iPhone App Store Rejects Find a New Home

eldavojohn writes "A new site called App Rejections (somewhat slashdotted already) aims to provide a home for misfit apps. With Apple offering no documents or discussions on the matter of application rejections, this site might become a popular place to pick forbidden fruit. Could a third party horn in on Apple's monopoly in the iPhone application market?"

Comments

there's an app for finding a new home?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, wait...

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[rossdee]

Yeah thats what I thought when I read the title, that someone had written an app for 'finding a new home' and that apple had rejected it, maybe because of pressure from real etate companies.

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[ja]

This would have been such an excellent application for the homeless, somebody please write it ... and why not "Save a Whale" and "Feed the World" while you are at it?

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[Ihmhi]

And it sounds like it would be a really cool app, too... combine realty listings with Google map overlays. Integrate everything nicely with the GPS... mmm, metadata. *drools*

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the app "store rejects" in a local database and then "find a new home" for them. That way, you don't have to worry about turning someone down in the jolly season.

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[Rob the Bold]

oh, wait...

Pop Quiz:

1.) a: "Store" b: "Rejects" c: "Find"

Which one is the verb?

2.) Discuss why putting all three together in a headline is a bad idea.

[I would have gotten an iPhone for the "Find a New Home" app.]

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[PIBM]

Direct du proprio / By the owner (http://bytheowner.com/) has been doing this for homes & apartments for a while, at a very small flat rate rather than a fixed percentage of the home value for quite a few years, so much that it started replacing real estate agents :)

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[roscivs]

And it sounds like it would be a really cool app, too... combine realty listings with Google map overlays. Integrate everything nicely with the GPS... mmm, metadata. *drools*

Redfin has an iPhone app that does pretty much exactly that. It actually is pretty handy.

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[BrettJB]

Try the iZillow app: http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=19238&cat=68&platform=osx&method=sa/
 

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[Snocone]

Well, actually, I've written the "Feed the World" app. Of course there's an app for that!

(It's an iPhone interface to http://www.thehungersite.com/ -- 'TouchToGive' from the Greater Good network, on the store within a couple weeks no doubt -- or listed on TFA's site. Place your bets which now!)

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, these were my thoughts exactly.

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[Ihmhi]

Excellent suggestions all around, but I don't own an iPhone and don't plan on ever owning one. d:

Slashdot Rule #237: Talk about an app that would be cool for a platform, and you'll get at least two replies within 8 hours about apps that do exactly that.

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[mjpaci]

You forgot the corollary to Slashdot Rule #237: Also within 8 hours there will be a reply stating that they doesn't own an iPhone and don't plan on ever owning one. This can be made by the OP or someone else.

Re:there's an app for finding a new home?

[DavidTC]

'iPhone' can also be a verb without too much work. (phone already is.)

Perhaps a comma was missing and it should have read:

[implied I] iPhone App Store Rejects, Find a New Home.

I.e., perhaps someone was looking for a new place for their app, and looked in the phone book and found a place called "App Store Rejects".

So they meant: 'I called (on my iPhone, and I am a Apple brand whore), a place called "App Store Rejects", and I found a new home for my app by doing that'.

(Or perhaps it was 'ape store reject', and that was a typo, and the story is about calling about animals being turned out from pet stores.)

Or perhaps it was actually:
iPhone, Apps Store Rejects, Find[s] a New Home

With two missing commas and some subject/verb disagreement, it would fit right in as a slashdot headline. And of course they rejected an iPhone, it's a download store, you can't sell used iPhones on it.

Every time I read headlines, I think about the Discworld book 'The Truth' and the hilarious comments about headlines in it.

Slashdoted?

[Anonymous Coward]

As in coo-ed over, dressed up, and shown off to everyone at church on Sunday? That kind of doting?

Re:Slashdoted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs & Steve Balmer Slash-Doting?

No

[jschottm]

Not that the linked site appears to have much if anything to do with breaking the monopoly. The vast majority of iPhone apps are very inexpensive, so the only hope of making anything above hobby money as a developer is to be part of the Apple marketplace that offers tens of millions of potential customers. Not to mention the suspicion that people who jailbreak phones are likely to know how to pirate software as well, making them a less desirable market as well.

The site provides another forum to attempt to get Apple to reform its ways and to try to help each other figure out the sometimes murky meaning of the rejections. There's no revolution there. Until someone provides a real threat to Apple's hardware/software iPhone platform, it has no real motivation to mend its relationship with developers.

That said, karmic payoff may just bite them once there's that alternative.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing how to pirate does not a pirate make. Nor does it make one any less of a viable customer.

Re:No

[vosester]

Not to mention the suspicion that people who jailbreak phones are likely to know how to pirate software as well, making them a less desirable market as well.

Please don't lump us jailbreakers in with pirates, Having the power to pirate and doing it are two different things. I take your point, But I just don't see most people going to all that trouble just to dodge a small fee.

Re:No

[war4peace]

Well I say it was about bloody time customers are offered an alternative. And I'm speaking from a general point of view (I don't have a Mac, don't have an iPhone and won't buy any in the foreseeable future). It's generally good for society to be presented alternatives. I would hate it to be forced to go to Microsoft website to get any Windows applications, and not have a choice but to go there.

Re:No

[JimmyPorter]

The evidence from developers who have tracked apps which contact a server is that the vast majority of copies of iPhone games are pirated. And all the pirate copies are on Jailbroken phones. This doesn't imply that all jailbreakers pirate software. But it does mean that developers have good reason to be wary of the market.

Re:No

[JimmyPorter]

No it's not necessarily good to be given alternatives. See "The Paradox of Choice" for details. And platforms with companies that act as gatekeepers is generally not a bad business model. Look at consoles - all games need to be approved by the console manufacturer before they can be sold. This hasn't hurt the console market. And indeed the console games market is now significantly larger than the PC games market which has always been open.

Re:No

[mdwh2]

Until someone provides a real threat to Apple's hardware/software iPhone platform

If having a much bigger market share (e.g., Nokia at 40%, to Apple's few per cent) does not count as a "real threat", I am curious to hear what does?

(And if you have that low opinion of your potential customers - that if they modify their own product to get basic functionality to work, that Just Works on all other phones, then they must be pirates - then I have no sympathy if Apple rejects the "app" that you've spent months or years developing.)

Re:No

[Dog-Cow]

A threat would be something that takes iPhone users away from Apple. Nokia hasn't done that, and I doubt they will any time soon.

If you don't understand the Market, nor Apple's business model, you are doomed to make stupid comments on slashdot.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic functionality? I wasn't aware it was missing any. I think you meant to say specific functionality, as they have all of the basics covered in spades...

Re:No

[icebraining]

platforms with companies that act asgatekeepers is generally not a bad business model.

For the platform owner, sure. For the consumer, yes, it is.

Re:No

[TheLink]

> It's generally good for society to be presented alternatives.

Only if the alternatives aren't crap. Better useful options = good. Only one option = usually bad (but not always ;) ). Lots of crappy options = bad.

Having lots of spam in mailboxes providing people with more choices = bad.

More crappy options = higher chance for people to make the wrong decisions. If a user interface presented new users with zillions of choices, choices that they know nothing about it does not help them. Pushing alternatives to a screen that "noobs" don't see (and will "never" encounter on their own) = making the choice for them = less choices for them.

And if happiness is considered an important factor see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTO_dZUvbJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

And: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

Re:No

[war4peace]

Lots of SPAM is not an option or a choice, it's something shoved down your throat. And I didn't say lots of crappy options, I just said options. Having 2 options instead of one is always good. Because it means competition.

Re:No

[TheLink]

They claim they're giving you options to work profitably with people in "LAGOS, NIGERIA", or alternative ways of spending your money ;).

Anyway, my point is too often people think that having options is always good, and that's FALSE. Many people have been brainwashed by their society/media to think that way, but it's a fallacy.

Having two options instead of one is NOT always good.

Giving a person one good option and one bad option can often be worse than giving them one good option (or even making the decision for them without bothering them with it).

And if they have to make the decision anyway, it matters little whether it's spammed into their inbox, or they end up in the store, trying to decide what to buy.

I KNOW it's not usually "black and white" like that, I'm just pointing out it's wrong to think that options/alternatives are automatically good.

An alternative to Apple's store might be good. Or it might not be - depends on the store, depends on Apple's response, depends on what happens.

Re:No

[war4peace]

...and then again, if you're not provided an option, then you're facing a monopoly. And it will get evil sooner or later. Just due to lack of choices.

Re:No

[jschottm]

Not everyone, no. But draw me a Venn diagram. Make the center circle "People who know how to pirate iPhone apps" and the other two circles "People who have jailbroken iPhones" and "People who don't have jailbroken iPhones." What does it look like?

The basic fact is that piracy is rampant in the iPhone world: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4194/iphone_piracy_the_inside_story.php

Does it mean that you are doing it? Of course not. But it means that you're part of a demographic that isn't going to be tremendously sought after.

Re:No

[jschottm]

I would hate it to be forced to go to Microsoft website to get any Windows applications, and not have a choice but to go there.

Then don't buy a Microsoft product (in that scenario). Don't buy an iPhone. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to buy an iPhone. Vote with your (you being society in general, not you specifically) rather than giving companies a perverse incentive to keep doing what they're doing. If every person who WANTWANTWANTS an iPhone instead purchased an open platform, providing development dollars to the companies who treat the consumers with respect, we'd all be better off.

Re:No

[jschottm]

If having a much bigger market share (e.g., Nokia at 40%, to Apple's few per cent) does not count as a "real threat", I am curious to hear what does?

In the US (yes, /. is international but the iPhone is a bit US-centric) smartphone market, Nokia is close to a non-player.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/28/rim-and-apple-top-u-s-smartphone-market-share/

RIM has 40%, Apple has 30%, Palm has 7%.

Worldwide Nokia had 40% of the smartphone market in Q4 2008 but that was with a 10% drop from the previous quarter.

But see how I specified the hardware/software package? Symbian is dying and Maemo has yet to catch on (witness the sales of the iPod touch compared to the Nokia handheld tablets). How many people do you know who will say that developing for Symbian and Nokia phones is easy and a joy to do? Look at the user interface experience. Just about everyone who has an iPhone loves the interface. The UI in most other phones is something that the user grudgingly puts up with, not whips out to show off to their friends.

(And if you have that low opinion of your potential customers - that if they modify their own product to get basic functionality to work, that Just Works on all other phones, then they must be pirates - then I have no sympathy if Apple rejects the "app" that you've spent months or years developing.)

As much as I love a good rant, I feel compelled to point out that I neither own an iPhone nor develop apps for them.

If you want the basic functionality that "just works" with everything else, buy that everything else. Apple and AT&T don't allow tethering. So buy a phone that does. No one is forcing anyone to get an iPhone. Don't like the features? Don't buy it.

As I linked to above (reproduced here), there is a lot of piracy on iPhones and so far as I know, the only way to pirate on an iPhone is to jailbreak it. There is a chunk of jailbreaking users who are pure of heart and are merely trying to violate the terms of service with Apple and/or AT&T, but they're part of a demographic that is not all pure and shiny and a side effect of that is that they're not going to be highly sought after as customers.

Re:No

[wisdom_brewing]

since when does business model have anything to do with a consumer? Isn't a business model meant to be a systemised aproach to make money?

Re:No

[Swift2001]

Excellent point.

I am not a programmer, though I've done some fooling around and know some of the basic issues. Some of the issues complained about on this site seem to be of the legal department variety. Those guys are jerks. But if you don't enforce your copyrights, in two years some guy in a New Jersey basement could lawfully make an "iPhone." Some of these things are frivolous or plain wrong, like the Missing Manual for... app. Lawyers have no common sense. They're paid not to have common sense.

The remainder of the apps seem to have been rejected on the basis of using private APIs. I'm aware of this issue, and I'm simply not sure of the "wrongness" of this. This has been the case throughout OS X's development. On the Mac, developers were warned not to use hidden, or private APIs, because they might change at any time.The same thing is on the iPhone, though since the iPhone has one seller, it comes to a head. But many of the commenters on this blog seem to have good points: if you use a hidden API, it might not be there in the next revision, or it might now be linked to another function, one that crashes your app.

One commenter posted that if 1,000 apps were rejected, and 100,000 approved, then maybe we're dealing with a bunch of people that just didn't follow the rules, and some who got a raw deal.

The process should be more open and subject to quick appeal. This website may be one of the points of data that we need to evaluate things in a real way, rather than just popping off about how authoritarian Apple is while neglecting the fact that Google also advises you not to use its hidden APIs, and that is accepted as normal behavior.

Okay, now I'm a fanboy. I'm expecting that. But those who have the ideology that Apple is constricting the supply of applications when they're in a pool of 100,000 -- the fastest-growing software pile in history, I'm thinking -- may need to go back to the shop for a rethink. Not that they will.

Re:No

[war4peace]

Yes. And don't buy electricity or water, because guess what, in some countries that's a monopoly. A state-owned one. Better stay in the dark and don't wash :)
Joking aside, if you buy a product, you would expect to get "fuel" for it from a competitive market, unless it's technically impossible.

Re:No

[DavidTC]

The vast majority of pirated iPhone games are played exactly once, too.

Which either means the app sucked, or it means that the pirates just stuck a copy on their phone for bragging rights and never played it.

Re:No

[DavidTC]

It doesn't have anything to do with 'hidden APIs'.

There are plenty of apps that are rejected for dumb things, and even more apps that are rejected for simply giving people too much control over their phone.

There are plenty of apps that don't use standard APIs, but that's not the reason people jailbreak their phone. They jailbreak their phone because they want to run ScummVM or be able to background process or use VoIP over 3g, all of which are using entirely standard APIs yet breaking the 'rules' of the iPhone.

Re:No

[FictionPimp]

My favorite is when the ban the use of the word apple, or iphone, etc.

I mean they actually ban the use of an iphone image to show how to use the iphone to play a game. I mean if you wanted to show someone how to rotate an iphone to play an iphone game, wouldn't you want to well, use an iphone image to do that?

Apple is trying to make sure nothing feels intuitive. For example, one app showed a picture of a mac when connected to a mac, and a generic computer when connected to any other kind of computer. They banned them for using a mac image.

Re:No

[FictionPimp]

Maybe no one held a gun to your head....

You haven't seen how high sell the apple store is by my house....

Re:No

[rgviza]

There are people that don't own iPhones who run pirated software on their phones.

I thought we all learned

[mdenham]

...that things from the Island of Misfit Toys probably weren't a good idea to begin with.

That said, is the person standing up for these apps equipped with a red nose that glows and makes a buzzing noise?

Re:I thought we all learned

[RotateLeftByte]

Red nose day was months ago you insensitive clod http://www.rednoseday.com/

Re:I thought we all learned

[Tablizer]

...that things from the Island of Misfit Toys probably weren't a good idea to begin with.

There's actually a recent "Misfit" spoof ad bashing iPhone's coverage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JgrBtn8XdU
   

Re:I thought we all learned

[rmav]

As far as I know a phone does not have "coverage". The network has coverage (or has not). Under coverage a phone gets signal. This myopic perspective is always baffling me. In fact, it is not even ATT's fault the iPhone does not get signal where ATT does not provide coverage: the fault is in the business model.

Re:I thought we all learned

[s73v3r]

I think that's what Verizon is trying to point out in those ads; Verizon's 3G network is much, much more expansive than AT&T's, and as such, there are lots of places where an AT&T phone won't have signal whereas a Verizon phone will. They just picked the iPhone because its the most visible, and arguably the most popular phone on AT&T.

Re:I thought we all learned

[rmav]

I think that's what Verizon is trying to point out in those ads; Verizon's 3G network is much, much more expansive than AT&T's, and as such, there are lots of places where an AT&T phone won't have signal whereas a Verizon phone will. They just picked the iPhone because its the most visible, and arguably the most popular phone on AT&T.

Yes, but I would say that ATT's 3G coverage more than a problem OF the iPhone is a problem FOR the iPhone. I would say that Verizon's add in fact underlines that. The other toys tell it "you can do a lot of stuff, why are you depressed" and the iPhone shows the coverage map.

In Europe we can't always choose the network. In Italy, Belgium, the Czech republic, Poland, you can just buy it and put in it any SIM card you want. In France and the UK you have more providers but it is still simlocked. In Germany you have only one provided, the phone is locked and, guess what, you have the worst and most expensive tariffs of all.

My hunch is that in the future simlocked iPhones will become rare. Even in Germany (the country where the behaviour of phone companies most closely resembles the legalised-rape-like attitude of cellular networks in the U.S. & Canada), when you get an Android phone from vodafone, it is not locked. Sooner or later Apple will have to react to *that* to remain competitive.

Roberto

Article title correction

[zblack_eagle]

"iPhone App Store Reject Stories Find a Home". Actual rejected apps are not available there, nor necessarily anywhere else.

Re:Article title correction

[Anonymous Coward]

"iPhone App Store Reject Stories Find a Home". Actual rejected apps are not available there, nor necessarily anywhere else.

Damn. So it's not a link to a Bittorrent?

Re:Article title correction

[mdwh2]

There are rejected Iphone stories?? I thought putting in an obligitary Iphone mention was a guaranteed way to get a front page story, no matter how tenuous the link, or how trivial the story (remember the "You can view this website On Your Iphone" story? Something about parking tickets)...

Re:Article title correction

[tresstatus]

well... not exactly. if you are jailbroken, you can use cydia to download and install apps that might have been rejected. there usually is no mention as to if the apps have been rejected or not, but there are tons of apps that WOULD be rejected if they were submitted to apple.

Re:Article title correction

[Patik]

I first read "reject" as a verb when it's actually used as a noun (or an adjective in your example), but 'rejection' is much clearer. And it wasn't trivial to separate the subject from the rest of the sentence. How about this: "A New Home for Stories of iPhone App Store Rejection"

A serious black eye

[KingSkippus]

You know that old phrase about those who don't know their history being doomed to repeat it?

I don't know what Apple is thinking. Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition. With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?

The scary thing is that Apple has been in this EXACT situation before. They owned a large market share of the PC market way back when IBM PCs were too expensive for the common consumer to afford. They kept all of their hardware all locked up tight, with proprietary everything. As the cost of PCs came down as the hardware moved to commodity parts and the PC "clone wars" cranked up, Apple took a beating and damn near went out of business.

I already have friend who refuse to buy an iPhone because it's locked down so tightly. The two most common complaints I hear, in order, are: "I refuse to sign up for AT&T's service," and "I keep reading about how they won't let people publish their apps." The more they press this issue, the more they are setting themselves up for a spectacular failure. (And yes, I know people who have bought Android-based phones specifically because they don't like a company telling them what they can and can't run on hardware they paid good money for.)

Apple has been a cool company the past few years. I have an iPhone and a Mac (which I'm typing this comment from now, in fact). Still, if I owned stock in Apple, I'd be selling it about right now because they are moving in the exact opposite direction that the market is.

Re:A serious black eye

[MrMista_B]

So you think Apple should just accept every fart-app hack, poorly written, buggy piece of scrap code a developer ships their way?

They have to have /some/ quality control. Opening the floodgates wouldn't do them any good at all.

Re:A serious black eye

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that old phrase about those who don't know their history being doomed to repeat it?

I don't know what Apple is thinking. Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition.

Although I don't keep up too much with Apple, my best guess would be that they're still high from the afterglow due to the success of the iPod/ITMS.

I could see how a company would think that they could do no wrong after looking at the sales numbers they've had for, what, nearly a decade?

Re:A serious black eye

[binarylarry]

Except now "PC" is called "Android."

Re:A serious black eye

[binarylarry]

Oh and "Microsoft" is now called "Google."

I can't wait to see how Google is viewed in 10-15 years. :)

Re:A serious black eye

[Richard_at_work]

With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?

Android was first released in October 2008, with the first device being available the same month - thats over a year ago. According to Apple, the iPhone sold more than 4 million units in the first 200 days, so wheres the equivalent Android sales explosion? Analysts are expecting Android sales to outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, but why is it going to take that long if Android is such a good competitor? It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.

I'm not an Android hater, I haven't used it so I don't hold an opinion on it, but it seems to be held as the ultimate saviour on /., and I'm struggling to see why. Its not the iPhone I am worried about, its the Android series of phones...

Re:A serious black eye

[R3d M3rcury]

No. I think Apple should allow developers to distribute Apps without going through Apple's store.

There are two advantages:

1. Developers can work on applications without the fear that Apple will decide they can't publish them. They might need to have a "Plan B" if Apple chooses not to do so, but they aren't completely SOL.
2. Apple can choose to not accept applications that are yet another fart app or tip calculator or some other stupid thing without having to worry about people's complaints. This also allows Apple to prune it's App Store and get rid of all the crap and make discoverability easier.

Apple's customers can choose to only visit Apple's Store or they can download from elsewhere when Apple chooses not to publish something (and accept some risk).

Re:A serious black eye

[dbcad7]

What are you worried about ? .. breath in.. breath out.. It's only a phone, you already spent the money and made your commitments.. you'll be ok.. breath in.. breathe out.. another's success doesn't make you a failure.. breathe in... breath out..

Re:A serious black eye

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not be a hater, but if you can't see why Android has not yet, but is going to explode in the very near future and eclipse iPhone, then you're a fanboy of the first degree. The next 12 months are going to be painful for you, and every other fanboy like you.

Re:A serious black eye

[Excelsior]

You are right. Having a completely open platform has never worked before. *rolls eyes *

Re:A serious black eye

[timmarhy]

handsets is your answer sir. just because one is out there, it doesn't a good platform make.

Re:A serious black eye

[ZmeiGorynych]

Yup, agree completely. As cute as some iPhone functionality is, I've heard enough bad press about how Apple handles its developers (and had enough bad experiences of my own with an iPod earlier), that there's no way in hell I'm buying one. Thanks goodness the Nokia n900 is coming out - in spite of all the rough edges I'm sure it'll have, that's the one I'm going for (and me wife is getting one too;) ). And I'm not alone in that among my friends, either.

Re:A serious black eye

[mjwx]

so wheres the equivalent Android sales explosion?

So what you are trying to say is that any product that does not sell out on the first day is doomed to failure?

You're trying to analyse android using Apple's business model and ignoring the other very successful business models out there. Android was not something built on hype like the iphone. Google, HTC and the other OHA members planed for Android to have a slow release and ramp up which is exactly what has happened. Many tech products use this approach, creating a small market of early adopters, using this market to refine the product and come back with an R2. Also this has the added advantage of creating a support network as well as word of mouth campaigns as opposed to Apple's "blanket of hype" marketing. The plan with Android is not to flood the market at once with "sales explosions" but to slowly seep in and take market share piecemeal.

Analysts are expecting Android sales to outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, but why is it going to take that long if Android is such a good competitor?

Slow and steady wins the race. Analysts are predicting 2012 for Android to routinely outsell the iphone. For those playing along at home Apple's sales ebb and flow with the level of marketing Apple produces, right now the level of iphone marketing is low so iphones are not selling much, most manufacturers don't experience these lulls in sales so in this respect Apple is quite unique. Given the iphones reliance on hype and marketing it wouldn't surprise me if Android outsold Apple for a short time in 2010 until Apple ramps up the hype machine. What you also have to remember is that almost anyone who wants an iphone has one, as of July 2010 it will have been released in every western nation for two years which is the standard plan length in our nations. This is going to affect iphone sales a lot.

It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.

the iphone didn't take that much away from competitors, certainly the likes of RIM and NOKIA aren't hurting, the iphone hasn't taken much from the smart phone market, most of the iphones market share comes from the consumer phone market.

Its not the iPhone I am worried about, its the Android series of phones.

Now after reading this:

I haven't used it so I don't hold an opinion on it

I have to wonder how you came to that conclusion, you seem to have a pretty fixed opinion about Android despite never actually using it?

Re:A serious black eye

[mjwx]

You may not be a hater, but if you can't see why Android has not yet, but is going to explode in the very near future and eclipse iPhone, then you're a fanboy of the first degree. The next 12 months are going to be painful for you, and every other fanboy like you.

This is something the GP didn't understand. There will be no "explosion" of sales for Android, it will be a slow and steady growth with more and more Android devices hitting the market.

When Android sales eclipse iphone sales there will be little fanfare as we'll have seen it coming months before it happens. I predict that Android sales will eclipse iphone sales several times as Apple's marketing machines ramp up and down with Android sales growing at a slow but continuous pace.

Re:A serious black eye

[MightyMartian]

You think the App Store has anything to do with quality control? I don't know whether to laugh at your naivety or just feel sorry for you. You're probably too far gone to help. It's sad to see someone drink the kool-aid.

Re:A serious black eye

[Giranan]

Certainly, they should have quality control, but I think that one of the biggest issues that is plaguing the iPhone and its developers is the sheer arbitrariness and inconsistency of the app approval process. Recall, if you will, that issue with the dictionary app getting rejected because it could be used to look up curse words, while other apps were allowed through that had far more potential to be offensive.

Re:A serious black eye

[srussia]

So is the salondesrefusés.com domain still available?

Re:A serious black eye

[indiechild]

Apple took a beating precisely because they chose to dabble in the Mac clone market. That's a mistake that Steve Jobs will never make, hence why you will not see Mac OS X licensed and sold for generic non-Apple x86 PCs.

You'd be a complete fool to sell Apple stock now. Apple is set to get stronger than ever before.

Apple isn't doing anything different than what it has been doing ever since Jobs came back to captain the ship. It's the epitome of Steve Jobs' business strategy: make high quality, premium products which focus on great user interfaces and usability. Apple products will not be open and highly customisable as long as Jobs remains in charge. I think it's working very well for them.

Re:A serious black eye

[Serious Callers Only]

So you think Apple should just accept every fart-app hack, poorly written, buggy piece of scrap code a developer ships their way?

They currently do accept such crap, so what is your point?

I submit to you as evidence the hundreds of flashlight apps which simply light up the screen, the copies of Apple demo apps, iFart Mobile and the many copies, IAmRich (only removed after customer complaints), the appalling UI of 'TripLog/1040', etc etc. There are thousands of apps which can in no sense be rated as quality apps on the store right now.

The app store vetting is not about quality (as evidenced by all the crap-ware on the store), it is about control of competitors like Google and the purse-strings for the platform. They want to collect money on each transaction, and exclude any apps which they feel compete too closely with Apple products, and if that wastes months of time/money for third-party developers, or even their close partners like Google, well that's just too bad. The current policy certainly won't lead to more quality apps on the store - quite the reverse.

Apple are of course legally within their rights to restrict competition on their platform, whether it is in the interests of their customers, or indeed Apple long term, is debatable.

Re:A serious black eye

[rmav]

The two most common complaints I hear, in order, are: "I refuse to sign up for AT&T's service," and "I keep reading about how they won't let people publish their apps." The more they press this issue, the more they are setting themselves up for a spectacular failure.

Well, Apple can always relax, and it does. Is there a need for kinds of apps other than web apps? Here's a set of APIs and an appstore. Do you need Exchange compatibility? Here it is. Do you need some kind of services offered usually by background processes? For now, in some cases, we have Push Notifications.

Sooner or later Apple will have to shift the responsibility of activating tethering on the user (yes, I know the patent). Apple *can* allow more sources for apps in the future. It is more difficult to restrict conditions later (as Android will notice - at the moment applications seldom have visibility on Android, and sell much less than on the iPhone, and some developers are fleeing as well).

I am not condoning all of Apple's practices, but they sure know what they are doing. If you do not like what Apple is doing in a particular country, then you can still buy something else. If Apple does not offer some set of functions in your country, then the Apple product WITH that set of functions does not exist (it may exist if you hack the product, but then it is no longer Apple's offering).

Roberto

Re:A serious black eye

[rmav]

With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?

Android was first released in October 2008, with the first device being available the same month - thats over a year ago. According to Apple, the iPhone sold more than 4 million units in the first 200 days, so wheres the equivalent Android sales explosion? Analysts are expecting Android sales to outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, but why is it going to take that long if Android is such a good competitor? It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.

I'm not an Android hater, I haven't used it so I don't hold an opinion on it, but it seems to be held as the ultimate saviour on /., and I'm struggling to see why. Its not the iPhone I am worried about, its the Android series of phones...

There is an analysis here, not entirely without flaws, that explains some of the problems Android is facing.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/21/inside_googles_android_and_apples_iphone_os_as_software_markets.html
One of the biggest ones is hardware: limited flash on board castrates applications.

And leaving some of control of the firmware to the handset makers is the single, biggest mistake you can do. One of the main reasons the software scene on Symbian is lo lousy. You end up with too many different versions of the OS in use at the same time, and in some cases updating will be very, very difficult (did it never happen that a give FW update was NOT available for your specific Nokia handset - and thus you were unable to use some applications? IN Europe this is very common).

And TOO different HW characteristics. Some people complain that Apple's 480x320 screen is no longer the coolest around.

Of course Apple is already working on updates to the display - but in such a way that applications and icons won't look like rubbish (like scaling on the Motorola Droid). I need non insider info to know they are: they would be dumb if they didn't - and they may be evil, but not stupid.

I expect an exact doubling of resolution in both axes, and this will of course happen a bit later than on the Android platform (854x480 current on Droid), and with some _very_ simple software support (developers will have to check if such a screen is available, otherwise apps will be scaled, I guess).

Roberto

Re:A serious black eye

[JimmyPorter]

You know that old phrase about those who don't know their history being doomed to repeat it?

I do. But Jobs has been at Apple since day one, with an enforced break in the middle when he obviously also took a great personal interest in what Apple was doing. So he DOES know the history. History related to Apple - better than anyone on earth in fact. They HAVEN'T been in exactly the same situation before. Hardware is not the same as software. If YOU look at the history of the console you'll see that having the hardware manufacturer as a gatekeeper who gets to decide which software is published, and takes a cut of the revenue, is not a losing strategy at all. In fact the console games market is now bigger than the PC games market. No doubt you do have friends that refuse to buy an iPhone for whatever reason. But you'll also have friends who have happily bought an iPhone. I certainly have friends in both categories. But anecdotes prove nothing. Statistics do. And the relevant stats are sales figures. iPhone is doing phenomenally well, huge growth with every passing quarter. And that's against other smartphones - Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc, that have had the freedom you want for many years.

Re:A serious black eye

[JimmyPorter]

Apple decide, and some disadvantages for them are that:

1) Apple will get blamed by the press and blogosphere for any malware. Just as Microsoft gets blamed for Windows malware. But malware on a mobile phone can be much worse. It can cost you a lot of money on your phone bill.

2) Apple doesn't receive 30% of revenue if it's not sold through the App Store. Why would a company voluntarily give up revenue?

A disadvantage for the consumer is that life gets more complicated. A low price one stop shop such as the App Store is convenient. They are relieved of the concern that a better cheaper app is available elsewhere.

Re:A serious black eye

[JimmyPorter]

There's not much evidence that a completely open platform works better than closed ones.

Linux is the most open desktop system, yet it is a tiny niche behind Windows and OSX.

All the games consoles require that games are approved by the console manufacturer. Yet they now sell more games than are sold for PCs. Various companies have promised open console systems. All have failed.

The printer market is dominated by companies that require you to buy first party ink cartridges at highly inflated prices. It is possible to buy third party refills which require a bit of effort and can be messy (which one can think of as the equivalent of hacking/jailbeaking). But it seems most people/companies buy the original cartridges.

Same for the photocopier market.

Re:A serious black eye

[mdwh2]

Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition. With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?

The competition from Nokia (40% market share), Samsung, LG, Motorola and RIM, all of whom have larger market share than Apple, isn't "serious competition"? :) I'm sure Apple are enjoying the revenue from the product - you don't need to be one of the biggest in the market to make money.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with what you write about the risk of people losing interest in the Iphone, and yet more competition from Android - I would never buy a locked down platform either, and it scares me that such a thing might become normal practice in mobile computing. But don't forget there are plenty of alternatives here already, which people are already buying. It's just that the Iphone gets a disproportionate amount of media coverage (especially here on Slashdot - I mean, people start joking about the Daily Iphone Slashvertisement, but it's stopped being funny... Hell, today as well as the obligatory story, we've enough one that mentions the Iphone, with an additional two more Apple stories on top. When was the last time you saw an story for say Nokia?)

But yes, hopefully open solutions will win in the end. It annoys me that many phones are rather locked down - albeit nowhere near to the extent of the Iphone. That's why I'm glad that netbooks have appeared - maybe not replacements for phones, but they allow mobile computing with all the benefits and openness of ordinary PCs.

It's just sad that Slashdot, which was once a place devoted to open systems, now focuses almost solely on the most closed platfom in this market.

Re:A serious black eye

[smitty777]

For those playing along at home...

Dude, is there an app for that?

Re:A serious black eye

[mdwh2]

You are conflating the definition of "open". Here we are discussing the ability to run applications, without corporate approval. You can do that on Linux. You can do that on Windows. Hell, Apple even allow you to do that on OS X, so evidently they don't have a problem with "quality control" there!

And if you want to talk about market share and being open, 95+% of mobile phones let you run "apps" from anywhere, and under 5% of them don't.

Note that the games consoles work like that because the hardware company make money from the games, and in some cases sell the consoles themselves at a lower price accordingly (similarly for printers and ink). So is it the case that developers have to pay lots of money to Apple, and the Iphone is accordingly cheaper than other phones? (I know there's the $99 one off fee, but it's not clear that this is really enough to lower the Iphone price, which is towards the expensive ends of phones anyway - for consoles, the development costs can be in the region of thousands, IIRC.)

And nevermind what works, what would we rather? Do you want a world where portable computers are only available like games consoles, or ones that operate like ordinary computers today?

Re:A serious black eye

[mdwh2]

It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.

I'm sorry, when did this happen? Can you define "significant chunk of the market" in terms of percentage please?

Re:A serious black eye

[Excelsior]

You're right. This is what I meant by "open platform". Something where apps don't require approval and/or can be installed from any source. Not an open source system as gp assumed.

Re:A serious black eye

[hiscross]

Apple knows exactly what they are doing. It's the looters and parasites who never owned or operated their own business that do all the whining about Apple. Here is my challenge to all whiners, start your own business and comeback and tell us what you had to do to be successful. I bet you'll tell us you did what you had to do be successful and Not bend to the looters and parasites who want to use your mind and hard work to get a free pass. BTW that is called socialism, you know were America is headed and England and France are suffering because of it.yes, I own a business. "Who is John Galt?"

Re:A serious black eye

[gyrogeerloose]

I don't know what Apple is thinking. Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition. With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?

Android is not and was never intended to be an iPhone competitor. Check out the specs and you'll see that it's really targeted as a replacement for Windows Mobile and was specifically designed to run on existing hardware that's currently running WM.

As far as software stores goes, Android is no threat to the iPhone. By design, apps for Android have to fit into onboard storage; they are not allowed to run from add-on memory cards. Since Android itself uses up over 300MB, users are pretty limited in what they can run and any complex game is out of the question.

Android will no doubt do well in it's intended task of killing Windows Mobile (which is not a bad thing at all) and may eventually have a larger market share than the iPhone, but that will be a market of cheaper, less capable smart phones. It will not cut into the iPhone's key market all.

Re:A serious black eye

[nneonneo]

And all those devices will be different in some way: screen resolutions, communications (bluetooth/WiFi or not), storage, computing power (CPU), etc. etc. Sure, they'll sell tons of units, but will a developer be able to write an application that is expected to work on every released device, all at once, without any fuss? (hint: look at the Windows Mobile application situation: it's not so hot).

So Android might be able to move units, but if they keep fragmenting the devices like they are currently, I think they can expect developers to be rather irritated that they need to push out multiple versions of an app (one for each device or device class), or work very hard to make their app work on all those devices (probably harder than they need to work to overturn an Apple App Store rejection).

The situation on the iPhone is rather different in this regard. Every device running iPhone OS (iPod touch (3 generations), iPhone (3 generations)) released so far has the exact same screen resolution, general form factor and similar hardware (e.g. all have accelerometers and WiFi); the main differentiating factor is that newer devices have more storage, computing power and possibly additional sensors (cameras in the iPhones, compass in the iPhone 3GS, etc.). Fundamentally, however, these devices are not so different from an application programmer's standpoint; in this regard, iPhone development is easier.

Re:A serious black eye

[Richard_at_work]

So why was there a big explosion of sales for the iPhone? People seem to expect Android to exceed the iPhone, almost as if it was a divine right - its quite amusing to see.

Re:A serious black eye

[Richard_at_work]

so wheres the equivalent Android sales explosion?

So what you are trying to say is that any product that does not sell out on the first day is doomed to failure?

No, Im wondering why there wasn't the same sudden rush to the Android platform that the iPhone enjoyed, if Android is supposedly so much better?

Slow and steady wins the race.

Slow and steady wins the race? In kindergarten maybe, but in the real world slow and steady means low market penetration for years, while your quick competitor builds critical mass years before you. It also isn't mutually exclusive - Apple can be quick to begin with, and then slow and steady later on. Which runner is in front then?

This isn't an endurance race, its a sprint - build that market share, build the revenue streams surrounding the market share, and *then* keep it. But if you don't build it first, then theres nothing to keep.

Analysts are predicting 2012 for Android to routinely outsell the iphone.

Predicting. Based on what I have yet to see explained.

What you also have to remember is that almost anyone who wants an iphone has one, as of July 2010 it will have been released in every western nation for two years which is the standard plan length in our nations. This is going to affect iphone sales a lot.

And yet the iPhone is still selling extremely well, and has sold massively well in pretty much every quarter since it was released. Not everyone ran out at the start and bought the iPhone, and not everyone upgraded to the new models when given the opportunity.

the iphone didn't take that much away from competitors, certainly the likes of RIM and NOKIA aren't hurting, the iphone hasn't taken much from the smart phone market, most of the iphones market share comes from the consumer phone market.

Hmm, so where did the millions of iPhone users and a not insignificant market share come from? The Easter Bunny? It came from the competitors, the market didn't suddenly increase because of the iPhone.

I have to wonder how you came to that conclusion, you seem to have a pretty fixed opinion about Android despite never actually using it?

Funnily enough, I can have an opinion on a situation without having an opinion on the product. The two are not intertwined and I don't have any opinion about Android itself.

Re:A serious black eye

[v1]

This also allows Apple to prune it's App Store and get rid of all the crap and make discoverability easier.

I already have problems finding applications because when I look for say, a grocery list app, there's not 1 or 2 or 20. there's like 100, and it's hard to find a big difference between them. Of the say 100, 40-60 of them are either free or free demo, and so I download a dozen or so among them and try them out. If I don't find one I like, I have to go back to the store and find another dozen to try out. If I'm lucky I find something I like. What I really might have liked I may never have even gotten a look at.

It would be nice if there were better quality control than there is now. It'd be like trying to decide which cable company you want to sign up for, and there's 30 of them in town. Sometimes too much choice is a bad thing - it's good to have someone you can reasonably trust to filter through the huge pile and just present you with the top-ten-list. But I don't think "there are already too many of these on the store" is a major actual reason for rejection right now. "Competes (if even only slightly) with one of Apple's bundled apps" and "can change behavior once installed" seem to account for around 90% of rejections as of late. The former being greed and the latter being protective.

Re:A serious black eye

[metamatic]

2) Apple doesn't receive 30% of revenue if it's not sold through the App Store. Why would a company voluntarily give up revenue?

Because 30% of revenue on 50% of applications for a platform with 40% of the market, is a lot more money than 30% of revenue on 100% of applications for a platform that has dwindled to 5% of the market.

Plenty of people would use Apple's app store voluntarily--for convenience, for the promotional clout, and so on. (Plenty of people use the BlackBerry and Android marketplaces.) However, by forcing everyone to use the app store, Apple run the risk of destroying their platform market share.

Re:A serious black eye

[rmav]

Because 30% of revenue on 50% of applications for a platform with 40% of the market, is a lot more money than 30% of revenue on 100% of applications for a platform that has dwindled to 5% of the market.

Plenty of people would use Apple's app store voluntarily--for convenience, for the promotional clout, and so on. (Plenty of people use the BlackBerry and Android marketplaces.) However, by forcing everyone to use the app store, Apple run the risk of destroying their platform market share.

Yes, but where is it written in stone that Apple is now forced to keep this very same model and not allow alternative stores in the future? I do not have a crystal ball, but I am sure you do not have one. Believe it or not, they have some clever people at Apple. Of course they can also make big, huge, blunders, but they may even do it right

Roberto

Re:A serious black eye

[metamatic]

Well, I'd like to think that Apple will start selling jailbroken iPhones. I'd probably buy one then. But my gut feeling is that they're too addicted to the control. Steve Jobs is an infamous control freak, it's well documented that the Mac ended up open in spite of him rather than because of him.

Re:A serious black eye

[Swift2001]

I'd seriously dispute that. People who are aware of programming, linux, free software -- who have a serious knowledge of computers, they might find this onerous, or a "black eye." Those who haven't heard of it, and that is the great majority of a consumer device's market, don't really give a damn. I know five people like that -- not that "I know x people" is any proof.

The iPhone software market locked up tight? Is that why there's 100,000 apps? With AT&T, you have a point. But the exclusivity deal is coming off this year. Get ready for price drops and increasing market share.

Your account of the PC market leaves out a ton of stuff. One, PCs were cheaper, immediately. Business fueled the adoption of DOS in business, but they weren't any more "open" that the Mac. They gave the appearance of the same, because IBMs and Compaqs and HPs were "compatible," that is, the software and the processor was the same. But the DOS, and then Windows platforms weren't a tinkle more "open" than the Mac. The Mac stayed with Motorola processors, true. The most egregious sins were not by Jobs, of course, they were committed by the sugared-water marketers who came after him.

The Mac delayed windows compatibility, but I think that's a dead issue now, isn't it? I've run Macs perfectly well on Windows networks, we've shared printers, shared files, and shared common documents to work on with alternate applications. I can run the Windows environment on the iPhone. I can even run Windows in a Parallels environment on my iPhone, though I'm not sure why.

I'm sure if you read the Google or whatever programming tips, they tell you not to use certain API calls which are "private" and subject to change, and thus break. That seems to be the majority of rejections from the App Store.

When the iPhone came out, it was derided for not having any apps. Then only having Safari apps. Then when it came through with the apps, big-time, that's not good enough because it's too controlled. If the unpatched iPhone was subject to the nasty Trojans that the jailbroken phones are prone to, you'd hear about it.

Steve don't want porn apps on the iPhone, though he's not in control of your pictures. Steve don't want apps that have bad calls. Steve don't want his lawyers unhappy with copyright infringement, though that makes them twitch and do stupid stuff at times. But the network(s) need more protection from the ground up than computers needed in 1984, and paradoxically, you're always on the network now. Which sounds right for a phone. When you can't phone somebody else, or you can't go to any web site with Safari, that's when a smartphone will be closed.

Re:A serious black eye

[Swift2001]

I simply don't think there's any big reason to believe that's true. I was in the hospital recently, and while there, the cute nurse saw my iPhone. After maybe 20 minutes of impromptu demo, she went out and bought one. To get big numbers like you want, you have to get a lot of people like that nurse into the tent. And the single source of apps makes everything very simple.

By the way, I get why people are upset about the Google Voice app. But then why are no people upset about the Google Maps turn-by-turn in the Android only? Isn't that equally egregious, or is that okay, because it's not Google's turn in the barrel?

Re:A serious black eye

[Swift2001]

When has it? *rolls eyes*

Note, I'm not saying that Linux doesn't work, but that it's stuck forever around 1% of market share. And Firefox is an app, not an OS.

Re:A serious black eye

[cerberusss]

Thanks goodness the Nokia n900 is coming out - in spite of all the rough edges I'm sure it'll have, that's the one I'm going for

Just don't expect to be able to easily download quality games, utilities, navigation apps, etc. and you'll be fine.

As much as I hate the closed ecosystem around the iPhone, it's thriving at the moment -- at the total and utter expense of others.

Re:A serious black eye

[Swift2001]

Because it's "free." Wait till Google can no longer keep up the costs of development and starts charging for each copy, or throws in special ads when you start using it -- nice, big fat full-frame Flash animations.

Re:A serious black eye

[Excelsior]

As has been pointed out, I am talking about open from an application-installation perspective, not open source. Windows and most OS are open from this perspective.

Re:A serious black eye

[Swift2001]

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20091113/apple-smartphone/

Apple: From Zero to 17.1 Percent Smartphone Share in 2.5 Years

That's "Smartphone," so it's not "cell phones."

Re:A serious black eye

[metamatic]

Since Apple rejected both Google Voice and Google Latitude from the iPhone before Google Maps got turn-by-turn navigation, I think Google are quite justified in scaling back iPhone app development and not putting in too much effort to port the turn-by-turn functionality to the iPhone. In fact, I think they'd be justified if they quit iPhone development entirely; that's what I'd have done if Apple had jerked me around that way.

Re:A serious black eye

[R3d M3rcury]

Apple will get blamed by the press and blogosphere for any malware.

Perhaps this would inspire Apple to come up with a more secure phone.

Re:A serious black eye

[mqduck]

I already have friend who refuse to buy an iPhone because it's locked down so tightly. The two most common complaints I hear, in order, are: "I refuse to sign up for AT&T's service," and "I keep reading about how they won't let people publish their apps."

That definitely reflects my reasoning. There are other reasons I prefer a Droid over an iPhone, but the way the latter is locked down is an absolute deal-killer for me, and I suspect a lot of other people who know of it.

Re:A serious black eye

[FictionPimp]

Honestly, I doubt apple would let them add that kind of feature to the iphone. They turn down every other good idea.

Hello Editor. Did you RTFA?

[TubeSteak]

The summary implies that the website is going to be a home for rejected apps.
TFA shows that the site is there to collect information about why Apple rejected apps.

Re:Hello Editor. Did you RTFA?

[shacky003]

Perhaps it should have read "...provide a home for the developers of misfit apps"

Re:Hello Editor. Did you RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

The story was posted by kdawson, so no, the editor did not read it. He is by far the worst editor on Slashdot and yet they refuse to get rid of him.

Re:Hello Editor. Did you RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, of course the editor did not read the article, and doesn't understand the subject under discussion. It's kdawson, who has shown every indication of being either nearly illiterate or is actively trying to sabotage Slashdot's already meager quality. If you read a posted summary that completely mis-states what an article is about, or you read a summary that betrays a total lack of understanding of the subject -- chances are it's a kdawson joint.

They guy's a moron, I'm sorry to say.

Proof read

[Anonymous Coward]

I see "slashdoted", "horn in". Geez, the article is on the front page. Eldavojohn usually spells quite well. Did an editor mess it up?

Re:Proof read

[absoluteflatness]

I can see the problem with "slashdoted," but "horn in" isn't a typo.

Sweet TV commericals ahead!

[binarylarry]

I'm a mac.

I'm a PC.

and I'm here to serve you a fucking isummons to court for violating our EULA. Oh whats that bitch? Did I hear you say PsyStar? Thought so.

He speaks about 50/50% market share times

[Ilgaz]

Apple once owned 50% desktop market. If you read the history, even from sources like Wikipedia, you will see it isn't exactly "evil Microsoft" put them in bad position, it is their bad treatment to developers, especially tiny ones.

From that site, I was led to that portable .NET game engine community and reading the legimate developer's comments, I really felt sad. There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed. I speak about not being able to buy bread to your home. I feel ashamed on behalf of Apple and I am not linking it directly, one can find it easily if digs enough.

It is the same story on Desktop, they make Developers _hate_ them, not fixing any reported bugs and with 10% approaching market share, companies like EA say "fsck it, lets convert our directx code instead of using their frameworks". Don't you watch application/game scene recently? What ships other than copy/paste windows converted junk? Apple switched to i386, ending the decade old endianness issues/not being able to use same code and game releases became _less_. There must be a reason for it you know.

Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times

[DNS-and-BIND]

There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed.

This is what I would call "poor risk assessment skills". If you're depending on a capricious entity for your livelihood, I'd suggest a change of employment cause you sure as hell ain't gonna change Apple.

*Ahem* game releases became _fewer_. Countable and non-countable nouns. The more you know!

Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times

[rmav]

Apple once owned 50% desktop market. If you read the history, even from sources like Wikipedia, you will see it isn't exactly "evil Microsoft" put them in bad position, it is their bad treatment to developers, especially tiny ones.

Well, the development tools on OS X are excellent. So it seems that Apple has learned. And they have almost half of all U.S. desktop revenue, so their marketing, product, and developer strategies are working well at the moment.

As for the iPhone, a lot of developers have success. Good applications are visible. iPhone users can buy applications for cheap with respect to other platforms. The system is not perfect, but it seems to be working.

Should problems arise, Apple will adapt the strategy. Of course they may do it terribly wrong, but, hey, it is a company, not a religion.

And if for somebody Apple is a religion, then, poor them.

Roberto

Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times

[Anonymous Coward]

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

On a more serious note, if someone is 60 days away from being homeless/hungry, and they're depending on a get-rich-quick scheme to fix it, maybe Apple's process isn't the most flawed of them all. This just screams "Think of the Children!". Also, how exactly does EA's crappy ports have anything to do with Apple app acceptance/rejection?

Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times

[Urkki]

There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed.

This is what I would call "poor risk assessment skills". If you're depending on a capricious entity for your livelihood, I'd suggest a change of employment cause you sure as hell ain't gonna change Apple.

I think that was the point. They thought Apple could be relied on. Now they know better...

Hint to Apple: you want exactly those people who are good SW guys but perhaps not the smartest as business people to do software for you. They're usually at least as interested in the software as the money they make off it, if not more. So they'll crank out cheap software for those who might buy Apple phones, thus providing Apple very cheap software base. You don't want to drive them to Android and later Maemo.

Though Maemo promises to be wicked cool from developer point of view, if you ask me :-)

Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times

[nacturation]

There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed. I speak about not being able to buy bread to your home.

And if their app doesn't sell, they'll be ruined as well. I'm with the other poster. This can simply be chalked up to stupidity on their part.

Android is more potentiality for now

[S3D]

Android is more potentiality for now than a real competitor. If Android apps start really bite into App Store pocket Apple will do something, not before. The situation with Symbian OS was absolutely the same. Until iPhone/App Store juggernaut started, Nokia didn't bother with developer complaints about closure of handset capabilities with Symbian Signed, platform fragmentation and general neglect of application market. As soon as iPhone started biting into Nokia market share, and Apple app store proved that there are real money in the applications, Nokia scrambled Ovi application store, Symbian foundation promised to relax Symbian Signed restrictions, and it seems Nokia ended up with dropping Symbian OS for high-end (or may be for all later) smartphones altogether.

Countdown

[bytesex]

Lawsuits and API changes in 3.. 2.. 1..

Re:Countdown

[MrNaz]

mrnaz@mrnaz-desktop:~$ apt-get pussy
E: Invalid operation pussy
mrnaz@mrnaz-desktop:~$
:(

It should be iSummons...

[denzacar]

...you insensitive clod!

1000 bucks on

[arbiter1]

Apple filing suit against the site for violating some patent or what ever.

Re:1000 bucks on

[mister_playboy]

I would agree with that based on the summary, but TFA and TFS don't seem to be talking about the same thing.

kdawson FTW!

iPhone's apple-sauce of fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone invest a non-trivial amount of time or money developing iPhone apps knowing their apps could be rejected at Apple's whim.

Google Guy vs. Mac Guy

[MightyMartian]

So who will be Google Guy? I mean, they have an actor who basically looks like his only sexual experience has been with his mom's pantyhose for Windows Guy. I'm thinking a flamboyant show-tune singing cross dresser or, even better, a guy in a trenchcoat with a heavy German accent who insists he's from Argentina.

Re:Google Guy vs. Mac Guy

[xinco]

Thanks for the coffee on my keyboard. Too bad I don't have mod points!

UNamerican

[anonieuweling]

But isn't it UNamerican to circumvent the intentions of Apple Inc and do whatever you want for yourself?
I mean, by exactly doing this you are UNfriending yourself. Apple Inc will lose dollar$ because of this and will have less influence to set the desired norms, values, regulations, etc.
All of this might even be illegal. Yes, you are going against the will of the owner of the platform and you might be breaking certain laws while going this route.
Has this world become an area with revolutionarists?

Re:UNamerican

[selven]

What do you have against the University of Nebraska?

Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[garote]

Let's say Android is deployed on every smartphone in the world that isn't an iPhone. Some are large and fragile, some are gold-plated, some with touchscreens, some without, some with keyboards, et cetera et cetera. To do this, every manufacturer and carrier needs to write custom firmware, apps, and UI elements to work with their handsets, on top of Android, ... so let's just say they did, and they work just fine, and here we are.

How does this in any way constitute a threat to the iPhone?

Here's another scenario: Let's take every computer in the world, from the toughest HP rig to the crappiest mini-ATX, and make them all run the same OS. Let's call this rival OS something suitably generic, like, "windows". By sheer numbers alone, it will totally crush Apple and their puny OS X! Except it hasn't.

What magic sauce does Android promise that will counteract the crushing weight of a zillion competing handsets and their chump code monkeys clamoring to distinguish themselves with blingy but utterly unusable interfaces?

I'd really like to know.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[NickFortune]

How does this in any way constitute a threat to the iPhone?

Because using your proprietary control of the platform to play hardball with 3rd party software creators doesn't work so well when a viable alternative exists.

If Apple keep on artificially limiting what the iPhone can do, they're going to drive away developers. The risk is that one day soon, there is going to emerge an Android based phone with a killer set of cool apps, which are composed largely of all the stuff that Apple didn't allow on the iPhone because they saw short term commercial advantage in inconveniencing their customers.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[garote]

Awesome! I can see it now! Sixteen icons on the home screen:

1. MAME r106, Really Hard To Control Edition
2. "Let's Bounce," With Russian ""Actress"" Yulia Nova
3. Telnet
4. Official Chase Bank App (actually released by phr0z3n crew, but who can tell?)
5. Captain Redb34rd's Totally Safe And Not Backdoored Personal Info Storage App
6. Flash Player (clocked down to 1fps for battery life)
7. I Am Rich
8. Baseband Burner
9. Firefox Mobile
10. Mozilla Mobile
11. Opera Mobile
12. Lynx Mobile
13. Internet Explorer Mobile
14. Internet Explorer Mobile Security Update Manager
15. WinAMP
16. Norton AV

Clearly, Apple sees short term commercial advantage in inconveniencing their customers, by not dropping each and every one of these apps into their next firmware update.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[JimmyPorter]

If Apple keep on artificially limiting what the iPhone can do, they're going to drive away developers.

Hobby developers perhaps. But most real developers (i.e. ones that are earning their living that way) care more about:
1) Revenue. (You can expect to sell about 10,000 times as many copies of an app on iPhone as on Android for example.)
2) Quality, ease and speed of development platform and API. (Symbian OS has about half the smartphone market. But the platform is such a pain it will take much longer to develop a given app. So they are losing developers to Apple.)

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[mdwh2]

Indeed - it won't crush Apple, because there's nothing to crush in this market. They'll go from having a few per cent market share, to having a few per cent market share.

Conceivably it might lessen the marketing hype - I mean, when every other phone is now running Android (not to mention that Google themselves seem to have some success at getting media attention, whilst Nokia etc are virtually ignored), then this might change things. Also you shouldn't underestimate the knock on effects, in that when you've got a large number of phones on the same system, developers and users are going to be far more likely to target it than they are now, which could mean Apple losing share.

Consider that 15-25 years ago, there were lots more alternatives to Windows. Today they have over 90% market share. Yes, alternatives are not totally gone, but the share of alternative platforms seems much lower than it was.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[mdwh2]

And what do "real" developers care when the thing that's providing their living is rejected from the Iphone store? It might only happen sometimes, but it's still a risk, and it seems corporate suicide to depend solely on another company in such a way. Far more likely it seems that companies might right an Iphone "app" in addition - are there any Iphone only software companies out there?

OOI, I'd be curious to know what the share of "real" developers to "hobby" developers is. Given that the most notable apps seem to be things like "display a spinning graphical image Purity Ring app"...

(You can expect to sell about 10,000 times as many copies of an app on iPhone as on Android for example.)

So the Iphone is better than an even smaller and newer platform - conveniently you ignore all the much bigger platforms in the market.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[NickFortune]

Hobby developers perhaps. But most real developers (i.e. ones that are earning their living that way) care more about:

Yes, yes, yes. Of course they do. But if a day comes when an Android phone has all the cool bits that Apple have been barring from their phones, then it'll be worth the "real" developers while to migrate too...

The driver will be if the iPhone starts loosing marketshare to a platform that is less restrictive in terms of what the customer can do with it. Once that happens, the more mainstream devs will follow, discontented ones first, then all but the hardcore Apple loyalists.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[NickFortune]

Of course! A commercial phone company selling an Android based phone would only include rubbish apps because... um ... because they're not Apple! Yes! That must be it.

Silly of me to imagine that a competitor might actually want to compete. And maybe bundle software that made it competitive. I guess I'm just getting old...

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[westlake]

Let's call this rival OS something suitably generic, like, "windows". By sheer numbers alone, it will totally crush Apple and their puny OS X! Except it hasn't.

In its corporate identity Apple Computer becomes Apple. Its focus shifts from the computer to the music store and the mobile device.

The Mac is assembled from a sub-set of commodity - Windows x86 - based PC hardware.

Apple markets the Mac with Boot Camp or virtualization as the perfect Windows PC. The Mac offers a rich secondary market for the Windows OS and Windows software.

These alleged rivals have stilled the antitrust beast and held their respective market shares for the better part of thirty years.

 

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[Swift2001]

There seems to be a problem of transparency and speed of notification of problems, yes. How many apps have been rejected, out of the 100,000 accepted? How large is the number of the developers who are chafing under this dictatorship?

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[Swift2001]

Brilliant, mr. garote.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[Swift2001]

We're not looking at the included apps, which will tend to be very solid -- and that tells you something, right? -- but the ones you want to add, either through the apple or blackberry or Microsoft Marketplaces/iTunes, etc.

What is the motivation for somebody to make an app with a Trojan that takes your bank sign-in and sends it to Turkestan, huh? Why, there's no-- Oh, no, they want to take the money out of your bank account. There's lots of motivation for malware, and if it's from third-party suppliers, who knows?

Would you settle for your company getting the ability to sign the app, and if you screw up, everybody will know it's your dumb app?

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[NickFortune]

We're not looking at the included apps, which will tend to be very solid -- and that tells you something, right? -- but the ones you want to add, either through the apple or blackberry or Microsoft Marketplaces/iTunes, etc.

How about the ones that were produced professionally, and have been blocked by Apple for marketing rather than technical reasons? We've had a few of those reported on Slashdot.

The danger is that when you get a phone that can do all the things that the iPhone bars you from doing, it may gain marketshare quite rapidly at Apple's expense.

My point here isn't "Apple are Evil because they don't let you run anything you like" but rather "Apple have been rejecting apps for no technically valid reason, and this could backfire badly if a phone is launched that makes a feature out of lacking those restrictions."

What is the motivation for somebody to make an app with a Trojan that takes your bank sign-in and sends it to Turkestan, huh? Why, there's no-- Oh, no, they want to take the money out of your bank account. There's lots of motivation for malware, and if it's from third-party suppliers, who knows?

Like I say, that's not really the point I'm making. But, to be fair, the same problem exists on windows boxes, but with a little care and common sense it's entirely possible to install 3rd party apps without turning your machine into a nest of malware and keyloggers. And that without having MS vet all the apps available,

Would you settle for your company getting the ability to sign the app, and if you screw up, everybody will know it's your dumb app?

Sounds fair, so long as keys are not arbitrarily withheld and/or withdrawn. Otherwise, you get the same problem: suppressing useful apps for marketing reasons.

Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon?

[NickFortune]

There seems to be a problem of transparency and speed of notification of problems, yes. How many apps have been rejected, out of the 100,000 accepted? How large is the number of the developers who are chafing under this dictatorship?

To be honest, I have no idea. I'm not in the market myself, and the information I have on the subject is based entirely on past discussions on Slashdot.

Certainly, it sounds as if a little more transparency would go a long way toward helping where the developers are concerned.

I beg your pardon?

[garote]

Android was not something built on hype like the iphone.

The iPhone was not built on hype, though it benefitted from it. It was built on damned strong innovation.

Google, HTC and the other OHA members planed for Android to have a slow release and ramp up which is exactly what has happened. Many tech products use this approach, creating a small market of early adopters, using this market to refine the product and come back with an R2. Also this has the added advantage of creating a support network as well as word of mouth campaigns as opposed to Apple's "blanket of hype" marketing.

There you go again with that "hype" word. Actually Apple is so respected for their ability to innovate that they benefit strongly from the word-of-mouth you speak of. The iPhone made the cover of Time magazine, as the "best invention of the year", total cost to Apple: Zero. The Steve was named by Fortune magazine as the CEO of the decade. Cost: Zero. Those represent the top of a mountain of free press coverage that Google simply cannot match. So of course their strategy is different; but not by choice.

The plan with Android is not to flood the market at once with "sales explosions" but to slowly seep in and take market share piecemeal.

Yes, that's "the plan". It's the only strategy that stands a chance in hell of working.

Slow and steady wins the race. Analysts are predicting 2012 for Android to routinely outsell the iphone.

Analyst. The Gartner research firm, last month, to be specific. They did not reveal any details about how they arrived at their numbers. They did not say that Android would eat marketshare away from Apple, either. They claimed that, three years from now, about 14% of smartphones would run the Android OS, and that about 13% of smartphones would be sold by Apple.

Don't hang your hat on what one analyst says. Another research firm, Canalys, has already pegged the Apple smartphone marketshare at 17 percent in Q3 2009.

Even if the iPhone marketshare were to SHRINK in three years down to the same level that Gartner promises the Android, Apple would still be making one hell of a lot more money off smartphones than Google would. And do you have any idea how long three and a half years is in this market? The iPhone had not even been released three years ago. What's Apple going to be rolling out three years from NOW? If you think the Android platform is going to destroy or even damage Apple's smartphone business, you still Have Some Splainin' To Do.

For those playing along at home Apple's sales ebb and flow with the level of marketing Apple produces, right now the level of iphone marketing is low so iphones are not selling much

7.4 million units sold in Q3 2009. That is roughly twice the number of units sold running Windows Mobile, and dangerously close to the number of BlackBerries sold in the same time frame. Explain your usage of the phrase "not selling much".

as of July 2010 it will have been released in every western nation for two years which is the standard plan length in our nations. This is going to affect iphone sales a lot.

Explain how.

the iphone didn't take that much away from competitors, certainly the likes of RIM and NOKIA aren't hurting, the iphone hasn't taken much from the smart phone market, most of the iphones market share comes from the consumer phone market.

... Which is where the smartphone market gets its growth from. And this is exactly why RIM and Nokia _are_ worried. The majority of the customers newly attracted to the smartphone market are being diverted to iPhones. Nokia's smartphone sales figures have been flat for the last three years. That is what we in the biz call "hurting".

Re:I beg your pardon?

[mdwh2]

There you go again with that "hype" word. Actually Apple is so respected for their ability to innovate that they benefit strongly from the word-of-mouth you speak of. The iPhone made the cover of Time magazine, as the "best invention of the year", total cost to Apple: Zero. The Steve was named by Fortune magazine as the CEO of the decade. Cost: Zero. Those represent the top of a mountain of free press coverage that Google simply cannot match. So of course their strategy is different; but not by choice.

To be blunt, that's exactly what he means - "hype" may be an emotive term, but this is what he meant. Apple are very good at getting lots of media attention for free, irrespective of how good the product is or how much market share they have. Whether this is Apple's doing, or the RDF just appeared for other reasons, who knows. But it is a fallacy to assume that media coverage must mean that the product is good (come on - this is a phone that advertises "3G" in its name as if that is the best feature it has). By that reasoning, Windows is the best product, and Paris Hilton is an awesomely talented person, right? Just because other platforms, including Android, don't take this approach, doesn't mean they are or will do worse.

They claimed that, three years from now, about 14% of smartphones would run the Android OS, and that about 13% of smartphones would be sold by Apple.

Yeah I think that counts as outselling the Iphone. No one's claiming that the Iphone is going to die, we're just disputing this myth that the Iphone is the best selling phone, and wondering why no other phones get Daily Slashvertisements (or indeed, any coverage whatsoever - when was the last Nokia story?)

7.4 million units sold in Q3 2009. That is roughly twice the number of units sold running Windows Mobile, and dangerously close to the number of BlackBerries sold in the same time frame. Explain your usage of the phrase "not selling much".

Conveniently you ignore Nokia (40% market share), and all the other phones selling more. So yes, Apple are outsold by Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and RIM, but hey, at least they do better than Windows Mobile! To be honest, debating Apple versus Microsoft and Google in the mobile phone market is rather irrelevant to the big picture right now.

The mobile phone market is hundreds of millions (at least), with Apple are few per cent of it. Now sure, they sell enough to keep them in business, no one's disputing that. But there's this absurd idea that they're the market leader, or the only phone around except for Android and maybe Windows Mobile or Blackberry.

Which is where the smartphone market gets its growth from. And this is exactly why RIM and Nokia _are_ worried. The majority of the customers newly attracted to the smartphone market are being diverted to iPhones. Nokia's smartphone sales figures have been flat for the last three years. That is what we in the biz call "hurting".

There's not really a clear line between "consumer phone" and "smartphone". Indeed, I wouldn't count the Iphone as a smartphone anyway, unless you define it so broadly to include all feature phones too. I'd like to see a source for your claim, though I'm not sure how we could even measure someone who was "newly attracted to the smartphone market". For someone "in the biz", I'd like to see where your claims are coming from.

Nokia have 40% in the smartphone market, and 40% overall, so the definitions don't matter there anyway. And it's less of a worry of having flat sales, especially in a recession, when you're at 40%, and the market leader! Do you have a source for that claim, anyway?

Anyhow, as more companies enter the market, one would expect a market leader to lose share. That's not a bad thing - that's good, as we don't want monopolies. But it is absurd to suggest that this trend will continue so that Apple will overtake Nokia! And there are other new companies who are also eating small amounts away from Nokia, more so than Apple (e.g., RIM). Android ph

Re:I beg your pardon?

[sznupi]

Small nitpicking: Nokia has 50% of smartphone market ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone ).

And as a side note - they will grow big time, IMHO. They're pushing Symbian more and more towards the dominant mobile phone platform of this planet, the Nokia S40 (well, ok, they're selling lots of S30 too, perhaps more). They are the only ones with a product for this segment - cheap, reliable candybars, not that much different from what majority of their market is already using. Most smartphone makers even don't want to enter that market, with only one claiming it does want a slice (Android), but I yet to see anything which supports that claim... (there are NO cheap Android phones, and none upcoming; all are devices with large touchscreens, nowhere near $100 without contract)

Ther's an App for That?

[smitty777]

There should be an app for getting rejected apps. But then it would be rejected, and I'd have to use the app to get it. Wait...my head hurts.

Utter tripe.

[mjwx]

There you go again with that "hype" word. Actually Apple is so respected for their ability to innovate that they benefit strongly from the word-of-mouth you speak of. The iPhone made the cover of Time magazine, as the "best invention of the year", total cost to Apple: Zero. The Steve was named by Fortune magazine as the CEO of the decade. Cost: Zero. Those represent the top of a mountain of free press coverage that Google simply cannot match. So of course their strategy is different; but not by choice.

Case in point.

You've just demonstrated the dictionary definition of hype.

7.4 million units sold in Q3 2009. That is roughly twice the number of units sold running Windows Mobile, and dangerously close to the number of BlackBerries sold in the same time frame. Explain your usage of the phrase "not selling much".

What does "roughly twice" mean on the planet where you're from. The numbers tell an entirely different story with Winmo outstripping Iphone by 2 to 1.

Explain how.

I did that before, not my fault you missed it but here it is again. Everyone who wants an iphone pretty much has one by now. They are no longer a new thing thus demand falls.

And this is exactly why RIM and Nokia _are_ worried.

What you call worried, the industry calls Business As Usual, the iphone doesn't scare RIM or Winmo. It scares the likes of the LG Shine as this is the audience its competing for. The iphone sales rise and fall with the amount of marketing released for it.

After reading this tripe I have to wonder weather you're either a very clever troll or truly ignorant.

Re:Utter tripe.

[garote]

What does "roughly twice" mean on the planet where you're from. The numbers tell an entirely different story [engadget.com] with Winmo outstripping Iphone by 2 to 1.

Hey dumbass: Your link points to an article written almost TWO YEARS AGO, and the statistic it gives is for SIX MONTHS, not a quarter.

Bass and Rankin FTW!

[StCredZero]

...that things from the Island of Misfit Toys probably weren't a good idea to begin with.

I came here for that reference! A Bass and Rankin Christmas Special theme would be more interesting than what they have up there now, anyhow.

It would be seasonal, too!

At last!

[Anal Surprise]

Finally we a place where you can find rootkits and backdoor installers for your iPhone.

It's like the chemistry.com

[margaret]

for apps

I am inside OS X community myself

[Ilgaz]

Every single day, another OS X developer gives up iPhone. They aren't all famous nor they bother to write some whining (in eyes of apple fans) blog entries.

Some tools, who got awarded by Apple themselves haven't even bothered to attempt to release on iPhone, guessing they would never, ever get "allowed" to app store and those pro guys can't really bother with 1% of hacked/insecure iPhone stores with piracy coming with culture itself.

It is 1984 all over again, they are making the exact same mistakes which really costed them (and entire IT) some decade. Their attitude towards developers, even the major ones like Adobe hasn't changed a bit and yet there is Microsoft on other side even helping shareware game developers for free.

I play a massive simulation game and game developer, which is a small company almost gave up on OS X when Apple didn't just refuse to fix an OpenAL bug but made it even worse. As Apple acts like some psycho stalker sometimes, I am not naming any names.

I am not targeting you on this but it is really interesting that Apple "fanboy" (!) phenomenon is not just users, it is developers too. There are developers (as you see on this thread) who sides with gigantic censoring, controlling company instead of little guy.

It is not like I hate OS X or Apple, hell I hate the idea of .NET let alone some portable runtime of it. I just know who to side with when a large company abuses their dominant position with huge PR scheme.