gdgt

This hasn't been a good week for news about the App Store. First, Joe Hewitt, the developer of the Facebook application on the iPhone (one of the most popular apps in the store) announced that he will no longer be developing on the iPhone due to Apple's horrible policies regarding the App Store.

On TechCrunch, Hewitt is quoted as saying, "My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

And today, Rogue Amoeba, the developers behind the iPhone application Speakers (and makers of many fine Mac applications) announced they are abandoning all further development on the iPhone after Apple took ***3.5 months*** to approve a simple point release for bug fixes. From their blog: "The chorus of disenchanted developers is growing and we’re adding our voices as well. Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare. The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we’re focusing on the Mac."

Frankly, I'm excited to see this happen and hope many more developers jump on board. While I really enjoy my iPhone (when it works), the App Store review process is fundamentally broken and is not conducive to innovation. Why spend countless hours and money developing an application for the iPhone when you're not even sure it will be approved in the first place (let alone in a timely matter).

Something needs to happen.

We previously discussed a similar topic to this a few months ago:
Would an App Strike work against Apple?
http://discuss.gdgt.com/apple/general/would-an-app-strik
e-work-against-apple/

Other relevant links:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/joe-hewitt-develope
r-of-facebooks-massively-popular-iphone-app-quits-the-pr
oject/
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/
http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/the-iphone-developme
nt-story-one-year-later.html
http://carpeaqua.com/2009/10/16/back-to-the-mac/

Also, XKCD weighs in:
http://xkcd.com/662/

I think soon all hell will break loose.

But the question remains, where will the devs go? My bet is Android but maybe something like Maemo, Symbian or BB could get lucky. Androids advantage is size, Maemos is language iPhone devs get C already (and Unix OSs) so there's less of a jump, WebOS might get some of the devs who have lightweight apps and like pretty interfaces.Not sure about BB, Symbian or WinMo (depends on the HD2)

I'm really happy thats happening. My gdgt list has been filled with Apple products but this attitude is just turning me away. I really liked the iPhone and rarely encountered the dropped call and signal problems.

But got fed up of Apple's control habits and did the best thing I can as a customer: stop buying their products. So I sold off my iPhone and plan on not buying any of their products until something is done about it. Not really my loss since Windows 7 isn't bad and Blackberries are far better with the communicating than most which is what I use my cell phone for.

Interesting topic. The people who decide what happens will be the consumer. Open development probably sounds nice to them but means nothing. Though if the people like us ruled Apple the App Store would be open and only a day or two of testing just to see if the app doesn't crash too much of isn't malware. But the consumer won't really notice this topic until they see a widespread wanted app be rejected.

I understand it's fashionable to bash Apple and the iPhone, that alone should worry Apple greatly. There is no better way to get a lot of hits on a blog posting than to condemn the iPhone or this and that. That being said, they do need to work on the approval process and do so soon. I am sure this all brings many hits to the developers websites as well.

I do enjoy my iPhone (which always works for me) but Apple needs to work on the PR around this all.

I'd say so. I've had an app in review for..., 36 days with no word from Apple and no way to contact them to ask why.

Competition is the answer. If there was another serious platform for developing apps on then Apple would have to fix the problem. Android might be that competitor in another 6 months or 1 year.

Unfortunately, now that Apple has so much momentum it is going to be difficult to catch up. Obviously, Google needs to be aggressive about reaching out to angry iPhone developers. Perhaps more importantly they need to be aggressive about bribing the top iPhone developers who are ambivalent about Apple's app policies.

Great applications will drive sales of Android devices and greater device sales will drive more application development, but Google will have to grease some palms to really get things started.