An iPhone App Store That Apple Doesn't Control

waderoush writes "Princeton's Ed Felten has criticized the iPhone and iPad as Disneyland-like 'walled gardens' and says there's no way the iTunes App Store can 'offer the scope and variety of apps that a less controlled environment can provide.' Now there's a central marketplace where developers can sell iPhone-optimized apps without going through Apple's gatekeepers. Launched today, it's called OpenAppMkt and it's a showcase for mobile Web apps — not just the type seen back in 2007-2008, before the advent of the App Store, but also for new games and other apps developed using HTML5/CSS/JavaScript (in some cases, the same apps compiled and sold as native iPhone apps). Xconomy has a behind-the-scenes interview with OpenAppMkt's creators, who say they're not out to compete with the native App Store, but that developers deserve new ways to reach users."

Comments

Hi, I'm at black hat

[yttrstein]

And I would like to tell you this:

The iPhone App Store never, ever looked so good.

Disneyland

[whisper_jeff]

Ed Felten has criticized the iPhone and iPad as Disneyland-like 'walled gardens'...

I like Disneyland. It's a ton of fun. I especially enjoy Bats in the Park. Good fun.

Oh. Wait. You were trying to use Disneyland as a way to imply there was something wrong with it? Oh. My bad. Sorry.

On a serious note, however, I think it's very cool that there's now an app store for the web apps that can run on the iPhone. After all, that is one of the features of the device.

Disneyland is fun but

[sweatyboatman]

I wouldn't want to live there

Re:Oh good

[dloose]

This means that if your iPhone app is a pile of Perl scripts, you can push it. What iPhone SDK EULA? We don't know what C/C++/Objective-C limitation you're talking about, we'll list your app in our store! If you feel like writing an app for iPhone in C#, you can push it as a .NET exe in PE-COFF format, instead of having to compile it to native code. If you wanted to port Firefox Mobile and have it use it's own JavaScript engine, you can. You could even push a port of Chrome using V8.

I'm pretty sure that none of this is true...

Slashdot: Disneyland shouldn't exist for anyone...

[Brannon]

because some people don't want to go there.

We can't I open a Liquor store in Epcot?

[Brannon]

Disney should be forced to allow 3rd parties to do anything they want inside Disneyland. If their customers don't want to go into the porn shops, gun shops, brothels, casinos, and check-cashing stores then they can simply avoid those places while walking down Main St.

It's really just a question of freedom.

Nothing Apple itself hasn't said

[NameIsDavid]

The story attempts to suggest that this is a way to get around Apple's walled garden. On the contrary, this is a fully supported system that Apple has promoted many times. They always say there are two ways to develop apps: an open HTML5-based web app method and the curated App store. What's the news here other than showing people the showcase itself?

Ah, history - where are you?

[vague disclaimer]

Er,Web Apps were Apple's original vision for iPhone Apps, but everyone whined about them and hence the SKD. Web Apps are fully supported, not a swerve-around.

But still, let's not let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy adventure.

Re:Ah, history - where are you?

[Crashspeeder]

Could it be because the webapps are crippled by design? What good is a texting app that can't access your phonebook? That doesn't work terribly well as a webapp does it, now? If you want something useful, it'll have to be written in Obj-C.

Re:Walled garden discussions

[Karlt1]

But it has. I don't know anyone with an MP3 player.

But yet and still Apple sells almost 50 million iPods a year (70%+ market share) and iTunes is the number one music retailer in the world.....

Phones have leap over mp3 players

Where can I buy a phone with 160GB of storage (iPod Classic) or even 64GB of storage of the Touch?

I'd say that the first generation devices have huge advantages because consumers are naive at first. That doesn't usually last and they'll flee the walled garden in time.

So why have most major developers reported abysmal sells in the Android App Market compared to the iPhone App store even though Android market share is at least half that of the iPhone?

Re:Walled garden discussions

[Snowmit]

I've got another one for you: PC gaming vs Console gaming

PCs have been around longer, have more options re: hardware & software, not to mention complete freedom for developers to charge and distribute however they wish, along with extreme modability. Meanwhile consoles are hampered by incredibly restrictive walled gardens, developer-hostile revenue splits and licensing and they only release new hardware every few years.

Given the obvious openness and freedom of PC gaming compared to console gaming it may come as a surprise that console games outsell PC games at ratios around 5:1.

(Source: http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=15831)

So now your job is to show that Android vs Apple is more like Internet vs AOL than it is like PCs vs Consoles.

the Apple point of view

[Brannon]

is that you've purchased a ticket to Disneyland by purchasing an iPhone, you haven't purchased Disneyland itself.

Considering you paid a few hundred bucks for an iPhone and not a few billion dollars, that seems pretty reasonable.