

No Shit in the App Store? Oh Please - cschanck
http://designbygravity.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/no-sht-allowed-in-the-app-store-oh-please/

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shawndumas
"Macintosh Keyboard (M0110): Introduced and included with the original
Macintosh in 1984, it debuted without arrow keys to control the cursor nor an
integrated numeric keypad." [1]

"Few will remember, but, when the Mac debuted in 1984, there were no arrow
keys on the keyboard. That was a big deal. Almost every application then in
existence depended on the arrow keys (then called cursor keys) for navigation.
With that one stroke, Steve reduced the number of apps that could be easily
ported to the Mac from tens of thousands to zero, ensuring that this new
computer would have a long and painful childhood.

Steve’s button mania, which grew from his earlier parts-count mania, was
already in full flower, and many have ascribed this crippling omission to some
sort of self-destructive obsession. It was not. It was one of several
strategies specifically designed to ensure that existing software would not
run on this new machine because existing software, in Steve’s eyes, sucked (an
opinion I share). The absence of those four keys ensured that any developer
who wanted to have software appear on the Mac was going to have to start over
and write software that conformed to the Mac interface, not the keyboard-
oriented precursors to MS-DOS.

Steve’s fearless crippling of that original Mac saved that computer and saved
the graphical user interface." [2]

1: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard#History>

2:
[http://www.asktog.com/columns/082iPad&Mac.html](http://www.asktog.com/columns/082iPad&Mac.html)

------
wheels
Random comment on the title (as it occurs in the original post) -- is there
anyone in the universe that is actually less offended by "sh!t" than "shit"?
I've never really understood why on earth someone would bother obscuring
potentially offensive word choice by such silly techniques. Either rephrase
things in such a way that they do not contain such words, or just write them
out...

~~~
DrSprout
I would bet it's a cultural leftover from posting in forums and chat rooms
with naive profanity filters years ago when the Internet was young.

There are likely still places where sh!t will get you past someone's laughable
idea of a profanity filter.

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iamdave
At the very core, he has a point. The delivery I don't care for, but again. He
does have a valid point. It's hard to say that the AppStore wants quality.

But like I said in a comment earlier today, I'll gladly welcome a lack of
'quality' for a nice big helping of choice as a consumer.

~~~
tjogin
If Apple has a problem with junk in the AppStore already, that's just an even
_better_ reason to try to keep more of it out.

I don't understand the thought process that leads to the conclusion that since
there are low quality apps in the AppStore, Apple should go out of their way
to bring even more of it in.

Also, Apple would get a world of crap if they decided to add something as
arbitrary as _taste policing_ to their AppStore review process.

~~~
mclin
But you can make crap by any means, including objective-c, as evidenced by all
the 'buddha quotes' etc apps. My idea is that having to pay per app published,
say $25, would help disincentivize the shotgun approach.

~~~
tjogin
If that was Apple's sole reason for not wanting cross-platform "shovelware",
absolutely. But it isn't.

It's more like Apple doesn't want meta-platforms on top of iPhone PS for
completely different reasons (control, independence, etc), and aren't willing
to _compromise_ because nothing about more cross-platform shovelware intrigues
them.

The AppStore is at a place right now where quantity is not an issue; quality
is, so that's what they're going to optimize for. Who knows, maybe they'd be
more welcoming of cross-platform apps if the AppStore had a quantity-problem
(probably not, if history is anything to go by).

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ZachPruckowski
Apple can't really control for quality when they've got a million apps in the
store. I mean, the idea of rejecting crappy apps probably came about when
people were thinking "oh, apps will trickle in a few hundred at a time"
instead of flood in. So they take steps like saying "must use Apple tools". On
a Mac, cross-platform Java/QT/Wine apps that totally ignore UI custom are
incredibly annoying, so that's probably where Apple is coming from in terms of
viewing "non-Apple tools" as resulting in poor UI.

And it's silly to ask why Apps are censored but movies/music/TV isn't. The
answer's obvious - iTunes includes parental controls for media that allow for
blocking content based on industry-standard ratings, and there's no such
rating/control system for apps. If the App Store contains a Daily Tits
Calendar App, then parents have to completely block their kids from getting
apps from the App Store themselves, whereas parents can let kids buy PG-13
stuff in the iTunes store without worrying about them buying R-rated movies or
explicit songs.

~~~
orangecat
_On a Mac, cross-platform Java/QT/Wine apps that totally ignore UI custom are
incredibly annoying_

That's true, but it doesn't really apply to games, where even "native" apps
almost always use their own UIs. And it doesn't apply at all to frameworks
like MonoTouch, which call exactly the same native UI methods that ObjC apps
do.

It's a power grab pure and simple. Flash is the primary target, Android is
secondary, and if as a tertiary effect it reduces the percentage of crap apps,
that's a nice bonus.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It _really_ doesn't apply to games because often people simply don't bother to
port them to the Mac. And a regularly given reason, beyond the obvious market
size issue is that Apple simply doesn't support game developers, often to the
point of being antagonistic. Déjà vu, all over again?

~~~
towndrunk
Doesn't support game developers how? The largest category in the App Store is
games. Regarding OS X, then I would agree it might have something to do with
the size of the market.

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jsz0
I'm not familiar with exactly how CS5 generates iPhone apps but I'm curious
how these apps would have handled something like multiple cameras. If Adobe's
UI control doesn't include a camera switching button what happens when you
install the app on an iPhone 4G? Do you have to wait for Adobe to update their
library and for the developer to re-submit the application? Do previously
submitted applications using Apple's APIs directly automatically inherit the
camera switch button? Is the user going to sit there fumbling with the app
annoyed that they can't use the features of the new phone they bought? To me
that's a very compelling case to restrict non-Apple approved tools. Not sure
this is actually the case or not -- just speculation. I think we're entering a
phase of technology being so widely used that even the smallest glitches, bugs
and inconsistencies are increasingly unacceptable to people.

~~~
wvenable
> If Adobe's UI control doesn't include a camera switching button what happens
> when you install the app on an iPhone 4G?

Flash CS5 isn't going to be used to build the next big application. It will,
however, be very useful for creating (or porting) games and other multimedia
experiences. The iPhone 4G will likely have a higher resolution screen and
Flash itself mostly resolution independent -- it might not take long for Adobe
to update CS5 and all those developers could have 4G ready high-res apps in
less time than it takes an Objective-C developers to fire up Photoshop. It's
really not as simple as you make it out to be.

> Do previously submitted applications using Apple's APIs directly
> automatically inherit the camera switch button?

Most likely not.

> Is the user going to sit there fumbling with the app annoyed that they can't
> use the features of the new phone they bought?

It's been mentioned many times when discussing Apple's rule changes that
developers and apps are easily replaceable. If Joe Developer doesn't update
his app, it'll just be replaced by another app by another developer.

~~~
bbatsell
> it might not take long for Adobe to update CS5 and all those developers
> could have 4G ready high-res apps in less time than it takes an Objective-C
> developers to fire up Photoshop.

Right, because Adobe has always been known for the speed and quality of its
updates, especially on the Mac platform.

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binarymax
This seemingly unending speculative rant by the blogosphere will continue
until Apple either publishes a concrete set of step by step guidelines, or
opens the floodgates. Neither of which will happen, and the process will most
likely remain a black box. I am sure that Apple is doing their best to make
the process as efficient as balanced as possible, and they do make good when
they can - but yes they make mistakes too, it happens when you have a morally
biased human process for decision. Yet they simultaneously manage to keep
their options open and make a substantial profit, which is not an easy task.

