
App Store: I'm out - joshstaiger
http://speirs.org/2008/09/12/app-store-im-out/
======
thorax
Well, Apple has already gotten some of our money. We purchased some Macs
solely to develop an iPhone application for one of our endeavors. Now,
though-- given the lag with even getting approval (so we can get to the stage
of _installing_ a test app on test phones), we're rapidly losing excitement
about investing in the project.

And then there's this kicker-- once our team spends time developing it,
there's a chance it won't even be allowed. Great!

He doesn't really mention in his post the fun fact that you've got to pay a
fee so Apple can review/reject your app. Definitely not feeling warm and fuzzy
about the investment so far.

~~~
zenspider
"He doesn't really mention in his post the fun fact that you've got to pay a
fee so Apple can review/reject your app. Definitely not feeling warm and fuzzy
about the investment so far."

You'd rather they get flooded with an absolute ton of crap? The fee isn't
_that_ much and it separates the boys from the men, so to speak.

~~~
thorax
Nah, I'm not opposed to that, really. Ideally they'd have enough reviewers to
handle that, though. A somewhat-non-profit like Mozilla handles it for Firefox
extensions.

For us, the annoyance is just that we have to wait on them for multiple steps
in the process when there's no guarantee they'll even post a produced app to
the store.

We'll hedge our bets, though, and make a slightly useful app to see how
annoying the process is, and wait for our larger app afterwards.

So far, we've been waiting over a week just to get into the program far enough
to be able to legitimately put the app on our test iPhones. The app we're
working on is worthless in the simulator, so to even debug it we need to get
it on the phone itself. Waiting a few weeks to even debug your app is a bit
demotivating. I whine here partly as a word of caution to anyone on a tight
schedule.

~~~
Protophore
Wow, that's really dissapointing to hear, that you have to get approval for an
app before you can even test it on your own phone.

Do you get the impression that this is actually a stage for them to keep out
what they consider bad products or is it just a bandwith problem with their
approval process?

------
samwise
Their tune will change in a couple months when android comes out.

~~~
axod
No one outside the tech world knows or cares what Android is. Unless it's on a
damn sexy phone it won't make a dent.

~~~
raganwald
Son! Son!! I don't understand this android thingie you're talking about:
_where is the hard drive_?

------
martythemaniak
Apple WILL change their tune, and the more users and developers complain and
pressure them, the faster they will change their tune.

We know Apple's excuses ("we can't let you have open access, because someone
might bad apps and we need to protect our users from themselves") are
bullshit. Their competitors have had more open SDKs for _years_ and none of
Apple's doomsday scenarios have come to pass.

I'm personally hoping that when Adroid comes out with its own app store and
open platform, it will finally convince people to stop excusing Apple's
behaviour.

------
abl
Reminds me of Apple's early days, when they didn't have an easy way for third
parties to license their apps, their OS ended up without quality applications,
and then Windows 3.1 ate their lunch... Anyone remember AmiPro?

~~~
nailer
Bloody context. I just read 'AmiPro' as 'Am I Pro?' and thought for half a
moment it was another shitty iPhone app.

------
ashu
As for me, I hope somebody builds a spectacular killer app for jailbroken
iPhones so that part of the economy gets opened up. I love my iPhone and
programming for it way too much.

Also, this dude seems to belong to the typical "elitist" Mac people group.
"crapware written by hobbyist students" -- WTF! A student won the official
Apple competition for best Mac / iPhone app or something like it.

------
petercooper
> Loudly and conspicuously hire an App Store Evangelist

I agree, but I'd be surprised if we see it happen. Evangelists are needed all
over the place and yet so few companies bother to hire any or attempt any
serious relationships on social media and the like. Apple are also not known
for their openness in situations like this. A lack of information gives them
some sort of advantage, I guess.

~~~
liscio
Apple has other evangelists on the payroll already. Some examples: User
Interface, Graphics and Media, Developer Tools, Frameworks.

These evangelists have often helped developers shed more light on bugs against
Mac OS X which are blocking the shipping of apps. Also, they're often a great
first-line contact at Apple for getting help from Apple's engineers outside of
WWDC.

To get an additional App Store contact that could field developers' questions
about apps that have been rejected with little or no explanation would be
nice.

The small group of evangelists Apple already has on the payroll is spread
quite thinly between their Mac OS X, and now iPhone, responsibilities as it
is.

I suspect developers are already talking their ears off about App Store
issues, and I bet Fraser's wish could likely come true eventually. Whether
it's in the form of a separate App Store evangelist, or a new iPhone-specific
team of evangelists that can also help with shedding light on the App Store
process, it'd be a huge improvement.

~~~
curiousgeorge
I know of applications that have been rejected not because they sucked, but
because they were similar to ones that already existed.

It's bad for long-term innovation, but maybe it's good for the platform by not
confusing users. I personally feel it's legitimate for open platforms to
arbitrarily restrict default visibility, but not for them to restrict
distribution.

~~~
dcurtis
Wow, I wasn't aware that they were denying apps that are "similar" to other
apps already approved. That eliminates the evolution that comes with
capitalism. Very bad.

------
rokhayakebe
Anytime your work needs approval to be live, you are in big trouble.

The problem is not Apple. The issue is the mobile industry. Everyone screams
the Iphone is an open platform, but if you truly look at it, it is not
significantly different.

You still have to go to an approval process and your application cannot
compete with any Apple applications or future applications.

~~~
martythemaniak
You're wrong, it _is_ Apple. And not only are you wrong, you are provably
wrong.

Go ahead and write a pull-my-finger app for one of Apple's competitors
(Blackberry or WinMo) and no one will stop you from releasing it on your
target devices.

~~~
rokhayakebe
_The problem is not apple. The problem is the entire mobile industry_

About 5 years ago I set out to do my first mobile startup. Using RSS to SMS to
provide near real time traffic updates. In the beginning the problem was to
get a shortcode and SMS gateway provider. No possible way for a startup with
little money to directly hook to the carrier gateway.

Then I said forget it, let's morphe it a bit and distribute games for small
time developers. Cool. I already knew about 6 or 7 games developers who
committed to let the startup distribute their games, but we quickly found the
pain because some carriers did not allow downloads unless you went thorugh
their certification program.

I also built a mobile marketing tool to help merchants geo-target their
offerings. Cool. But qucikly enough you find that you have to continuously pay
for each SMS, hence there was no sealing (at least not at the stage I was in)
and you had to depend on a third party that can shut you down at any given
time. Heck even Twitter had its service turned down by T-mobile for a short
amount of time.

Anyway you go in the mobile industry, save one, you are dealing with
restrictions. That is why I am saying the problem is not JUST Apple. It is the
industry in general. If you create apps you will sooner or later hit a
barrier. In one case the barrier will be Apple, in an other it will be your
SMS gateway provider, in an other it will be T-Mobile, in another it will be
BlackBerry certificates.

That is not to say there is no way around. There are applications that are
truly independent of carrier rules or mobile platforms. Applications that you
write once and they work on every cell phones, every carrier. It is just that
developers want to bet on their apps being approved all the way to the top, or
they think that if they hit a tiny 1% of the market they will make it big.

~~~
martythemaniak
This is a critical point that too many people here miss. If Apple wants its
phone to be a "smartphone" and compete against another smartphones, then it
will be compared to its current peers, NOT against cheapo feature phones and
_definitely_ not feature phones from 5 years ago.

When you do start comparing the iPhone to its current competitors, none of
what you said makes sense. To go over it quickly.

-You can use SMS gateways that charge about 4cents a text.

-You don't have to use SMS at all. You can make an app that either polls a server or listens for pushed data.

\- "Blackberry certificates" are an $20 ID, which you only need to use
internal APIs. At no point will RIM place any restrictions on what you can do
with its powerful SDK.

If you set out to develop a BB app, and no point will you have to worry about
your app making through some byzantine bureaucracy and whether or not it can
be brought to market. It'll be a good day when you can say the same of the
iPhone.

~~~
rokhayakebe
In simple words. There is no standard in the mobile industry for application
developers. You have to tackle iphone and bb differetnly. You have to tackle
ATT and Verizon differently.

My point is not that Apple is more open than others. That still does not make
it standard.

Yes you can build apps that polls a server etc..., but again when building
apps, there is no standard. Iphone apps do not work on Symbian phones. What
kind of open is that?

BB is not truly open either. Maybe this has changed by now, but we could not
get to collect SMS. How open is that?

The point I am trying to make is that developers should not be suprised where
there apps are shut down by the SMS gateway provider, or the carrier, or
Apple, or BB, or ......

Developers should focus on applications that they can write once and can
deploy everywhere.

~~~
martythemaniak
That's kinda like complaining that there is no standard in the desktop
software industry, because you know.. UNIX developers and Windows developers
don't have the same API. That's rather silly.

Quite simply, there are two tiers in the mobile industry now: smartphones and
feature phones. On the feature phone tier, having to jump through bullshit
hoops was and still is standard - getting certificates from the carrier,
worrying about SMS, etc. On the smartphone, there are far, far fewer
limitations - companies like Palm and RIM don't shutdown apps, and the
carrier's control does not extend beyond perhaps discriminating types of data
traffic (ie, email vs 3rd party data).

Apple's SDK policies make the iPhone far closer to the restrictions feature
phones have than to smartphones the iPhone is actually sold against (ie BB
Bold).

oh, and: [http://myhowto.org/java/j2me/22-sending-and-receiving-gsm-
sm...](http://myhowto.org/java/j2me/22-sending-and-receiving-gsm-sms-on-
blackberry-using-rim-apis/)

Pretty simple, no?

~~~
rokhayakebe
You cannot compare developing for desktop with developing for mobile.

Saying it is simple shows me that you do not have much experience creating
mobile applications.

If you develop for windows I assume it will work in every country, for every
machine that runs windows, regardless of the machine manufacturer and the
insternet service provider. Write once deploy nearly everywhere. Try that with
mobile apps.

If you develop for Symbian phones, although one app may work on T-mobile UK
networks, it may not work for T-mobile in the US.

It is anything and everything but simple.

EDIT: I am saying this after tools we had built using Twitter SMS API, NMS SMS
API, Kannel, 41411 SMS API,as well as working on Mobile IM for Symbian, Call
Interceptor for Brew, CallBack for all platforms including an Iphone web app,
Backup application, Mobile Device Management Servers for Symbian and Brew,
Infinite number of mobile games etc....All products being deployed in every
continent save Australia. In every single case clients find it to be a pain. I
wish writing and deploying mobile apps were as easy as it is for desktop apps.

------
Create
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that..."

The 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:

    
    
        * iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.
        * iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
        * iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.
        * iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
        * iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner.
    

[http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/why-free-software-and-
app...](http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/why-free-software-and-apples-
iphone-dont-mix)

~~~
jrockway
Can you quit spamming this comment to every thread that mentions the iPhone?

(See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=303708> for example.)

It is especially annoying because your use of code formatting for text
stretches the page and makes the other comments unreadable.

~~~
natrius
Workaround: Install Stylish (<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/2108>) and add "pre { white-space: pre-wrap; }" for this
domain.

~~~
jrockway
Amusing. I saw the word "Stylish" and wondered how someone got it working in
Firefox:

<http://git.jrock.us/?p=Server-Stylish.git;a=summary>

I had the name first! :)

------
fallentimes
Wow - I hope Android fares better but I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
pmjordan
Android (as far as I can tell) faces different hurdles, mainly operator and
consumer uptake. Oh, and getting the damn thing out the door.

------
ryanspahn
Personally I dont care about apps! There are a flood of them now and it seems
reminiscent of all the Facebook apps that flooded that network - not for the
better.

I just want an Internet mobile device that provides the full net experience in
the palm of my hands; FLASH & VoiP access!

~~~
jrockway
Get a Windows Mobile phone then. I routinely use Skype from mine.

------
ReverendBayes
Apple is evil and in severe need of competition in this space. May Android
provide it.

------
falsestprophet
I too refuse to write for the App Store until an evangelist is hired!

------
mattmaroon
Android FTW?

~~~
RobGR
Has anyone here played with an OpenMoko ? I have examined one, but have so far
avoided putting out the cash to buy one.

I have always disliked the cultist and elitist aspects of Job's company. I see
Apple as no better, and possibly worse, than Gate's company.

I think, that if you are trying to make money to live the next 3 years
comfortably, writing iPhone apps may be the way to go; but if you want there
to be a world where your great-grand kids live comfortably writing apps for an
open tri-corder from their apartments in a Stanford torus at one of the Earth-
Moon Lagrangian points, then you write apps for the OpenMoko and feed yourself
with a day job.

~~~
mattmaroon
Android is like OpenMoko but with a chance that anyone will ever own a
compatible handset.

------
axod
This is getting a little boring. Obviously Apple are going to reject apps that
are a little too close to their existing apps, or might cause offense, or dumb
down their product.

They built it, they own the ecosystem, so they get to decide.

Don't like it? Write a webapp instead.

~~~
henning
That's stupid. If someone makes a better podcatcher than Apple for the iPhone,
the iPhone does podcasting better than before which sells more iPhones, which
makes Apple richer. I don't see why it's such a threat.

Any time you implement a feature for a product you have to do it in a way that
can't possibly please everyone. If you let your developers implement
alternative versions, it's conceivable you could get close to pleasing
everyone, which makes your product better because it then covers obscure use
cases that you can't afford to deal with. It becomes as if third parties are
developing the product for you for free.

~~~
apu
That might be the logical conclusion, but I don't think Apple sees it that
way. They've never been very big on this "third-party" stuff...

~~~
shard
They've changed their tune ever since the iPod (hmm unintentional pun). A huge
industry exists to make iPod compatible products. Apple is never going to make
an iDJ.

------
jmtame
After the first paragraph of reading this, all I could think of was "holy
crap, this person has really just written every excuse in the book NOT to
write iPhone apps."

There are a million excuses to not diet and exercise, to not do a startup, and
to not do anything in life. Your job as an entrepreneur is to work around the
obstacles. Give Apple an app that they can't afford to reject. Don't do
anything stupid that would cause your app to get rejected.

Yes, better rules can always be written, but your job is to deliver kick ass
apps to the public. GET 'R DONE!

~~~
benjamincanfly
You have a great go-get-'em attitude, but the issue isn't remotely similar to
the question of whether or not to diet and exercise. It's more like, "Should I
spend huge amounts of time and effort on diet and exercise in order to enter
this bodybuilding competition, only to be disqualified at the last minute
because I look too much like the competition judge's nephew?"

~~~
netcan
There is a bit of truth in it. Not necessarily the comparison to a diet, but
still.

Becoming indignant & saying 'I'm out' is not useful. There's a potential snag
here. It is a man made snag that's _unfair_ , unreasonable or whatever. But
that doesn't mean the opportunity isn't there. It's not really more of a
reason not to develop then any other reason that isn't unfair: too hard, too
much competition, etc. The only difference is emotional.

~~~
benjamincanfly
The difference is that it's unpredictable, based on Apple's whims. If they
said "Hey, here is a list of apps we won't accept from third party developers
because we consider them to be competitive," that would be one thing. But as
it stands, we don't even know where the line in the sand is, because the line
is based on Apple's best interests, not those of the developers. Dozens of
developers have released apps that duplicate (and improve upon) the
functionality of the built-in Notes app, but when someone writes an app for
podcast streaming (which the iPhone does _not_ already offer, but which I'm
sure they're planning on adding eventually), Apple nixes it. It's not just
difficult, it's demoralizing.

~~~
gills
You hit it on the head. Players leave rigged markets once they get burned once
or twice, and pretty soon the market freezes up altogether.

Withdrawing from iPhone app development is the rational choice. There are
other things developers like the author can work on with similar payoffs, but
more predictable risks.

