[Macworld]

Post your comments for As App Store banning continues, iPhone developers protest here

[chewygoat]

I hope they'll just decide to let everything in and drop the awful vetting process altogether. For one thing it obviously doesn't work given some of the truly atrocious stuff they've let into the store anyway, but also, dropping the approval process will mean that app updates will show up much quicker. This was especially irritating when SplashID received an update that broke it for many (which Apples approval process did absolutely nothing to prevent) and though the problem was found and resolved quickly by the developers, we users had to wait weeks while Apple "approved" the update that fixed it.

[benroethig]

The only company that can hold Apple back is Apple and sometimes they do a pretty good job of it.

[bousozoku]

Let the number of downloads determine whether something should be there or not, unless it involves hate or something else truly negative against people.
Podcaster actually does something useful so that people don't need to be tied to the computer all the time. Of course, knowing Apple, they'll add a similar application to iPhone and claim that it was their idea from the start.

[vudoo]

I've already paid for a handful of software, but after all the suspicious going-ons at the App Store, I've made a personal decision NOT to buy any more Apps in my small way of protesting:
- How Apple is banning/censoring certain Apps
- How Apple deletes valid App reviews, particularly negative ones, to boost the ratings of some Apps
I love all my Apple products, but this aloof, draconian, control over the Apps has brought me over the edge.

[natmusak]

So Moren finds two examples, one that violates Apple's App Store guidelines] and another that violates AT&T's anti-tethering policy, and somehow constructs a developer protest out of this, with Apple playing the part of oppressive dictator? Ok...

[ChopinBlues]

This is a tempest in a teapot. You state:
"Apple needs to take steps to ensure that the developers who populate it with its goods are happy."
My nephew has made over $50K, probably closer to $100K by now, on a game he had previously been giving away on the Mac and PC platforms. Care to ask him if he's happy?

[jojo99]

I am glad Apple is picky about the apps that they allow on itunes. I don't want to download a viris like has happened on yahoo's widget sites.

[jrandersoniii]

I can see pulling NetShare. It would be nice to see a similar unapproved application, might be worth Jailbreaking to do that.
But in general I can't see a viable reason for any other application that has been pulled. From the "Greed" or whatever app that was that cost a fortune, for basically a screen saver... to the podcasting downloader... if there is a market, Apple should allow it.
I have to agree, that I think Apple is too tight and secretive about iPhone developers.
Flip side of the coin, I think they are trying to control this new platform - maybe for QC/QA. But Apple is too stringent with its approach.

[pkay]

Natmusak,
I agree completely that the big corporate behemoth slowing things down is AT&T, certainly when it comes to apps that offer alternatives to their desire to have customers pay for most services, tethering in particular. Apple presumably has to comply with contractual obligations that it signed with its terrific communications partner (groan). However, the complaint that updates of previously vetted apps are slow to get out to users suggests (strongly) that there is a problem with Apple's implementation of the approval process. The point is that the App store concept is terrific and ought to be a HUGE boon to Apple (and AT&T for crying out loud!) and Moren's article and the developer protests are attempts to get Apple to improve on the current approach. Fans of Apple, let alone shareholders, want to see the company respond quickly and effectively to obvious problems. So, get with it Apple, and do the right thing soon! -- Pkay

[DisabledTrucker]

That explains why the only real chat app on the iPhone is still that crapware known as iChat...

[luomat]

@natmusak

DEAR []: How about reading about how Fraser Speirs, a developer of one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, said he will NOT DEVELOP ANY MORE iPHONE APPS?!

How about checking out http://www.fuckingnda.com ?

How much time have you spent around developers on, say, Twitter, where several of them have talked openly about their lack of motivation to develop more applications out of fear that Apple might summarily reject them?

Dan Moren has tapped into a strong and obvious undercurrent of dis-ease among iPhone developers, and you, Web Comment Guru, swing through and link to an article that doesn't at all offer a definitive alternative interpretation of the terms of the license which we CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IN PUBLIC because it's under NDA.

So excuse me if I dismiss your comment as a complete waste of time.

[jrandersoniii]

Umm, do you even own an iPhone. iChat is not a chat client available on the iPhone. Complicating chat on the iPhone, for any client, is Apple not including a way for an application to run in the background.

Finally, since you brought it up - I don't use iChat much on my Mac Book Pro - but when I do, it performs as good as any other chat client, however, I think it does a little better at video.

Stick to the facts, if you need to make them up - consider not posting.

[natmusak]

pkay said:

Natmusak,

>However, the complaint that updates of previously vetted apps are slow to get out to users suggests (strongly) that there is a problem with Apple's implementation of the approval process. The point is that the App store concept is terrific and ought to be a HUGE boon to Apple (and AT&T for crying out loud!) and Moren's article and the developer protests are attempts to get Apple to improve on the current approach. Fans of Apple, let alone shareholders, want to see the company respond quickly and effectively to obvious problems. So, get with it Apple, and do the right thing soon! -- Pkay

First off, Moren made no mention in this article of the separate issue involving Apple's lengthy approval process (which I agree, is problematic for developers trying to patch their apps as quickly as possible). He links to a story about developers being frustrated in general, but if he was trying to make a point about that in this article, he obviously didn't try very hard.

But there is no real developer protest, I was being sarcastic. There are complaints, some valid (Apple obviously needs to speed up the review process, though I'd say the week-long waits are likely do to an staggering number of submissions, not necessarily a poorly constructed assembly line manned by lazy workers) some not (tethering apps are stopped by AT&T at the moment, which could change, and apps that run around iTunes' podcast downloading functionality aren't condoned, just as alternate plug-ins and runtime environments like Flash and Java are forbidden).