens inside the box the way it does.
The Walled Garden of Apple didn’t start with the iPhone. SJ was caught with his pants down when MS threatened to stop producing Microsoft Office for the Mac. Ever since, Apple has done whatever it could to eliminate external influences, such as -
- take away retail influence by opening Apple Stores based on data they got from their existing, loyal retailers
- kill the clone market
- making its own web browser
-purchase or develop applications for Mac OS that directly compete against its previous and current third party partners
-dramatically reduce the influence of the third party developer market by introducing xCode (ie the death of Codewarrior) and controling backwards software support by making backwards compatibility difficult with xCode
Im not saying these things do not have a benefit to some consumers, and I can understand this being in the interest of a public company to protect shareholder value. There is even significant precedent in doing this in the early console game market (Nintendo has incredible control over its platform development).
Apple is a master at keeping its fans loyal. Whenever you read Apple oriented commentary, you have to ask yourself a simple question – does all the gushing have any basis other than “Apple is doing it, so it must be great!”? That’s what the initial reaction was to 3rd party iPhone development and the App Store. Don’t you smell a fable here?
I dont think one developer’s unhappiness, even at Facebook will make any difference at all.
The Facebook stance makes such an impact these days.
Apple. How passionately I hate them.
It’s incredible how they’ve managed to lock people on to proprietary hardware and software and yet be on top.
When you buy a Mac notebook you get it’s OS.
The iPod needs iTunes and the iPhone needs the APPLE App Store (and iTunes). This is how Apple runs its fabulous business.
It’s gotten me so pissed off that I vowed never to use Apple products however good they might be.
I hope they get crushed and wither and die. I’ll be laughing at their funeral. (i know that ain’t gonna happen)
wow even haters are subject to the RDF
It most cases statistics do not support the notion that Apple is “on top”
I don’t like how long the approval process takes, or some of the silly reasons the reject apps, it should be based solely on if the app is a virus, malware or will tax the network. However I do like that there is an approval process, I can download an app from the App store and not have to worry about it being a virus.
Hi Nick,
Great read, man. Love the passion and conviction.
Fight the the Power!
One common mistake of independent developers is the lack of business understanding.
Just briefly… yes Apple has not been doing a good job to sustain the monster they created, anyway they have a good user base, and still worth effort keep developing apps to Iphone.
When looking for the smartphones userbase globally, I mean, the world outside USA, there is a huge business opportunity out there!
If we developers expand our effort to cover other platforms and stores like Nokia Ovi/Symbian, Samsung/Symbian, Google/Android, MS/Windows Mobile, it means lots of $$$!!!
Iphone has only 10% or something of the smartphone userbase, so take your apps and port for the rest of the 90%, and take the advantage that all Apple competitors are doing everything possible to catchup them, so you have a chance that your applications are approved very fast and offered to a much wider audience in the whole world.
I hope you understand my point.
It is obvious that you don’t understand jack about the business of paid mobile apps.
Why not allow users to downloaded apps via a website and/or the app store? Now that is novel concept.
As always Apple knows what is best for you.
Blah blah blah, author. You could make the same point for any of the video game consols or most apps on non smartphones. Apple isn´t going to change as long as people are happy to make apps and apps are popular. People can complain (as people always do) but in reality will do nothing because apple is making them money. The facebook guy changing projects is a blip, not a turning point. Don´t go preaching from some high horse.
One of the interesting things about the iPhone approval process is that by slowing the cycle time of development and reducing incentive it ultimately allows other platforms to catch up many many times faster.
There’s an exponential growth in the value of an application platform as it grows. That growth is a function of both time and adoption. Limiting and slowing application development may already have made a 10x difference in where the app market could have already been.
The iPhone appverse is the gold standard today but it is massively hindering its success by increasing cycle times and queue lengths for development.
I’m going to the App Store now. This discussion is getting hyperbolic, and I think I am going to finally get that Netter’s Anatomy app…
$39.99
Rated 12+?!!?!
Wow! they have all these other ones too. Musculoskeletal and Histology.
Apple is doing something right.
Oh well. This debt slave is worth $39.00 less now.