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Apple Blindsides More AppStore Developers
For a while now Apple has said it doesn't want "widget-like" apps in the store; but where is the boundary of that fuzzy statement? The developers of My Frame, of which three versions had already been approved for the iPhone/iPad, found out that they had already crossed it when Apple informed them their app would be pulled. My Frame had options to overlay data on whatever photo was displaying: a Twitter stream, weather, etc. When one of the developers wrote to Steve Jobs on a whim to ask what unwritten rule their app had violated, Jobs wrote back: "We are not allowing apps that create their own desktops. Sorry." "I see now why people are so angry at the 'murky' nature of the App Store, and I'm starting to agree with them. My Frame was approved by Apple 3 times (once for each version we released), and ... now, at version 1.2 they decide it's to be removed? How can a company be prepared to invest into a platform that can change at any time, cutting you off and kicking you out, with no course of action but to whine on some no-name blog[?] There is no alternative platform, despite what others may say about Android, it's immature and their app store(s) are a wild west nightmare. It really is Apple's way or the highway...." A few blogs have picked up the story.
I have some guys here at work who use their iPhones for VNC quite religiously. VNC is a tad bit closer to "its own desktop" than this app, granted it is a snapshot of another machine's desktop. Where do you draw the line, Mr. Jobs?
Sounds like what Second Life did. I used to play the game with SL, developed in-world items and scripts. Every time I started to make money at it, SL would make the script "Illegal", discontinue some function I was using, start giving the same thing away for free or start charging for something that was free. All in all the moving target made it impossible to work in the environment. Thus, I stopped and walked away.
If Apple starts changing the rules and making the environment less appealing for the developers then they will move, unlike second life there are competitors and other opportunities.
It seems to me that this is troubling for the developer, but it's also troubling for the customers. It means that users have bought applications that suddenly have no possibility of being maintained properly. Bugs will never be fixed. New features will never come. It turns iTunes into a fairly risky marketplace.
You know, the sad thing is, I remember a time when it wasn't true. When I preferred to use the Macs in the computer lab at the university over the PC's specifically because I could carry around a floppy full of extensions that all I needed to do was drop into the extension folder and reboot and have a machine that looked and mostly worked completely different from any other Mac.
Stuff like Kaleidoscope were just the tip of the Iceberg, with the fact that 'hacking' resources on the Mac was a trivial task, you could customize almost anything you wanted in your apps. This is stuff that Windows never had and still doesn't.
But then Steve had to go and get to the top of the hill, and it turned out that he was just a smarmier, better dressed Bill. That's sort of sad. Back when there really were two camps, really the only difference between the two was their fashion sense.
No... Bill should stay Borg. Microsoft is the precursor to the Borg: they want nothing less than to own every computer on the planet.
Google is the precursor to SkyNet. Think about it: Google owns a huge network of systems employing AI routines to parse natural-language databases. One day, Google's search engine will become sentient. So perhaps a Google logo with those red eyes would be appropriate satire.
Steve Jobs...he's more like Emperor Ming from Flash Gordon. He has immense power, but rather than use it for the betterment of his people (his customers), he makes arbitrary decisions for his own amusement. Attempts to appeal to him with logic fail. Attempts to sway his emotions fail. Even decisions that seem like they would harm Apple only make him stronger in the long run.
Google is a terrible retailer. I love my Nexus One, but buying it from Google demonstrated that they aren't good at selling things, or being a conduit for selling things.
The marketplace is a good example. Us Canadians only recently got the ability to actually buy pay apps, and of course we (like most of the world) still don't have the ability to sell apps, at least with Google handling the transaction.
Which is why many apps have gone to either ad support, or some sort of activation key that you buy from a more world-capable transaction enabler like PayPal.
Unless of course Apple is making you walk away as in cases like this. You pay your entrance fee, you run 99.9% of the race and then Apple looks you over at the finish line and says you ran this racing wearing red sneakers and we don't like red sneakers. Thank you for your $99, your purchase of various iProds and a Mac, have a nice day. My advice to developers unless you have nothing better to do, walk away or don't get involved at all and no I'm not one of the rejected.
Actually, I'd say that Apple is more like the Federation. They are using their power for what they see as the betterment of their people. They have all these rules as to how society should be run: no money, no alcohol, etc. If you ever want to join Star Fleet and move up in the ranks, you'd better be in line with all those rules. However, if you don't want to follow the rules, you can always just pack up and head to uncharted territories or join the borg, and they won't stop you.
there's ONE official Android app store.
Which isn't open to every country, not even every industrialized country. Most developers don't want to have to go through a supported country's immigration process just to be able to sell apps.
But these engineers and bloggers are some serious whiners. If Wal-Mart or Target or any large store or any store, for that matter, stops carrying some real-world product, does it make it onto slashdot? Hell no! Because that's the nature of business. Your customers can stop buying your product at any time, even when those customers are resellers. Why do these people feel that it is their God-given right to sell products through these istores or whatever?
Talk to any successful business owner about the concept of having only one customer for you business and they'll say you're stupid.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
An even worse problem is that Apple's followers don't seem to see a problem with Apple keeping the rules secret from the developers writing for Apple's platform.
I'm having a huge argument with a friend right now about this. He thinks it would be a huge PR mistake for Apple to publish concrete, clear App Store submission rules, and that therefore they shouldn't do it. (His reason? People would be pissed about all the exceptions to the rules that Apple makes for wealth developers.)
And he doesn't have a problem with Apple favoring wealthy app developers even when it harms the independent and small business developers.
(If you're curious, we were talking about Apple's "no scripting" rule, which they conveniently ignore for developers like EA and PopCap.)