[fribhey]

DisabledTrucker said:

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

if you had an iPhone then you would know that there is no iChat for the iPhone.....

move along now.

[natmusak]

@luomat,

I'm sure you'd be using the same tone if you were talking to me face to face, but couldn't you at least pretend to be civil here?

I read Moren's post, including the part about Speirs. Obviously he figured out how to get past Apple's Iron Curtain on the first try and he's apparently not disgruntled enough to...pull Exposure from the App Store. Hint: follow the asterisk on his blog post to the bottom of the page. The rest of his post largely echoes Moren's and others' opinions on Podcaster Gate.

Having talked to the developer of one of the most popular social networking App Store apps (Det Ansinn, creator of the 1337pwn Xbox Live Friends app), whose application just reached 100,000 downloads, I know about the issues with Apple's App Store. There's no denying the review process could be faster and give developers a better idea of timeframe, especially after they've made it onto the App Store and simply want to patch their software. Hopefully Apple will be able to lessen the NDA terms as well - they're likely scrambling to finish copyrighting different aspects of the platform that would otherwise be exposed by developers to rivals, by accident or otherwise.

I'm just proposing people take a breather and remember how young the App Store is. Decisions are most definitely not final.

[RobK]

It never ceases to amaze me what this generation feels they are "entitled" to.
And just a news flash for those of you just joining us here on the topside of the rock, in the 10(?) some-odd years since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Apple has NEVER done ANYTHING to make ANYONE happy except Apple.
…and they have enjoyed SPECTACULAR success.

[Dan Moren]

@natmusak: The problem remains one of Apple being generally incommunicative. I've talked to a lot of developers. A lot. In fact I just went to a conference full of them. And, to a person, every developer I talked to had issues with Apple's lack of communication about the vetting process. The issue is that the process is a black box. And given that even software that did violate the terms of service?for example, NetShare?still made it onto the App Store, the question remains: what is the vetting process doing, precisely? Developers don't know, and that's a problem for them if they're going to invest their time in developing for the platform.

The fact that a developer like Fraser would be willing not to develop more apps for the platform until this issue is resolved says that these people are seriously dissatisfied. To me, that constitutes a problem for Apple, and one that's only going to get larger unless they address it.

[Wondercow]

RobK said:

It never ceases to amaze me what this generation feels they are "entitled" to.

And just a news flash for those of you just joining us here on the topside of the rock, in the 10(?) some-odd years since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Apple has NEVER done ANYTHING to make ANYONE happy except Apple.

…and they have enjoyed SPECTACULAR success.

Spot on--that is, and always has been, Jobs' style. It worked for Apple in the early years and it is currently working for them now. The only time Apple was "in trouble" was in the intervening years when Jobs was not at the helm. Steve Jobs is very much like Frank Lloyd Wright in that he builds what he wants and merely allows the rest of to also enjoy the fruits of his efforts.

Now, will that continue to work and grow Apple into a much more dominant position in the home computer & general tech gadget fields? Probably not; he'll have to change his methods at some point lest he lose the very developers he fought so hard to accumulate. Right now the App Store is garnering great success but can it maintain this level when the novelty has worn off? If (good) developers start leaving due to ridiculous processes and stipulations then we'll be left with nothing but countdown and flashlight apps.

[hayesk]

natmusak said:

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...

Actually Moren completely misinterpreted that guideline making his whole wordy article invalid.

[benroethig]

RobK said:

It never ceases to amaze me what this generation feels they are "entitled" to.

And just a news flash for those of you just joining us here on the topside of the rock, in the 10(?) some-odd years since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Apple has NEVER done ANYTHING to make ANYONE happy except Apple.

…and they have enjoyed SPECTACULAR success.

They're not entitled to anything. Then again if Jobs and Apple treat developers like crap, Apple is not entitled for developers to develop for the iPhone or Mac. In turn, the customers may be unhappy and choose to buy something else for their next phone. The iPhone is a great platform with a lot of potential that Apple is serious danger of screwing up because of arbitrary rejection of apps and an absence of communication. Its not that they are rejecting apps, its that they're doing it without any real guidelines. Developers aren't going to put time into something that Apple might reject on a whim.

[benroethig]

[quote name='Wondercow']
>

RobK said:

> It never ceases to amaze me what this generation feels they are "entitled" to.
>

Spot on--that is, and always has been, Jobs' style. It worked for Apple in the early years and it is currently working for them now. The only time Apple was "in trouble" was in the intervening years when Jobs was not at the helm.

Except for the time between the end of the bondi iMac boom and the iPod taking off. Apple was losing money during the G4 days.

[Grapho]

[quote name='hayesk']
>

natmusak said:

> 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...

Actually Moren completely misinterpreted that guideline making his whole wordy article invalid.

I agree, but he still has a point. Yet, he did choose two very bad examples of why this should not be happening thou.

[Dan Moren]

[quote name='hayesk']
>

natmusak said:

> 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...

Actually Moren completely misinterpreted that guideline making his whole wordy article invalid.

I'm unclear as to what guideline I "misinterpreted" since I didn't quote any in the post above. Perhaps that's in reference to the Roughly Drafted piece linked in the previous comment, which I certainly did not write.

[Stormchild]

benroethig said:

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

That pretty much sums it all up in one sentence. It's been kind of a recurring theme throughout Apple's history, with waves of great success followed by periods of unchecked ego and hubris that ultimately cause them to fall back to their humble origins.

[natmusak]

Dan Moren said:

@natmusak: The problem remains one of Apple being generally incommunicative. I've talked to a lot of developers. A lot. In fact I just went to a conference full of them. And, to a person, every developer I talked to had issues with Apple's lack of communication about the vetting process. The issue is that the process is a black box. And given that even software that did violate the terms of service?for example, NetShare?still made it onto the App Store, the question remains: what is the vetting process doing, precisely? Developers don't know, and that's a problem for them if they're going to invest their time in developing for the platform.

The fact that a developer like Fraser would be willing not to develop more apps for the platform until this issue is resolved says that these people are seriously dissatisfied. To me, that constitutes a problem for Apple, and one that's only going to get larger unless they address it.

Ok, but that wasn't really the focus of your article, was it? Not trying to be persnickety, honestly. You mainly took two examples of App Store rejection and a blog post by a successful developer who's commenting on the same thing you are, Podcaster-Gate, and made it into a developer protest, likening Apple to the Kremlin. NetShare had a reason for being rejected and as far as I understand it, tethering is forbidden by the App Store agreement, so nullriver should have known better. Podcaster appears to have violated 3.3.3 of the agreement (as noted in the RDM article I linked to earlier) by providing an alternative path of podcast downloading and syncing that essentially duplicates iTunes' podcast functionality.

So I agree with a good bit of what you've said about the review process needing to be faster and more transparent. I differ on the notion that these desires shared by developers and Speirs' overblown blog post (in which he notes he won't actually be removing his Exposure app) result in an all out App Store sit-in.

[LGgeek]

This is why I'm still on version iphone 1.4 with no intention upgrading. I have all the apps I want and never really did trust Apple to allow others to develop apps. I have paid the developers directly for some of the apps I have and would have no problem doing it in the future.
Jailbreaking a iphone these days is piece of cake, someone should set up an apps store outside of apple.

[Dan Moren]

natmusak said:

Ok, but that wasn't really the focus of your article, was it? Not trying to be persnickety, honestly. You mainly took two examples of App Store rejection and a blog post by a successful developer who's commenting on the same thing you are, Podcaster-Gate, and made it into a developer protest, likening Apple to the Kremlin. NetShare had a reason for being rejected and as far as I understand it, tethering is forbidden by the App Store agreement, so nullriver should have known better. Podcaster appears to have violated 3.3.3 of the agreement (as noted in the RDM article I linked to earlier) by providing an alternative path of podcast downloading and syncing that essentially duplicates iTunes' podcast functionality.

Well, A) the agreement that RDM excerpts is, as even they acknowledge, a "pre-release confidential" version. Because of the NDA, it's hard to even know what the current status of the agreement is. B) There's also some dispute about what precisely the language there means. We know that NetShare was forbidden because AT&T said it wouldn't allow it, but the wording isn't so clear when it comes to whether or not what Podcaster does violates the agreement. Regardless of whether Dilger or Gruber is right about the wording, the simple fact that they came to separate conclusions illustrates that there's a gray area there. And as long as developers have no way to clarify that, then why would they waste time developing applications that they're not sure will make it into the App Store?

And that's without even getting into other banning issues, like Slasher, I Am Rich, or Pull My Finger. Yeah, not all of these are of the caliber of Podcaster, but the grounds for rejecting them are no less ridiculous; after all, people can just not buy them. Why bother rejecting them from the store? It's capricious.

Quote

So I agree with a good bit of what you've said about the review process needing to be faster and more transparent. I differ on the notion that these desires shared by developers and Speirs' overblown blog post (in which he notes he won't actually be removing his Exposure app) result in an all out App Store sit-in.

I think Fraser's response is pretty reasonable given what's in his power; it's not as if he can go develop for another App Store, right? Perhaps it would be more effective if he pulled Exposure as well, and maybe he still will. But as a professional, he's making his voice heard in the way that he feels will be most noticeable to Apple. We'll see if he gets a response.