This is just IMHO: The whole "rant on Apple's app store policies" meme has run out of mileage. Its kinda getting like Rickrolls, except not as funny. I know several developers that have successfully gotten apps into the store. One of them is doing VERY well. His opinion when I asked him about this was basically, "Apple states it all pretty clearly in the documentation when you sign up. Some types of apps (podcaster for example) are obviously going to run up against functionality Apple already has implemented, if in a different form. You just don't develop for those areas."
It seems like mostly the only people who have been yelling, complaining, bellyaching, and blogging about Apple's policies are the ones that can't read the frakking docs. The developers who are all doing quite well don't have a big problem with the restrictions.
Bottom line, the iPhone SDK wasn't developed by an organization like W3C. It was built by a company that wants to make a profit. They own the incredibly popular platform. If you want to play, you play by their rules.
Otherwise, you can write apps for Android. You can sell your apps to the 1/10 of a percent of people that will buy the clunky HTC Dream and similar devices that do or will run the Android platform. I'd love to see Android running on the iPhone. That would give the great hardware plus the open OS. I would stick with the iPhone OS, but the option should be out there.
Totally agree. The iPhone is to developers as the iPod is to music owners. Sure, music owners could hawk their wares on any number of music stores, but only a deal with Apple would give them access to the huge iPod base.
I didn't mean to cut out from the loop the developers who have been making a lot of money from the app store with their great apps. And Apple can do whatever the hell they want with the iPhone, it doesn't belong to developers. That being said, it's just not fair for them to be so completely arbitrary in how they run the app store. Is it legal? Of course. There's nothing wrong with it, it just doesn't make sense.
When you have the potential to make even more money on a great product and make the user experience better and bring in even more users in the process, why wouldn't you? Yes, it does remove the control that Apple has had over their products and, arguably, has kept the quality of their products at a high level, but they're not doing the best job of filtering so that bad apps don't get in the app store so it simply doesn't make sense.
Bottom line, the iPhone SDK wasn't developed by an organization like W3C. It was built by a company that wants to make a profit. They own the incredibly popular platform. If you want to play, you play by their rules.
Otherwise, you can write apps for Android. You can sell your apps to the 1/10 of a percent of people that will buy the clunky HTC Dream and similar devices that do or will run the Android platform. I'd love to see Android running on the iPhone. That would give the great hardware plus the open OS. I would stick with the iPhone OS, but the option should be out there.