

Apple drives iPhone app developers to the brink - Quarrelsome
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/05/iphone_devs/

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jimbokun
Is this enough to short Apple?

Probably not yet, but it will be if Apple continues treating its developers
like this. This is not a question of being polite or kind to their developers,
it is a failure to meet their legal obligations as a corporation. The fact
that they see anger over a legal breach on their part as an annoyance, shows
that they are starting to think they cannot fail.

The developers are the single biggest part of Apple's competitive advantage in
this space. They know this at some level, because the commercials are about
all the cool apps you can get for your iPhone. However, I do not think they
are in such a dominant position (yet) that they can do anything they want to
their developers and not suffer any consequences. This gives their competitors
an opportunity to poach the best developers and apps for their systems, and
get back in the game. All they have to do is _actually pay_ for the apps that
are sold.

We'll see if those competitors are smart and disciplined enough to actually do
this, and whether Apple will shake off the complacency evidenced by these
actions.

As one more note, this is part of what did in the Mac. Microsoft did a better
job catering to Windows developers. Microsoft eventually screwed over their
developers, but only when they were on the verge of monopoly and it was too
late for developers to go anywhere else. I don't think iPhone is at that
point, yet.

~~~
GHFigs
_a failure to meet their legal obligations_

Does the App Store agreement actually put an upper bound on when payment will
be made? All of the similar agreements that I've seen (e.g. AdSense) only
specify an approximate date.

~~~
boucher
yes, 45 days

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haseman
Sadly, having been in the mobile industry for the past 6 years, Apple treats
its developers much better than any of the previous stores have. This isn't to
say that this kind of behavior is right, it just helps to have a little
perspective.

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icey
Do you guys think that there is getting to be enough backlash about this that
developers might start looking at targeting Android / Blackberry / some other
smartphone platform?

I know it would make me pretty nervous dedicating all my time to iPhone
development if I thought this is how Apple was going to do business.

~~~
jcl
Developers knew what they were getting into; Apple has a history of opacity
and secrecy. Look at the NDA debacle, the seemingly arbitrary app review
process, or the way they silence dissent on the forums. Developers wrote apps
knowing that Apple development is risky, and so they will continue to write
apps; there won't be significant backlash.

~~~
icey
I knew that getting an app into the store was a bit tricky, and I also knew
that the forums were... heavily moderated.

But it is a little shocking to me that huge company like Apple is playing
these sorts of games with paying people. That's something I'd expect from a
shady backroom sort of company, not a huge corporation like Apple.

~~~
lethain
I don't think there is an evidence that Apple is "playing games", they're just
inexperienced at processing and delivering payments and thus are doing a bad
job at it. As they say, never blame malice where incompetence is a sufficient
explanation.

~~~
icey
I don't personally see much difference between incompetence and malice when
they've made it seem like they really don't care all that much about their
incompetence.

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wmeredith
That sounds like Apple is really screwing up, but considering the source (The
Register) I may as well have read this in a supermarket tabloid. Is there any
other source citing problems like this?

~~~
danw
As much as The Reg likes to exaggerate, they are usually pretty accurate. In
this case they link developer discussions in forums.

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mdonahoe
Not getting paid? Wow. I wish I had that problem. I'm stuck under the $250
threshold. _sigh_

~~~
cubicle67
What's your app? Why not put it in your About section

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charlesju
I can't wait until Android becomes a threat.

~~~
andreyf
At least according to (browser usage)/(units sold), it appears there will be
_more_ of a market for (at least some kinds of) Android apps:

[http://blogs.computerworld.com/android_iphone_apple_google_m...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/android_iphone_apple_google_market_share_web_share_safari_chrome)

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badger7
It doesn't "border harassment", it is harassment. It's also perfectly
reasonable that you should be getting harassed when withholding people's
livelihoods due to your incompetence. Stop your whinging today; pay up today
(through another means, if needs be); _then_ sort your failure of a payment
system out. Anything less is a harassable offence.

~~~
pbz
I don't see how that could be anywhere near harassment. If that's the case we
all get harassed daily with hundreds of spam emails. I don't remember any
lawsuits against spammers on basis of harassment.

~~~
pohl
From reading the article, the phrase "bordering on harassment" came about when
a single individual sent 22 emails within a 2-day timespan. (Perhaps they
forgot to take their meds?) It makes no sense to compare this to a collection
of spam from various, automated sources. If I were that engineer, I'd have had
similar thoughts. I realize the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but at some
point you'd think a neuron would fire to make them ask themselves "does
sending another email this hour really help?"

~~~
andreyf
If my family's income depended on getting the money I made from Apple, I'd be
doing a lot more than sending 22 e-mails. It might be tricky if you're in
Europe, but legal action is certainly appropriate in this case.

