Just came across a very interesting article on the net that talks about Apple driving developers away from its App Store. Huh!!! Is that possible? After all Apple and it’s iPhone/iPod are supposed to be the best thing that has ever happened to the world. The truth is actually quite different my friends.
At one point the iPhone was probably the best platform for mobile applications. But the situation is quite different now. RIM’s Blackberry, Google’s Android and Palm’s WebOS have all changed the dynamics of the game. Consumers and mobile app developers have a lot of choice now. All the operating systems are quite capable and worthy and some of them are actually easier to develop for. For example if you want to develop for the Android or the Palm Web OS all you need is the SDK and a computer running Windows, Linux or Mac OS. But if you want to develop for the iPhone you need to have an Apple Mac computer. Ridiculous!!! What were they thinking? By constraining the development environment you are already alienating some of the developers.
The thing that takes the cake is Apple’s policies for applications that can be hosted on the App Store. In fact there is a clear lack of a consistent policy and every application, and by extension the developer, is at the mercy of the whims of an Apple employee. So if the Apple person reviewing your application on a particular day had a harrowing time tackling brutal traffic, or just learnt that his/her partner is cheating on him, then you could be doomed. Your application would be rejected for some seemingly vague reasons. And I am not pulling something out of thin air here, this has happened….on multiple occasions….and continues to happen even today. So here’s the million dollar question:
Who the f&*^ is Apple to decide what I can run on my iPhone/iPod ?In some of my previous posts I had talked about how Apple might be losing developers if it does not get it’s act together. Here are a few of them:
- Apple iPhone will lose to Google Android powered T-Mobile G1
- 22 steps through iPhone development hell
- Arrogant Apple good for Google
In fact Apple has started losing developers. Check out this article. Most of the fanboys would be quick to dismiss this as a one off case of disgruntled developers. Probably true now but how long would this take to snowball into something bigger? More importantly can Apple afford to take a hit to their reputation? Google Android and the Web OS have opened up development to all and their store policies are more lenient towards developers. So what does Apple have to gain? The iPhone on Verizon seems to be a distant dream specially with the Motorola Droid faring quite well. Looks like it might pretty much be all downhill from here for the iPhone.
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