Slashdot Mirror
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.
It's time to retire the Bill Gates Borg photo and replace it with a Steve Jobs Borg photo for Apple stories.
Sucks to be you. Don't write for iStuff.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
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?
Is he hoping that Steve reads:
"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..."
and rewards his loyalty with an exception?
As long as the userbase remains as large as it is, that means leaving a lot of money on the table for many developers.
As sucky as the terms are, it's hard to walk away from that.
iPhone developers are up in arms at Apple requiring them to use only Apple toolkits, sacrifice a Windows developer at their local Apple Shop every Sunday and maintain an altar to Steve Jobs in their homes. And eat a bug.
Apple is famous for its rigid control over its devices, in its quest to maintain user quality. Developers have worked under increasing restrictions in their attempts to provide quality applications for the iPhone such as I Am Rich, Magic 8 Ball and iFart.
"Not a big deal," said Mr Jobs in a personal email. "Cross-platform development leads to a worse user experience every time. Also, the video of you eating the bug has to be H.264 QuickTime or your app is out. Extra points for cockroaches."
"This clause shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the creative freedom developers need," said iPhone developer Greg Slepak. "Software is an infinitely malleable creation of pure thought. Toolkits, languages and frameworks are only a way to develop something people will want. It's like telling Rembrandt what brand of brushes he's allowed to use."
He paused to chow down on a palmetto bug for his MacBook's camera. "I'll tell you, a lot of iPhone developers are seriously considering Android, just as soon as Google develops a suitably exploitable stream of mindless thralls that will generate us a gushing torrent of money."
"Thanks for the video, Greg," said Mr Jobs, "but we've just added section 3.3.1.a: 'In particular, when Greg Slepak submits an application, the bucket of cockroaches in the video have to be Apple-branded and genetically engineered in Cupertino.' So we've rejected your application, cancelled your membership and zeroed your account.
"Of course, you're free to apply again. Or not, if you don't want a goddamn dumptruck full of money backed up to your house. It's a free country."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
How can a company be prepared to invest into a platform that can change at any time
I don't know. Why don't we ask someone who ha ---- Oh wait, that's you!
Years later, after it's been documented in to oblivion that Apple dicks app store developers over. The developers either know full well what they are getting themselves in to or they are completely retarded. Yet we here we are, hearing the same tired $@%&ing story once again. The insignificant details are different but nothing else is.
App store devs, you KNOW you have two options: Deal with it or don't. Now, please, kindly tell your story on Twitter, Facebook status updates or somewhere else no one is paying attention and quit robbing the rest of us of our mental bandwidth.
Whale
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.
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...
This just isn't true anymore. Yes, the market does have its issues, but it is certainly an alternative if the app store won't allow your app. Android will overtake iPhone in the near future as far as overall market share goes (since it's on all sorts of low-end devices nowadays, as well as multiple carriers, not to mention the very best phones these days run android, not iPhone OS, and it doesn't look like this summer's iPhone will be any better than them).
While it may have its downsides as compared to the app store, completely ruling out the android market is just foolish.
As pointed out by Anonymous Coward, My Frame 1.2 is in the app store right this second:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-frame-alarm-clock-displays/id364532249?mt=8
--- What?
The Android thing is definitely just whining. It's a great platform and even I, with my modest skill, can code up stuff that works on multiple devices. Planning for different screens is nothing new... it happens in the PC and web world ALL the time.
Good aps are NOT hard to find even if it involves a little more community involvement to see what people are using for some given task. On top of it *I* get to decide what I put on my phone, not some nameless Apple employee, and that is very important to me.
Android isn't perfect, but neither is iPhone. I think it has a lot more potential than Apple in the long run, especially if they hurting developers with their Ivory Tower style decisions on high about what apps stay and what apps go.
Hard to walk away from it yes. But it seems the choice here is to walk away from it on your own terms, or be arbitrarily and randomly kicked to the curb without having had the time to develop a go-forward plan.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I've been trying to release an iPad version of my app since launch. It has been rejected by Apple four times. Each time, we fixed what they asked us to, and each time they found something else to reject us for.
1. Contained links to Paypal (just like our approved iPhone app.) :-|
2. Doesn't rotate (like MANY other iPad apps)
3. Contained iTunes Links to Points apps (just like other Mafia apps, and our iPhone app.) They are forcing us to implement in-app purchasing.
4. Our website contained a contest... After 10,000 people downloaded our free app and created a free character, we would give a free iPod Touch to one of them. Apple called us today and said that we aren't allowed to give away Apple products from a website associated with the app. They said we can give away a Zune HD, but not an iPod Touch.
Given that the devs are pissed about the vendor's control of the platform(which Microsoft plans to emulate), rather than the platform's technical prowess, I'd say that anybody who is hoping that Windows Phone 7 will save them is moderately delusional.
Admittedly, since MS will be coming at the market from a position of significant weakness by the time any WP7 handsets actually make it out the door(oh hai! Our revision 1 product, missing most of the enterprise stuff that kept people on WM6 despite the fact that it blew, is being released into the face of iPhone OS 4, and android 2.2, if not 2.3 or later...) they will likely be inclined to be merciful masters. At first.
However, if they experience any significant success, there is no reason to expect that they won't abuse their power just as hard as Apple. If they experience little or no success, they might well double-down on the crackdown, and vertically integrate even harder, screwing over any remaining 3rd parties(this is barely hypothetical, we all know what happened to the 3rd-party "playsforsure" ecosystem when MS decided that they weren't doing the job against Apple...)
Mod me down but Android an immature wild west platform? My ass.
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..."
Somehow freedom != wild west? I'll take the highway thanks.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
the app is still in the store. Perhaps this story is not true?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-frame-alarm-clock-displays/id364532249?mt=8
Some sheer speculation: perhaps if you have an App that changes the apparent user interface it will be purged?
For example I would expect that an app
1) create it's own desktop
2) place functionality of other apps on this desktop
could be used for example to make it a work-alike to a google phone or could be used to fool the user into entering passwords by looking like the real desktop.
tunes4 is supposedly going to crank up the sandboxing of apps, with encrypted memory partions. Perhaps these apps that merge data from other apps are going to get purged?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I think it is more like that somehow yet another Appstore app somehow got reviewed by someone who was too lenient or that it was re-reviewed by someone who is less lenient. Whatever the case, I think the review process it likely to be rather inconsistent with several different human beings reviewing different apps. The patent process works like this. The TSA screening process works like this. Even the police work like this. The same rules tend to get implemented differently depending on who is charged with interpreting and applying the rules.
Except for the numerous other times apps have been approved, then removed when Apple changes their mind? Or stuff that was rejected for no discernable reason then approved under media scruitiny?
Apple is a perfect example of the sheer idiocy of this process. People are making totally arbitrary decisions over what can and can't be sold, with no consistency or logic. The policy can change on a whim, at which point previously allowed things are no longer allowed.
Without the amazing skills of Apple's marketing department, this pathetic joke of a store would fail horribly.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The problem isn't subjectivity amongst the reviewers, but rather that the rules are a secret. The speed limit on a given road should be unambiguous, let's say 55 mph. Police Officer A might overlook people driving 60 mph and Police Officer B might pull somebody over for doing 56 mph. The point is that the driver knows that the rule is 55 mph and they can make an informed decision and weigh the risks of driving a particular speed.
In this case, there was no speed limit sign, and the legal limit changed from 55 mph on Monday to 25 mph on Tuesday.
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.
People are making totally arbitrary decisions over what can and can't be sold, with no consistency or logic.
No, the logic is quite clear: any product that competes with Apple's ones is automatically removed.
Of course, you cannot guess which app Apple will release in the future, so releasing an app is like playing the lottery.
The problem isn't subjectivity amongst the reviewers, but rather that the rules are a secret.
Maybe the problem isn't that the rules are a secret, but rather that there are no rules...and judgments are made up on the fly to deal with what they perceive as threats to either the market share or their intention of how the iphone is intended to be operated.
Its not unreasonable to ask that Apple publicize what their requirements are. Companies are investing time and money developing apps that increase the value of Apple's product. The least Apple can do is have published guidelines of what is allowed in their appstore. Then a company can look at those guidelines and know if a product they're planning isn't allowed. If its not allowed then the compnay need not waste anymore time on it.
Yes Apple has the power to reject apps from its store. But just because you have power doesn't mean you should be a dick about it.
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.
Honestly.... I want the Wild West.
I don't want some centralized dictatorship deciding what I can and can't have on <i>my</i> phone for applications. Apple wants a market place only because it sees it as a revenue stream and a cheap mine for ideas it can then pilfer, call it's own and then ban the original.
As for the argument about consistency, I really see that as a straw man.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
It's unreasonable to ask Apple to do anything they don't want to. It's their damned platform and they can be as pricky as they want.
It's also unreasonable for Apple to expect their developer base to remain loyal after being ass-reamed by Steve with sandy vaseline.
This sort of thing will work itself out. Likely not to Apple's long-term benefit, IMHO.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I notice a handful of developers who have a beef with the way Apple runs their App store, but do any users actually care? Are there hundreds of thousands of users who are hating Apple right now because Apple is denying the users access to a killer application that they simply can't live without?
The whole issue surrounding the app store seems really contrived to me. Users who actually care about wanting to run specific types of applications will buy a phone that they can run applications on. Users who want an iPhone will buy an iPhone. Plenty of huge corporations like Starbucks, Bank of America and others have developed iPhone apps. Fandango has an app for finding movies that runs on both the iPhone and the G1 (and probably other Android phones too). If there was a huge problem with Apple exclusivity, I'd expect corporations like BofA and the like to be complaining that Apple is preventing them from offering their customers the same kind of applications that are offered on Android.
Other than some niche apps, there doesn't seem to be a real problem. If app devs really have uber ideas for applications then they should be able to build those apps on alternative platforms and the users will come. If they do build them and the users don't show up, the app obviously wasn't all that compelling in the first place.
I'm not a big Apple fan, but I recognize their right to tailor their product as they see fit. It isn't as if they are the entire mobile device market. They aren't even half of it. There are alternatives. As much as I dislike the Apple fanboys when they trot out their tired, "You aren't the target market" meme, it seems to fit in this case. Apple isn't targeting developers. They are targeting end users.
Anybody bother to check to see if the app has been pulled before providing a billion web hits to this app? No? Great! I have a feeling my app is about to be pulled too.
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.
You forgot rule one..
Apple is right no matter how many logical hoops have to be jumped through to justify it. Everybody else is wrong, even if the fabric of reality has to be altered to accommodate this.
It's like arguing with a Scientologist. Cults are like that. No matter how strong your point, it will be translated into " I can't afford an iProduct, so I'm jealous". Even if you make twice what they do, and buy gear that costs far more than an iProduct does.
Forget logic, sound arguments, valid points.. Just tell him that Steve has cooties, and walk away. You are not dealing with a rational person. And if they bring the subject up, just say you don't argue religion.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Sort of.
I think the issue is that Apple keeps changing their minds. It's one thing to build some software send it to Apple and have them reject it. That's part of life, but building a product, selling it to customers, investing in that product and then having Apple change their minds on a previously granted approval is a bit of a hard pill to swallow, and it's not just been this guy who have had that happen.