I'm a developer for Apple and it's becoming a joke.
I've got a patch for my app that I've tried to submit back in January that has yet to be approved, each reason is random
I've had to send in screen shots of their developer pages to show them that I'm using documented methods...I've learend that the reviewers don't really read your emails, but pictures work well.
The process is completely random, it's now becoming funny.
If I had it to do over again I would have invested my time learning the Android platform.
I'll post updates to existing apps that I have, but I'm not wasting any more time developing new apps for the app store.
Apple didn't learn from the past, users want freedom and choice.
It's the reason apple failed in the past (Adobe's graphical suite was the only useful program on the Mac years ago, the major reason people bought Mac's, and now Apple's bashing the one company that kept them alive...nice)
Ya know, I had no problem with Apple preventing apps from getting on for valid reasons but yanking them after the fact is a bit much. I'd be frustrated and discouraged if they did that to me. They are the gate keeper so they can throw apps out too but there's this fine line when innovation ceases to exist on a platform.
Spot-on, my friend.
This story is like ones we're reading almost every week now, where developers spend thousands or tens of thousands or, in the case of Adobe and other x-plat tools vendors, millions complying with Apple's rules, and then at the last minute Apple changes the rules without notice and destroys that developer's investment in their platform.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Developers and their VCs around the world are reconsidering the wisdom of investing in iPhone OS development. Apple is simply too fickle to be considered a reliable, trustworthy business partner.
As we know this was simply a ploy to sell a phone that few people want. If you look in the fine print, Verizon says they can start charging for the hot spot feature anytime they choose.
Oh. Ok. That's different.
What I originally responded to was your statement that "No major carrier is going to allow free tethering. "
Verizon is a major carrier. Verizon allows free tethering.
But let's talk about the quality of the Pre instead. Or what Verizon may or may not do someday. Anything except the original claim that "No major carrier is going to allow free tethering."
To those who think Google doesn't also bend to business pressures I suggest you open your eyes... Thinks are getting bumped out of the Android market place as well:
You seem to be taking a superficial similarity, an app being discontinued, and to be using that as the basis for a claim that the Android app world and the Apple app world are therefore similar.
Not only do you miss the main point, which is NOT that apps are discontinued, but rather, WHY they are discontinued, but you also miss the basic difference between the two markets.
If Apple refuses to sell your app, you have no real access to iPhone users. If Google refuses to sell your app, there are an infinite number of other vendors available to you.
Aside from the fact that in the case you cite Google's actions were perfectly understandable, while Apple's actions are not, nobody needs Google's marketplace in order to sell apps. There is competition in the Android app marketplace. It is not a walled garden.
I feel sorry for this fellow but he is a software developer so he is not stupid. He must have wondered whether he was on thin ice by developing something so close to an OS feature. It certainly would have been in the back of my mind.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,"
It would do Apple's board well to do a little historical research and rediscover the price the company paid for letting job's retain fanatically tight control on their products in the 1980s. There are plus and down sides to any genius, which is why men of average ability and outlook should manage them. Otherwise you end up with "history" -- again, and again, and again...
I feel sorry for this fellow but he is a software developer so he is not stupid. He must have wondered whether he was on thin ice by developing something so close to an OS feature. It certainly would have been in the back of my mind.
The key to appreciating the horror of this latest anti-developer move by Apple is in this part of the story:
Quote:
Jobs reportedly replied, "We are not allowing apps that create their own desktops. Sorry." Ivanovic's app adds a layer of information over user's own photos, similar to Microsoft's Vista Gadgets or Mac OS X's Dashboard, although the app is not integrated into the iPad desktop, and is launched like any other app.
It's just an app, more like a screen saver than any "OS feature". Apple had published no guidelines suggesting it would not be acceptable, and indeed had approved the app for sale in their store - three times.
Stories like this are cropping up with a regularity that is quite dismaying to the developer world and, like the posters above, moving a great many of them to Android.
It doesn't? So I guess I'm imagining iTunes continuing to play while I checked my email. And I guess that I didn't really see Pandora continuing to play in the background in the iPhone OS 4.0 demo.
I really wish you lame trolls would stop with the outright lies.
Next time try reading past the second sentence before calling someone a troll. I'm not sure if native apps that have always multitasked follow the same rules, but the method of multitasking I described is accurate for App Store apps in OS 4.0. Pandora continues to stream music because Apple provided an API for performing that task, not because the app itself is still running, but that isn't a bad thing. It's efficient and looks no different to the end user.
Edit: 1000 troll posts? Give me a break. Only tekstud did that.
New Android phones just introduced outsold a year old iPhone? Wow... The question was will they outsell the iPhone in 2010? As in the whole year, which includes the 4th gen iPhone launch. We all saw the sales numbers from the minimally upgraded 3GS, a significantly upgraded 4th gen model will destroy those. It's likely that Android phones will outsell the iPhone on a continuous basis, but I don't think 2010 will be that year. Try to be a little more rational and a little less troll.
I can remember buying a separate screensaver app since After Dark in the early 90s.
Precisely. Why would anyone anticipate that something commonly available from third parties since the dawn of GUI computing would suddenly become verboten on iPhone OS?
New Android phones just introduced outsold a year old iPhone? Wow... The question was will they outsell the iPhone in 2010? As in the whole year, which includes the 4th gen iPhone launch.
We'll see. But even if Apple pulls ahead again, analysts like Gartner believe it will be short-lived:
Note the date of that article: October 6, 2009. That's noteworthy because Gartner's prediction came out long before Apple's SDK 4.0 fiasco and the steady stream of stories about other ways they've screwed developers and VCs, events which have initiated a migration of developers away from Apple to the Android platform.
Things that are commonly included with or built-in to an OS.
Quote:
Precisely. Why would anyone anticipate that something commonly available from third parties since the dawn of GUI computing would suddenly become verboten on iPhone OS?
I meant to write "can't." There are lots of programs that used to be separate apps but have become part of the OS over the years. What OS these days doesn't come with a browser?
You are making out like Apple is coming "out of the blue" with this ban but it is only out of the blue if you can not see the pattern with desktop OS and predict that the same would happen with mobile OS. Sorry, but a widget framework is an obvious one, since a major job of an OS is to provide application frameworks, and a widget is a class of lightweight application.
Any software developer, or person in the industry, should have noticed that Vista and OS X Tiger both already have such a framework, and therefore conclude that writing such a thing for OS X mobile (which is what iPhone OS is) might not be such a long term proposition. But I don't want to harp on this topic any more, since anyone who expends some effort is a good person in my book.
I like it! Apple should systematically take all the best kinds of apps, make those things OS features, and then tell the developers to piss off. All Apple has to do is look at what apps are downloaded the most and they can work their way through them. GENIUS!
A screen saver is an OS feature. I can't remember buying a separate screensaver app since After Dark in the early 90s.
MS claimed the browser was a part of the OS. No modern consumer OS would ship with a mail client or media player.
Any functionality that becomes commonplace is a candidate for being defined as a possible OS feature. The difference between now and in the past, is that even if the OS implemented a function that was available separately the original app might still be available or the OS vendor could buy them out (Sherlock/Watson as an example). It sucked for the devs of original apps as they would die off eventually, because as you mention, why buy it when it is free in the OS, but they were left with a chance.
Today, if you develop an app that includes useful functionality you risk simply being kicked out, precisely because it was so useful Apple decides to implement it themselves. As a developer, you are encouraged to create and sell apps that apps that add to the experience, especially if it adds functionality not otherwise available. But, you serve at their pleasure and when they decide you don't fit, you don't fit.
Things that are commonly included with or built-in to an OS.
I meant to write "can't." There are lots of programs that used to be separate apps but have become part of the OS over the years. What OS these days doesn't come with a browser?
You are making out like Apple is coming "out of the blue" with this ban but it is only out of the blue if you can not see the pattern with desktop OS and predict that the same would happen with mobile OS. Sorry, but a widget framework is an obvious one, since a major job of an OS is to provide application frameworks, and a widget is a class of lightweight application.
Any software developer, or person in the industry, should have noticed that Vista and OS X Tiger both already have such a framework, and therefore conclude that writing such a thing for OS X mobile (which is what iPhone OS is) might not be such a long term proposition. But I don't want to harp on this topic any more, since anyone who expends some effort is a good person in my book.
But with that logic, any developer that creates useful apps should expect that they will be removed simply because they are useful.
You are completely correct that as functionality becomes common, it often becomes part of the OS. But that doesn't mean devs should expect to go out of business if they develop a good and useful app.
Comments
I've got a patch for my app that I've tried to submit back in January that has yet to be approved, each reason is random
I've had to send in screen shots of their developer pages to show them that I'm using documented methods...I've learend that the reviewers don't really read your emails, but pictures work well.
The process is completely random, it's now becoming funny.
If I had it to do over again I would have invested my time learning the Android platform.
I'll post updates to existing apps that I have, but I'm not wasting any more time developing new apps for the app store.
Apple didn't learn from the past, users want freedom and choice.
It's the reason apple failed in the past (Adobe's graphical suite was the only useful program on the Mac years ago, the major reason people bought Mac's, and now Apple's bashing the one company that kept them alive...nice)
Steve will eventually piss everyone off.
Lesson learned.
Ya know, I had no problem with Apple preventing apps from getting on for valid reasons but yanking them after the fact is a bit much. I'd be frustrated and discouraged if they did that to me. They are the gate keeper so they can throw apps out too but there's this fine line when innovation ceases to exist on a platform.
Spot-on, my friend.
This story is like ones we're reading almost every week now, where developers spend thousands or tens of thousands or, in the case of Adobe and other x-plat tools vendors, millions complying with Apple's rules, and then at the last minute Apple changes the rules without notice and destroys that developer's investment in their platform.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Developers and their VCs around the world are reconsidering the wisdom of investing in iPhone OS development. Apple is simply too fickle to be considered a reliable, trustworthy business partner.
As we know this was simply a ploy to sell a phone that few people want. If you look in the fine print, Verizon says they can start charging for the hot spot feature anytime they choose.
Oh. Ok. That's different.
What I originally responded to was your statement that "No major carrier is going to allow free tethering. "
Verizon is a major carrier. Verizon allows free tethering.
But let's talk about the quality of the Pre instead. Or what Verizon may or may not do someday. Anything except the original claim that "No major carrier is going to allow free tethering."
Imagine the work they put into it, they get approved, they start making money and Apple crashes down on their party.
Apple is only going to expidite two things, Android app development and bringing the DOJ to their front door faster.
That market cap iFan orgy everyone was so happy about, will only bring the heat faster now.
Good luck Apple. I wonder if Android will out sell the iPhone in the US in 2010, my guess is yes.
Tried that last week. Turns out you can't see Chicago from Connecticut.
If Earth was the size of Jupiter and you had a really, really, really big pair of binoculars, you'd be able to.
But then you'd probably be crushed to a pile of goo to begin with...
[B
To those who think Google doesn't also bend to business pressures I suggest you open your eyes... Thinks are getting bumped out of the Android market place as well:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl...0/05/28/079200 [/B]
You seem to be taking a superficial similarity, an app being discontinued, and to be using that as the basis for a claim that the Android app world and the Apple app world are therefore similar.
Not only do you miss the main point, which is NOT that apps are discontinued, but rather, WHY they are discontinued, but you also miss the basic difference between the two markets.
If Apple refuses to sell your app, you have no real access to iPhone users. If Google refuses to sell your app, there are an infinite number of other vendors available to you.
Aside from the fact that in the case you cite Google's actions were perfectly understandable, while Apple's actions are not, nobody needs Google's marketplace in order to sell apps. There is competition in the Android app marketplace. It is not a walled garden.
It would do Apple's board well to do a little historical research and rediscover the price the company paid for letting job's retain fanatically tight control on their products in the 1980s. There are plus and down sides to any genius, which is why men of average ability and outlook should manage them. Otherwise you end up with "history" -- again, and again, and again...
Steve will eventually piss everyone off.
.
Is there any precedent for that?
I wonder if Android will out sell the iPhone in the US in 2010, my guess is yes.
Good guess - it happened before the middle of the year:
http://www.google.com/search?q=android+outsells+iphone
I feel sorry for this fellow but he is a software developer so he is not stupid. He must have wondered whether he was on thin ice by developing something so close to an OS feature. It certainly would have been in the back of my mind.
The key to appreciating the horror of this latest anti-developer move by Apple is in this part of the story:
Jobs reportedly replied, "We are not allowing apps that create their own desktops. Sorry." Ivanovic's app adds a layer of information over user's own photos, similar to Microsoft's Vista Gadgets or Mac OS X's Dashboard, although the app is not integrated into the iPad desktop, and is launched like any other app.
It's just an app, more like a screen saver than any "OS feature". Apple had published no guidelines suggesting it would not be acceptable, and indeed had approved the app for sale in their store - three times.
Stories like this are cropping up with a regularity that is quite dismaying to the developer world and, like the posters above, moving a great many of them to Android.
It doesn't? So I guess I'm imagining iTunes continuing to play while I checked my email. And I guess that I didn't really see Pandora continuing to play in the background in the iPhone OS 4.0 demo.
I really wish you lame trolls would stop with the outright lies.
Next time try reading past the second sentence before calling someone a troll. I'm not sure if native apps that have always multitasked follow the same rules, but the method of multitasking I described is accurate for App Store apps in OS 4.0. Pandora continues to stream music because Apple provided an API for performing that task, not because the app itself is still running, but that isn't a bad thing. It's efficient and looks no different to the end user.
Edit: 1000 troll posts? Give me a break. Only tekstud did that.
It's just an app, more like a screen saver than any "OS feature".
A screen saver is an OS feature. I can't remember buying a separate screensaver app since After Dark in the early 90s.
Good guess - it happened before the middle of the year:
http://www.google.com/search?q=android+outsells+iphone
New Android phones just introduced outsold a year old iPhone? Wow... The question was will they outsell the iPhone in 2010? As in the whole year, which includes the 4th gen iPhone launch. We all saw the sales numbers from the minimally upgraded 3GS, a significantly upgraded 4th gen model will destroy those. It's likely that Android phones will outsell the iPhone on a continuous basis, but I don't think 2010 will be that year. Try to be a little more rational and a little less troll.
A screen saver is an OS feature.
How do you define "OS feature"?
I can remember buying a separate screensaver app since After Dark in the early 90s.
Precisely. Why would anyone anticipate that something commonly available from third parties since the dawn of GUI computing would suddenly become verboten on iPhone OS?
New Android phones just introduced outsold a year old iPhone? Wow... The question was will they outsell the iPhone in 2010? As in the whole year, which includes the 4th gen iPhone launch.
We'll see. But even if Apple pulls ahead again, analysts like Gartner believe it will be short-lived:
Android to grab No. 2 spot by 2012, says Gartner
http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...2_says_Gartner
Note the date of that article: October 6, 2009. That's noteworthy because Gartner's prediction came out long before Apple's SDK 4.0 fiasco and the steady stream of stories about other ways they've screwed developers and VCs, events which have initiated a migration of developers away from Apple to the Android platform.
How do you define "OS feature"?
Things that are commonly included with or built-in to an OS.
Precisely. Why would anyone anticipate that something commonly available from third parties since the dawn of GUI computing would suddenly become verboten on iPhone OS?
I meant to write "can't." There are lots of programs that used to be separate apps but have become part of the OS over the years. What OS these days doesn't come with a browser?
You are making out like Apple is coming "out of the blue" with this ban but it is only out of the blue if you can not see the pattern with desktop OS and predict that the same would happen with mobile OS. Sorry, but a widget framework is an obvious one, since a major job of an OS is to provide application frameworks, and a widget is a class of lightweight application.
Any software developer, or person in the industry, should have noticed that Vista and OS X Tiger both already have such a framework, and therefore conclude that writing such a thing for OS X mobile (which is what iPhone OS is) might not be such a long term proposition. But I don't want to harp on this topic any more, since anyone who expends some effort is a good person in my book.
A screen saver is an OS feature. I can't remember buying a separate screensaver app since After Dark in the early 90s.
MS claimed the browser was a part of the OS. No modern consumer OS would ship with a mail client or media player.
Any functionality that becomes commonplace is a candidate for being defined as a possible OS feature. The difference between now and in the past, is that even if the OS implemented a function that was available separately the original app might still be available or the OS vendor could buy them out (Sherlock/Watson as an example). It sucked for the devs of original apps as they would die off eventually, because as you mention, why buy it when it is free in the OS, but they were left with a chance.
Today, if you develop an app that includes useful functionality you risk simply being kicked out, precisely because it was so useful Apple decides to implement it themselves. As a developer, you are encouraged to create and sell apps that apps that add to the experience, especially if it adds functionality not otherwise available. But, you serve at their pleasure and when they decide you don't fit, you don't fit.
Things that are commonly included with or built-in to an OS.
I meant to write "can't." There are lots of programs that used to be separate apps but have become part of the OS over the years. What OS these days doesn't come with a browser?
You are making out like Apple is coming "out of the blue" with this ban but it is only out of the blue if you can not see the pattern with desktop OS and predict that the same would happen with mobile OS. Sorry, but a widget framework is an obvious one, since a major job of an OS is to provide application frameworks, and a widget is a class of lightweight application.
Any software developer, or person in the industry, should have noticed that Vista and OS X Tiger both already have such a framework, and therefore conclude that writing such a thing for OS X mobile (which is what iPhone OS is) might not be such a long term proposition. But I don't want to harp on this topic any more, since anyone who expends some effort is a good person in my book.
But with that logic, any developer that creates useful apps should expect that they will be removed simply because they are useful.
You are completely correct that as functionality becomes common, it often becomes part of the OS. But that doesn't mean devs should expect to go out of business if they develop a good and useful app.