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Editorial

Editorial - Apple's Treatment of Some iPhone Developers is Unwise

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 5:00 PM - by

At first, Apple rejected an iPhone application because it competed with them. Next, Apple rejected an app because it duplicated functionality. Yesterday, it was revealed that the contents of Apple's rejection letter falls under the NDA so that iPhone developers can't publicly complain about the vagueness of Apple's decision process. It's all very unwise.

Apple's opaqueness about the whole App Store publishing process and the rules has gotten out of hand. The feeling in the community is that legal action is the next step, but not just by developers. The actions of Apple could soon result in scrutiny by the government.

Worse, the whole issue is smoldering on the Internet as people who thought that because Apple was a charming company with excellent products it wouldn't abuse its power.

It's gotten so bad that irony and sarcasm are bubbling up. Many Apple customers and writers are extremely experienced at poking fun at Microsoft. If that collective talent gets turned on Apple, the results will get ugly, and soon that atmosphere will degenerate into bitterness and internecine warfare.

Wil Shipley, a software author for the Delicious Monster, wrote on Monday: "I have to be clear: it simply will not stand for Apple to prevent applications on the iPhone from competing with Apple's own applications. Besides chasing away all decent developers, besides hurting their customers by stifling competition and innovation, besides it simply being evil, it will, shortly, be illegal."

One of my observations in life is that no one changes strong personal convictions except by the influence of someone considered a social superior. Equals and inferiors don't make the cut. In this unfortunate case, that socially superior person may have to be a federal judge.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 24, 2008 5:50 pm

Developers wouldn't go near Mac products for years because they deemed it beneath them.

Macs got popular. iPhones appear. Developers want a piece of the pie. In fact, they want to dictate what goes INTO the Apple Pie.

Well, here's a little cheese to go with that whine.

I'm not apologizing for Apple. I could care a less. But it's more than a little disingenuous to bite the hand that feeds you.

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Hamourabi said:

member since 12 Feb 2006 with 1046 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:12 pm

I usually think your opinions are quite wise about the techo-socio workings of the Apple engineering ecosystem.

But there it seems to me you are getting out of your rocker I guess because of some personal ressent.

Apple give a generous share of the iPhone to developpers (much better than the competition).

And Apple lives in a very difficult and dangerous competitive environment and is right to be very cautious.

And here John a good read for you Resolved: Apple is right to curate the App Store

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rpaege said:

member since 16 Dec 2005 with 96 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:35 pm

"Apple's opaqueness about the whole App Store publishing process and the rules has gotten out of hand. The feeling in the community is that legal action is the next step, but not just by developers. The actions of Apple could soon result in scrutiny by the government. "

Bollocks. Could, may, maybe. If you're not an expert, please refrain from speculating on the legality of the situation. This is just trolling unless you ACTUALLY KNOW something. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean a damn thing.

While I don't wish to defend Apple's "opaqueness", I don't want wish to read careless, speculative drivel either. If you don't know just admit it and stop with the "could" baloney. If you DO know something, and that would be news, then be transparent about it lest you be labelled a hypocrite.

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BurmaYank said:

member since 22 Oct 2003 with 27 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 24, 2008 9:37 pm

Tiger wrote:
... I'm not apologizing for Apple. I could care a less. But it's more than a little disingenuous to bite the hand that feeds you.

Biting Apple's hand here may seem disingenuous to Tiger, Hamourabi & rpaege, but to me as a longtime devoted Mac partisan, biting Apple's clearly overweaning hand is a very necessary "tough-love" intervention to help save Apple from its dangerous hubris.

Bravo for your excellent opinion, John.

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deasys said:

member since 08 Apr 2003 with 296 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:25 am

Quote:
The feeling in the community is that legal action is the next step, but not just by developers.

Yes, they're all outraged. That must explain why there are now 4,000 touch-platform applications available after just 2 and half months.

Ridiculous.

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BurmaYank said:

member since 22 Oct 2003 with 27 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:36 am

deasys wrote:
Quote:
The feeling in the community is that legal action is the next step, but not just by developers.

Yes, they're all outraged. That must explain why there are now 4,000 touch-platform applications available after just 2 and half months.

Ridiculous.

Time will tell if "... they're all outraged" or not - if the rate of new platform applications available in the next 2 and half months has or has not decellerated post-Apple's apparently competition/innovation-stifling actions these last few weeks.

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daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:18 am

Hamourabi wrote:

Apple give a generous share of the iPhone to developpers (much better than the competition).

And Apple lives in a very difficult and dangerous competitive environment and is right to be very cautious.

Um, exactly which competition are you referring to? RIM has had a wide open development kit for BlackBerries for years now. There are literally millions of applications available for the BlackBerry, everything from remote computer access to texas hold'em is available in application form for the BlackBerry. Yahoo, MSN, and Google all offer BlackBerry applications that offer push email service, a direct competition to RIM's main feature on the BlackBerry. Google and Live offer map service that is in direct competition to RIM's own map service. They all offer instant messaging applications that are in direct competition to RIM's own instant messanger. Yet not once has RIM come out and said "You can't compete with what we choose to do on the BlackBerry" to it's software development partners.

I know Windows Mobile is a wide open platform for software development as is Android, and I'm pretty sure Symbian is too. So, which one of Apple's competitors is going around telling people they can't install third party apps on their phones?

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:11 am

Yeah, let's compare Blackberry to iPhone.

RIM has repeatedly refused to open up the Blackberry to the Mac community. I know, I tried. Several times. The response was in effect "not worth our time."

Apple on the other hand is working with developers regardless of their platform preference.

And maybe Apple is right to be a bit cautious and controlling of the developer environment. It certainly isn't helping Palm that their environment is wide open, is it? They're dropping market share faster than Gateway's stock did.

Face it, not everybody is going to be happy. Especially not 2.5 months into the process. Let's review this discussion after a year and see where it stands then. It's obvious many developers have found a way to use the system and make bundles of money (wasn't it last week that one said he'd made $250k in just the first two months?)

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:49 pm

It's pointless to try to control all access to a computer platform. Like DRM on DVDs and iTunes purchases, and other stuff, this too will fail.

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daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:21 pm

Tiger wrote:
Yeah, let's compare Blackberry to iPhone.

RIM has repeatedly refused to open up the Blackberry to the Mac community. I know, I tried. Several times. The response was in effect "not worth our time."

Apple on the other hand is working with developers regardless of their platform preference.

And maybe Apple is right to be a bit cautious and controlling of the developer environment. It certainly isn't helping Palm that their environment is wide open, is it? They're dropping market share faster than Gateway's stock did.

Face it, not everybody is going to be happy. Especially not 2.5 months into the process. Let's review this discussion after a year and see where it stands then. It's obvious many developers have found a way to use the system and make bundles of money (wasn't it last week that one said he'd made $250k in just the first two months?)

Let me get this straight. Your response to the open development of software for the BlackBerry is to say that it is closed to Mac's because RIM decided that it wasn't worth the resources necessary to design and implement an OS X version of the desktop manager for the BlackBerry, nor an OS X version of the BlackBerry Enterprise server?

Yea. I'm not with you on this.

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deasys said:

member since 08 Apr 2003 with 296 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:42 pm

daemon wrote:
Hamourabi wrote:

Apple give a generous share of the iPhone to developpers (much better than the competition).

And Apple lives in a very difficult and dangerous competitive environment and is right to be very cautious.

Um, exactly which competition are you referring to? RIM has had a wide open development kit for BlackBerries for years now. There are literally millions of applications available for the BlackBerry

"Literally millions?" Does 5,000 or so equal millions? Is that how you were taught math?

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daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:04 am

Not all applications for the BlackBerry are available on just one website.

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Intruder said:

member since 07 Jul 2004 with 3149 posts, TMO Mac Specialist, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:38 am

I think millions is a bit of a stretch, however.

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daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:44 am

Intruder wrote:
I think millions is a bit of a stretch, however.

Perhaps I'm out of line claiming that there are millions, but google has 439,000 hits for "blackberry application" and just one of them was http://www.bbgeeks.com/blackberry-applications/the-best-in-free-blackberry-software-8897/ . I think there's more then a couple applications for the Blackberry. And while they might not cover every conceivable need under the sun, one of third party apps is PocketMac, which allows easy syncing of your Mac with the Blackberry.

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deasys said:

member since 08 Apr 2003 with 296 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:08 pm

daemon wrote:
Intruder wrote:
I think millions is a bit of a stretch, however.

Perhaps I'm out of line claiming that there are millions, but google has 439,000 hits for "blackberry application"

Okay--good method.

Let's try the same for "iPhone application". Well, what do you know! I get 40,000,000 hits!! That means there are approximately 100 times more applications for the iPhone than for the Blackberry, right? In fact, if I try "iPhone apps" I get an additional 22.800,000 hits and for "iPhone app" another 28,100,000. Therefore, there must be 90,900,000 applications for the iPhone, or 207 times more than for the Blackberry.

I like your logic. Good thinking, daemon...

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daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:34 pm

deasys wrote:
daemon wrote:
Intruder wrote:
I think millions is a bit of a stretch, however.

Perhaps I'm out of line claiming that there are millions, but google has 439,000 hits for "blackberry application"

Okay--good method.

Let's try the same for "iPhone application". Well, what do you know! I get 40,000,000 hits!! That means there are approximately 100 times more applications for the iPhone than for the Blackberry, right? In fact, if I try "iPhone apps" I get an additional 22.800,000 hits and for "iPhone app" another 28,100,000. Therefore, there must be 90,900,000 applications for the iPhone, or 207 times more than for the Blackberry.

I like your logic. Good thinking, daemon...

Goes to show, there's a hell of lot interest in making applications available for the iPhone, a hell of a lot more than Apple is interested in allowing on the iPhone.

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