

Google Outsells, but Apple Cultivates Loyalty of App Developers - sew
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/technology/companies/apple-keeps-loyalty-of-mobile-app-developers.html?src=twrhp

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revelation
It seems that the hard facts continue to rain on the parade for the writers of
this NYT piece, to the point where they cite some tech writers blog on
Schmidts failures and have a bunch of unnamed "sources" attest to Apples
"eyecatching new 3-d map service".

Only to top it all off with a paragraph on one developers tough love
relationship with Apples "hands-on approach to approving software" (read:
anticompetitive, arbitrariness).

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rprasad
It's common knowledge that all of the NY Times' tech bloggers have meaningful
stakes in Apple stock. They claim that it does not affect their reviews, but
I've seen yesmen who are less obsequiously fawning than "writers" like Pogue.

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soup10
Apple's store is terrible too, a couple random thoughts as to why:

The only way to find apps is the top-selling charts. Which means there is
extremely strong downward pressure on pricing(since the charts are sorted by
volume not gross), and any app which is not mass-market and cheap enough to
hit the charts is going to have trouble.

There is no way to demo apps, seriously what the fuck.

The market is essentially a free-for-all, apple does a little bit of quality
control, but essentially you have no idea what to expect when you download an
app.

Apple is extremely restrictive and ambiguous about the types of apps it
allows, if something is borderline it's not worth developing because apple
could reject you depending on what kind of mood the reviewers are in.

If apple is serious about selling app's it needs to be more proactive and do
things like a publisher would.

Take notes from Steam: -Much more and better curation -Much better
communication with developers -Sanity in pricing -Sales/bundles and assistance
with marketing -More exposure and ways to discover niche apps

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mikenon
"It is difficult to say whether Apple’s position with developers will remain
strong if Android continues to gobble market share. But various surveys have
tried to gauge which smartphones developers plan to write apps for in the near
future, and the iPhone often scores very high."

I don't know what surveys the authors are referring to, as they don't list
sources, but I doubt multiple surveys are needed to deduce mobile developers
are interested in the iPhone.

