What is Digg?81 Comments
- akpanga, on 11/16/2009, -9/+75Well it's about time they leave a platform where their apps can be rejected on the whim of anyone
- aubinhick990, on 11/17/2009, -2/+62After all of these outcries, Apple has some serious damage control to do/prepare for. RIM just unveiled a slew of developer tools and resources for BlackBerries, and Android is gaining a lot of mainstream adoption/coverage. Personally, I'm glad these developers are sticking up for themselves.
- Tddupre, on 11/17/2009, -2/+44It sucks when someone puts hundreds of hours and a lot of money developing an app just to have it rejected
- g00dbye, on 11/17/2009, -14/+53***** you, two of my friends died developing iPhone Apps!
- specialK16, on 11/17/2009, -2/+40"Guys, Opera Mobile for the iPhone is WAY WAY better than our own safari."
"Awesome. really? Well, let's approve it!"
**silence**
"HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... rejected." - rebrad, on 11/17/2009, -2/+30Go Android!
- omniiv, on 11/17/2009, -2/+28and two of my friends were molested by the app store.
- AxeSwinger, on 11/17/2009, -2/+26That's a bunch of crap. The "I am rich" app bounced for no functionality. It displayed an icon not much different than the pin-up girl apps. A common reason for rejection is duplicating core functionality which can cause confusion. Yet the weather channel's app is still up in spite of the weather app that comes pre-installed. So google voice gets bounced for core functionality issues but how many note apps are there in the store.
The approval process is more like an experience with a Kafkaesque orginization then software developing. The problem is that the end user will start to suffer because as these stories of apple's schizophrenia continues it will snowball and new products will not get developed leaving the consumer screwed for the length of their contract. And before anyone says I did not need to get an iphone. My response is I had a reasonable expectation that Apple would act with an interest to provide me with the most diverse selection and stable apps being produced.
Functionality beyond stability and appropriateness should be left to the end user to vote with his/her wallet.
On a side note why did the freaking phone not ship with a to do app? Seriously! - crocodilexp, on 11/17/2009, -3/+27A 3-month delay for deploying a critical fix is more than enough to kill a small project. Especially if it's more than a fart app, your customers rely on it, and competition is at your heels.
- boson3, on 11/17/2009, -7/+19Shun the app store. Sh-shuuuunnnnnnnnnnnah.
- crocodilexp, on 11/17/2009, -2/+13I do hope iPhone will be confined to their small nice eventually. Something smells awful about the way Apple treats developers and the closed nature of their platforms. If they were called "Microsoft", everybody would be screaming their head out about abuse.
I hope Android wins eventually -- NOT because it is better, but because it is more open. - theuniversal, on 11/17/2009, -4/+15Is the ratio of quality to crappy websites, blogs, story submissions on digg, or for that matter, products on shelves in shops any different? Nothing unique to the app store here.
- superkendall, on 11/17/2009, -11/+21I am a full-time iPhone App developer, and have been since the SDK launch - I'm going nowhere.
Personally I think the Hewitt's complaint is ridiculous. We were always warned not to use private API's, which Hewitt did - and then when Apple started scanning for use of private symbols, he got caught. Worse by far though are the MANY other developers Hewitt screwed over with his fast and loose coding. It's not like it was even done because it was necessary - once people found out someone else came out with a fix to the Three20 project that uses NO private API's and works exactly the same.
Far from having respect for Hewitt he dropped a few notches in my book, since he put out a library for others to use and then abandoned them when the going got tough. Not to mention the Facebook iPhone app is not the best model for application usability or style. - JasonCox, on 11/17/2009, -5/+14Speaking as a developer, just not an iPhone developer, who gives a crap if apps are accessing Private API's? It doesn't harm the OS at all and if a developer chooses to be an idiot and does so it'll be his loss when Apple changes something in the future, causing his app to break causing him to have to drop whatever he's doing and triage the problem.
It's not Apple's responsibility to police people's code, if a dev wants to be a moron and write code the wrong way than that's his call. Apple's job is to keep pedobear's friends and other malicious software out, that's it. - jasmus, on 11/17/2009, -0/+9Regular use mode:
"This app worked yesterday, now it doesn't. Stupid iPhone, Apple sux". - collution, on 11/17/2009, -0/+8While some developers are complaining and drifting away from the app store, there are plenty others who are still submitting and continuing to develop at full force. As for the end-user, they probably don't know and they probably don't care. The long term outcome could be that we see more quality apps come to other platforms but even that still lies in the long term. In the short term, this is a losing battle unless we see over the long term a swing in development off the iPhone platform. Which is totally possible, looking at how many companies are falling behind the Android platform.
- HotLeper, on 11/17/2009, -1/+9Since the android was released.
- thejokell, on 11/17/2009, -1/+8Except the Rogue Amoeba app does not contain Apple trademarked images. The computers that are being accessed do, and they share those images with the app using perfectly legitimate public API calls.
So not only was that decision stupid because it had already been approved, it was even more stupid because it was rejected based on an incorrect assumption. - theuniversal, on 11/17/2009, -0/+7"And here I thought "developer" actually meant something...guess not."
People who build websites are called website developers, but anyway, you can add "software" to my list, or software for Windows, or for Linux, or for Droid, or whatever, and it doesn't change the basic point, which is that anywhere you look the ratio of quality to crappy is extremely low.
That said, one man's junk may be another man's treasure. - lorddazzer, on 11/17/2009, -0/+7We're going to Cupertino, Charlieeeeeeee.
- PolarBearFire, on 11/17/2009, -8/+14Don't worry Apple will work it all out, unfortunately by then it'll be a niche player in the smartphone market as it is in the PC market now. They'll still be around and kicking but will have squandered a huge lead, again as happened before in the PC vs Mac war.
- WauloK, on 11/17/2009, -0/+6Dugg for Charlie ref :)
- rdtreefrog, on 11/17/2009, -2/+8In theory i am also turned off by the iPhone approval process. But honestly, if you want to be involved in the mobile market place where else do you go to sell commercial apps? Seriously? Have you looked at the android market agreement, their return policies? Are you aware that if you choose to delist an application from the Android market, you are on the hook to provide a refund to every user that has purchased your app in the last year! It's a sad state -- but right now, Apple is, encumbered and all, the best game in town. And as a life long Java developer, I hate that fact.
- neutron7, on 11/17/2009, -2/+7Welcome back old meme we missed you!
- postalblowfish7, on 11/17/2009, -0/+5most worthwhile apps are more than 99ยข.
- Orbital101, on 11/17/2009, -0/+5I can't argue this. Even if you're a bit naive on the business part of it (you may or may not be), you're on point about the "right" thing to do. I don't know if RA is necessarily as awesome as all that, but the point remains that if Apple continues to see enough of the little guys leave then, in time, they'll surrender their lead.
I think I just wanted to make a comment to put some of the alarmist screeching in check: Losing these three developers (some of whom seem to be leaving under suspicious motives) doesn't really put a dent in Apple just yet. It's easy for naysayers to over-estimate the impact of what is really a very small incident... at least for now. - theuniversal, on 11/17/2009, -0/+5"no it's not, but how many times have you heard "100,000 apps" being used as an indicator of superiority?"
Because most people, me included, think that all other things being equal, more choice is better. As I said in my second comment, one man's junk may be another man's treasure. My initial point was only that the quality to crap ratio of Apps on the App store is no different from anywhere else. Ironically, if you're concerned about a higher quality to crap ratio, Apple should be rejecting more apps not fewer, which would make it even more difficult for developers. Anything that has a low barrier to entry will be filled mostly with what you consider to be "junk". - shinkou, on 11/17/2009, -0/+5Speaking of quality control, I wonder how they got Snow Leopard passed.
- theOster, on 11/17/2009, -3/+7no it's not, but how many times have you heard "100,000 apps" being used as an indicator of superiority?
- NeoTechni, on 11/17/2009, -0/+4The irony being that the lack of quality control on Apple's side has ruined the appstore for consumers.
And the developers are complaining it's ruined for them due to too much quality control... - Orbital101, on 11/17/2009, -1/+5The loss of these developers represents a serious blow to the iPhone app store: Adobe, Electronic Arts, Activision.
The loss of these developers do not represent a serious blow to the iPhone app store: Facebook's Joe Hewitt, Second Gear's Justin Williams, and long-time Mac software developer Rogue Amoeba.
I hate to see them go and they may be quite right about why they're leaving, but it's not going to hurt Apple at all. This isn't exactly a major scandal. - bradleyland, on 11/17/2009, -2/+6No, it's not going to hurt their bottom line today, but Apple would be foolish to forgot who carried them through their darkest hour, and why they're moving ahead today. Let me spell it out: the best software made for the Mac isn't made by Adobe, EA, or Activision. Yes, those are industry giants, and top money makers, but the bad news for Apple is that all three of those companies will be just as happy to build for whatever hip, new platform comes along.
Companies like Rogue Amoeba have been on the Mac scene for far longer than the big guys, and RA's Airfoil app is one of those apps that makes people's mouths fall open when they see how dead simple and equally useful it is. RA is a prototype Mac developer. The software they put out doesn't light the world on fire, but when you find out that you can stream audio through your living room speakers using Airfoil, sourced from the Pandora plug-in for Boxee, all remotely controlled by a couple independently developed apps on your iPhone, you get this sense that the people making the software understand what's missing in your digital life. I know people with $100k Crestron systems that do the same thing. It's just ***** cool.
Apple had better be careful, because they're not the only ones with an App Store. Platforms like Android are Linux based, and Linux-on-the-desktop is knocking on everyone's back door. It's not entirely inconceivable that a company like Google could put its weight behind Linux and take over Apple's vaunted position as #2. - ehaugan, on 11/17/2009, -4/+7Since when did Digg respect iPhone app developers?
- MacParrot, on 11/17/2009, -4/+7So one was rejected for using private API calls which is clearly not allowed, another because he claims he can't sell enough of his version 2.0 app to make it worth his while, and another for using (apparently) Apple trademarked images.
Of the three, the only one that really seems legit is the Rogue Amoeba complaint since their 1st run of the app used the exact same images that got the latest version rejected. If Apple is going to throw a hissy fit over images, it should have done so the first time around.
To those developers who want to bail because they aren't able to sell their apps for what they're worth, keep going. Apple will eventually see that concentrating on cheap 99 cent apps ISN'T what's going to bring quality products to the app store. I'll spend more for better apps and so will a lot of other people. In the meantime, also develop for other platforms and hopefully a lot of the work you did for the iPhone can be used elsewhere as well. - spworm, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3But what will I do if there are no reputable developers to make a new fart app on my 3000$ contract cellphone with bad battery life?
- virinix, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3I will never buy a iphone thanks to this comments thread. Thanks digg users for educmacting me on the ***** app policies of Apple. Android all the way, and I dont even have one.
- muzzy, on 11/17/2009, -3/+6I agree that Apple's approval process is a bit draconian, but I love it when Diggers and these article writers try and give advice to Apple.
Really, who are we to say what's working and what's not, when Apple runs by far, no even remote comparison, the most popular mobile application store in the world?
You can offer advice on what's fair and morale, but to offer Apple business advice is just silly. - mikedoth, on 11/17/2009, -1/+4If i was a developer (which i'm not) then i'd go with an OS that will show up on a lot of phones... Android and WindowsMobile. Android is gaining ground, I bought one and showed it off, 1 co-worker and two friends bought Android phones. Another two are looking into them.
- Samurai77, on 11/17/2009, -2/+5I'm loving my new Android OS running on a Samsung Moment ...I can run my whole network with it. It is beautiful, and fast 800Mhz, tons of free apps. Just awesome, and the fact it is open source just makes me grin.
- MacParrot, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3@theOster
You mean the same bashing point used by many Windows users pointing to far more apps for Windows over OS X or Linux? - geezor, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Hopefully Palm takes note of Apple's faults and uses a more fair and open policy for the webOS store.
- bemenaker, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Windows Mobile blows. Android is what Apple has to worry about. With over 50 phones in development, the entire Android market is a threat to the Iphone.
- nextekcarl, on 11/17/2009, -1/+3The App Store: I am your Father!
Unfromcool: Noooooooo! - JohnnySoftware, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Well, you can always write Java apps for the other phone platforms out there.
- Turbojugend27, on 11/17/2009, -6/+8please, don't believe everything you read off the internet. Blackberry App World is horrendous, and most blackberry apps/games I tried drain the battery super fast. Blackberries are too locked down for security to do anything really great with anyway. Why do they have Wifi, you still need to go through the RIM relays so it is slow as balls.
Android, yes a little bit, but nothing to worry about yet, not for a while anyway.
Don't forget maybe 2% of people that have Iphones read digg, so that still leaves 98% of people having no idea of this dev vs apple war. Outcries are useless unless people "hear" them. - JohnnySoftware, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2I can't believe you just wrote that about calling unstable APIs.
By the way, what company are you writing software for, Jason?
It's the user's problem when you sell stuff that is going to break.
It's the user who is out the money when his platform gets a system update and your app breaks.
Personally, I am glad to hear that Apple started using static QA analyzers for the iPhone. It shows it is really becoming a mature platform. - funk49, on 11/17/2009, -1/+3"Will continued migration away from iPhone development result in less quality software for the platform?"
Yes, it might result in the store being flooded with pointless apps...oh wait, nevermind. - bradleyland, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2@Orbital
I acknowledge that these three little guys are less than a "gnat on the back of a bull" in terms of impact to Apple's bottom line, but Apple rose from nearly-complete failure on the backs of some very fundamental principles that has users giving them a shot, even in a down economy. Those principals are the composition of Apple culture: scenario-focused software, great industrial design, and some pretty specific beliefs about the user-experience. That culture is guided by Apple, and developers like RA are a great representation of what that type of following is yielded by Apple's efforts.
The departure of these developers is not the cause, but the effect. If Apple were to fall, it wouldn't be because RA, Hewitt, et al left. It would be because Apple culture no longer cultivated great software developers. - Orbital101, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Photoshop Mobile. One of the app store's biggest sellers.
- MacParrot, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2NO! Apple needs big nice!
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