
Serious doubts about the App Store - mcav
http://www.marco.org/143265621
======
silencio
Wow, he hits the nail on every major sore spot, although I think I would have
mentioned the iPhone Developer program portal as a huge issue as well,
especially the 100 device/membership/year limitation and the way it was
implemented.

It's quite frustrating to _want_ to spend more time on iPhone development but
hitting a brick wall everywhere because Apple just doesn't seem to really care
about making the experience better. And it's really saddening because their
engineers are clearly awesome folks I love to have a drink with or talk to,
but they just can't help much. WWDC, despite the one disastrous app store
session, was the only chance I and many other developers got to personally
hound engineers we didn't know to fix/workaround a lot of issues that nobody
cared about. My one single problem (big enough that we couldn't ship the app
until it was fixed) that was lounging in ADC and DTS support hell for _months_
was fixed in under 1 hour (most of that waiting) by a single very awesome
person there. Some of these things just shouldn't be waiting as long as a year
for the one week in the year WWDC happens, but I guess we just have to live
with it. I'd even pay more to get these problems fixed. But some of them have
existed for...well...a year now. And new problems keep popping up that make me
want to rip my hair out (like 17+ ratings for all apps with built in browsers
and similar? what the hell!).

I've heard about and seen experiences with other mobile platforms that are
equally as bad, but it's really disappointing when Apple comes out with this
phone that changes the smartphone market but then just keeps this backwards
and nonsensical attitude towards developers.

~~~
drewcrawford
> Apple just doesn't seem to really care about making the experience better

They do. They're just not moving fast enough to please everybody.

Case in point: For months, ad-hoc distribution would fail unless you made up a
config file with a special key (get-task-allow), fed it through gcc, and
attached it to Xcode via some bizarre build settings. Just recently, this
trick became documented in the official "how to build things" manual, even
though ad-hoc builds have been broken without it since forever. (Also, nobody
seems to know what exactly get-task-allow does, although there are reports
that it maybe affects debugging. Somehow.)

For months, you had to put exactly the right incantation into the bundle
identifier in order for things to sign correctly. Maybe you have to put in the
part before the first period, or maybe you put in the part after. (Wait, you
didn't include a period? Wait, not period, you're supposed to include an
asterisk in there. WTF Apple added a period !? Wait, you expected a Unicode
character to work just because that was how it was documented?) Maybe Xcode
doesn't tell you when you've done it wrong. Maybe iTunes connect doesn't tell
you when you've done it wrong, and you get an app rejected because the
documentation is fail. This has all since been fixed, although it's still more
complicated than it should be.

The iPhone is just a series of secret handshakes, and everybody winks very
hard. If you are okay with that, and are okay with searching the forums for
undocumented Apple bugs every few days, you will be fine, and possibly make
lots of money, because there are lots of people who are not willing to wink
hard and look the other way, and so you can bill $150/hr.

Don't get me wrong, I get angry too, and have little fits of rage at Apple for
some stupid, stupid problem. But at the end of the day, I get a pretty good
check for not much work, I write things that I'm proud of, and occasionally
Apple fixes their bugs. Good project, good paycheck, good stack: pick two.

~~~
silencio
> They do. They're just not moving fast enough to please everybody....

Problems with adhoc and provisioning in general were somewhat understandable
and are (sorta) being fixed and documented all over the place, which is not
what I have a gripe with minus the occasional issue that makes me want to rip
my hair out and wonder why it's not any better. It's that situations change
and then Apple announces some arbitrary change with seemingly good intentions
but with disastrous effect on apps in the store now. You see things like the
change where any app with UGC should now be rated 17+ lest Apple reject
updates until you change it to 17+...who on earth thought that was a good
idea?

So then when I do have this occasional issue that makes me want to rip my hair
out, combined with all these new problems that arise _and_ that nobody at ADC
is particularly helpful when problems do arise (I _still_ have unanswered
emails to Apple that are over a year old), I wonder if I'm being paid enough
to deal with this :)

------
rgrieselhuber
Pardon my ignorance, but is there anything preventing people from installing
apps without going through the App Store?

~~~
allenbrunson
the only legitimate way to install iPhone apps is through apple's own app
store. you can go the jailbreak route, but that's dodgy and error-prone, and
you'd only be targeting the fringe that way.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
It sounds like this is the area where developers are going to have to innovate
if they don't like working under the App Store's conditions.

------
andrewljohnson
See my post from yesterday, it's pertinent...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=707050>

------
3jsfkjhsdfjsdfj
From the post:

"Because it’s working for them. They’re making a killing taking their 30%
commission on the 1.5 billion copies of $0.99 top-25 games that they’ve sold.
Who cares if the App Store discourages good developers from putting serious
effort into it? Apple doesn’t need to care. And, clearly, they don’t."

Yes, it's working for them. They are making money hand over fist. They don't
care about developers because it's not in their interest to care. I know an
app store dev with a top 100 app and he makes $5/day. The top 10 apps are
making their authors rich and the rest of the apps are just trying to win that
lotto.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
Top 100 in his category? Or top 100 overall? I find that impossible to believe
overall, and not surprising by category. There are a lot of less popular
categories.

------
ajg1977
As much as it sucks, I do see the reasoning behind giving apps with internet-
content an adult rating.

While it's true that Safari, Youtube, and even Mail can be used to access
unsavory material the difference is these apps can be restricted by parents,
individual third-party apps cannot.

Aside from having parents block all third-party apps, which neither Apple nor
developers want, the only option is to have a "your kid could potentially
access adult content" rating.

Everything else in this article is fair comment though. If Microsoft/RIM/Palm
get their act together I can easily see many developers defect.

~~~
silencio
If that was the label that went on the 17+ apps that are 17+ for _third party
content_ that would be fine - like for apps that would get a rating like 4+
otherwise. But it's not. Check out <http://itunes.com/app/downloader> for an
example. The 17+ label for apps with mature content in the app and the 17+
apps rated as such for _possible access_ to mature content are not even the
same - at least the former is labeled only for the kind of content that is in
the app, not the whole free-for-all.

...not to say that the 17+ rating should serve as the rating for "there might
be adult-themed third party content", but that maybe apple should have one
rating for the app itself and then a warning for the third party content...and
a whole section in parental controls to enable/disable these particular apps
with these warnings instead.

~~~
metachor
Alternatively, I wonder if Apple could put a hook into the iPhone's browser
api such that any use of a browser in third-party apps can be restricted from
parental controls.

~~~
silencio
Unfortunately the browser isn't the only place to access user-generated
content. Take for example a Twitter client, just by nature of being a Twitter
client and _theoretically_ having access to the public timeline with mature
content is enough to get a 17+ rating. Or...name any app that would need a
browser built-in, presumably because the user would come across many links
while using the app (and of course the dev wants to provide a better user
experience via not having to quit the application)...where would the links
come from? It wouldn't be just the browser that needs restricted.

------
smikhanov
As far as AppStore is the shortest way from developer to paying customer and
iPhone outsells any similar mobile platform (more than 20M iPhones sold vs. 1M
of Android phones and <0.5M of Palm Pres) this will continue.

~~~
forgotmypasswd
Probably, but I'd expect some part-time developers to defect just to have a
better experience. It's not like everyone makes a ton of money on the App
Store anyway. It took me significant frustration and annoyance to get my app
out, only to have 100 people buy it. If there was a mobile platform that was
fun to develop for, I'd switch to it immediately and make stuff there.

~~~
jasongullickson
I don't know about other developers, but "defect" might be the wrong word. At
any given moment, I'm developing for at least 3-5 different platforms, so
adding another mobile one, in addition to the iPhone, would make more sense
than ditching one for the other.

...maybe it would even help get an app approved faster, if it was a hit on
another platform first?

------
conorgil145
It is really a shame that all of these issues exist around such an amazing
piece of technology. I am avoiding creating an app for the iPhone because I
flat out don't like the fact that they have the final say in what users can
get on their phone.

The device is a mobile computer and I can install any program I want on my
laptop so why shouldn't I be allowed to install anything I want on my iPhone?

The only way I can see of this changing is for the users to change their
opinion and side with developers. Only, then will Apple be forced to change
anything. I hope that users realize how much they could benefit from more apps
from more developers and less Apple control.

Until then I will start looking into Android...

------
drawkbox
While most of the points may be valid.

"Almost no app updates were approved during the entire month of June with no
explanation."

This is because they were launching 3.0 and all apps needed to be capable of
running on OS 3.0.

------
mitjak
It really makes one wonder why an alternative to the App Store hasn't sprung
up yet, and I don't mean Cydia.

It will of course be popular among the geeks first, but hey, how else have
most of the web applications started out?

Bring on the democracy!

~~~
Andys
Apple don't allow that.

You aren't allowed to make an app that allows other apps to be installed. The
App Store is the one and only way to install apps, forever.

------
torpor
I have pretty much given up on iPhone development .. for now. Hopefully things
will change, but when I compare the experience of gathering 10,000 users on
Android in a single release after an hour, with waiting for Apples blessing
for weeks and weeks, I'll take the former, thanks.

The nail on the head issue is this: Apple are making buck$ from all this. They
don't care a damn. Android, well .. Google may have its nefarious plans for us
all, data-wise, but at least I have a lot more control, as a developer, over
what happens. And frankly, I think the feedback cycle with Android users has
been a much more positive one than with the iPhone crowd.

I sure hope Apple loosen up a little, though I won't be counting on it. I'll
just focus on Android as my primary platform for now. Its better for me, and
better for my users: and thats what really matters.

~~~
Andys
If freedom is what you want, the android has plenty of it.

While Apple prevents any sort of app that provides a runtime or scripting
language, Google developers have released something that lets you code Android
apps on the phone itself in real time in a selection of different scripting
languages.

The contrast is stark.

~~~
elai
You can code your app in whatever scripting language you want, but it can't
download and execute code arbitrarily. For example, the unity game engine for
iPhone uses mono & C#/javascript for all it's game programming/scripting. But
when you use the app, the app doesn't act as a player but as a standalone
application.

~~~
cesare
This is a quite common misunderstanding among iPhone developers.

For instance, I'm starting to use TinyScheme embedded in my code. Pretty
sweet.

