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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.
Blackberry OS doesn't even have stores, but it certainly has software; Android is less "wild" than that. I find it ridiculous to say that people can't market software without a tightly controlled application store. There has never been a successful tightly controlled compulsory application store until Apple's. Since phones have become general computers, why is it so hard for people to buy software the same way they do for their laptops?
Apparently "ShiftJelly" isn't willing to develop for other platforms, but that just means that more versatile developers can succeed instead.
My Frame 1.2 is in the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-frame-alarm-clock-displays/id364532249?mt=8
--- What?