Meant to say:
“What Apple has been doing is in their right, but is wrong. It may not affect you now (or the platform), but in the long run it has dire consequences which Daniel and the other apologists fail to realize.

You might want to read roz’s comment (#43). It’s a lot more enlightening than anything Daniel has written in the past few weeks.

What Apple has been doing is in their right, but is wrong. It may not affect you now (or the platform), but in the long run it has dire consequences which Daniel and the other apologists continue to say.

I pretty much see it just like you.

SIDE NOTE: I wish people would shut up with the Flashlight app comment. There were a bunch at the opening of the store, but unless I am searching for Flashlight I don’t see them anymore. Plus I have the app on my phone and it works great.

The guidelines set by Apple seem to be more of principles than rules so while this does remain open to interpretation it should also get developers to think about the merits of the apps they are developing.

Does Podcaster really conflict with iTunes Store? No not really. Does Podcaster place too much load on a limited network? YES it does. How do I prevent this? Discriminate between networks.

If this is how the developers actually thought then rejection would be less likely. Instead of whinging and moaning about Apple rejecting your app think proactively and think about how your app may be rejected by Apple, then build your app within those principles and you’ll soon be making some money.

It’s not rocket science.

Did it use just WiFi or did it also do so over 3G/EDGE?

If it was the latter then I’m picking that’s the reason it was denied. Apple’s iTunes Store app REQUIRES WiFi access so as not to tie up the 3G network which is more limited than WiFi so if the app doesn’t discriminate between networks then it violates the SDK clauses.

The complete lack of information about how Podcaster work bar what it does seems like there is far more to this story than what the media distributing some hurt app developer is letting on.

All that said however there is one major point that needs to be considered:

The App Store is the only successful software source for mobile phones.

Every other effort, for every other phone/mobile OS has failed to sell more than a very few applications. Apple has provided a successful way of selling applications, something which no mobile developer can ignore.

And while I think we’ll still be arguing the issue in ten years, it’s probable that the rules for the App Store will have changed, and that we may be arguing the reverse.

The bottom line is that the popularity of the IPhone means the App Store is selling a lot of apps, the availability of a lot of good apps in the App Store is selling more IPhones. No other company has managed anything like this, warts and all.

And as for those who argue there is a lot of junk in the App Store, remember Sturgeon’s Law – 90% of everything is shit.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/09/11/six-reasons-why-apple-may-never-open-the-iphone/

He was wrong there and he is wrong now.

First, again there is this sentiment from Daniel’s distorted history lesson that developers are untrustworthy or unneeded. That they backstab or undermine when they get a chance. I don’t agree with this perspective at all. Its a complicated relationship of interdependency, mutual trust and economic incentive. Yes, long time Mac developers brought their apps to Windows in the 90s, they had every reason to do that. Mac were losing their edge technically and were not advancing, they also represented a smaller and smaller market-share which could not be ignored.

But what Daniel ignores is that developers like Adobe, for example, made the Mac. Without desktop publishing and postscript the Mac would have died. Developers also kept the Mac relevant and alive even when Apple’s market-share was dropping and when it made more economic sense to shift all resources to Windows. What kept them with Mac? Mainly, love of the platform, good feelings about the Mac/Apple and vocal customers.

Apple did not lose the OS platform wars of the 90s because developers migrated to Windows. They lost developers because Windows became a much higher volume, lower cost platform. Windows offered a comparatively open opportunity by shipping for many hardware makers. Apple offered a captive market, limited to more expensive Apple hardware. The lesson from that is not don’t trust developers, its make your platform is the best for developers or expect problems.

Microsoft did embrace developers. They also mistreated them and competed with the, and used nasty tactics with them. And yes, Microsoft got rich over the same time that they mistreated developers. But they also alienated the entire industry and were subject to lawsuits which risked breaking up the company. Now their whole franchise is broken and a big factor in that is that people really don’t like their business practices. Is the 90s style nastiness of Microsoft really the model for Apple today?

True developers were not interested in Rhapsody – no big surprise there – it sucked. It would have been a disaster for the Mac and listening to developers got us to OSX and a smooth transition from OS 9, which was good for users. Once the promise of OSX was married with ease of development from Carbon and the respect for the install base with Classic, developers got on board and they have been very energized to support OSX ever since. Apple’s ability to excite developers and carry them thru several technical shifts, in spite of the small audience of Mac users has been a big part of the success of OSX.

Again, as good as iLife and the core apps are OSX would not have the audience it has today if not for Office, the CS suite and the TON of developer apps that fixed big holes, small annoyances and made the platform compelling for a wide range of users, especially the geeks who influence the rest. Look at the benefit from developer apps like Parallels and VMWare. Could Apple make a WIndows emulator with out those companies? Sure it could but it would not be the industry standard that IT people know and love. That is the point of 3rd party developers, they can concentrate on this because their business depends on it.

Now on to this issue of the iPhone platform. First a few basic points: 1) The appstore is not going to be a disaster even if Apple annoys developers. 2) Of course not all apps can be allowed and its up to Apple to decide. 3) Apple has to exercise these editorial powers and not all problem apps can be foreseen. I am rich, and NetShare, both could not be allowed. I am rich was just a nuisance. And Netshare, although a cool app was probably not going to be allowed by ATT and any developer would have known that there was a good chance it was not going to be accepted. I saw no uproar about that.

Podcaster is a different story because it means that Apple is being anti-competitive and that could get them into trouble. I think there is a bigger liability for class action than the liability that any developer app creates. This sort of anti competitive behavior can be illegal and hurts consumers, developers and any reasonable person can see, the platform itself.

Is there an interest in Apple blocking these apps? Yes of course there is. Its not user confusion, that is bogus. Its that Apple likes to run the show and Podcaster and MailWrangler threaten that. Both apps would also benefit from support for background apps which Apple reserves for itself. But any interest that Apple has in not allowing these apps, at least any that I can see, is outweighed by the interest in encouraging development of the platform, even if it means friendly competition between Apple apps and the solutions offered by others. Friendly competition means that even thought Apple runs the show, apps from 3rd party developers, as much as possible have similar standing in terms of what can be done with them. Apple is not allowing that now and it may, maybe I should say will, lead to problems.

You can deny and spin this simple fact as much as you like – it does not change the fact that developers are right to be alarmed by this, because they can see these powers being used on them unfairly. That is a specter that no business would happily tolerate. And the sad truth is that there is simply no reason for this behavior. No podcast app is any real challenge to iTunes. No mail app would harm the built-in app’s standing. Its ridiculous and wrong and that anyone would defend it is bizarre to me.

Apple are the big daddy here. They can treat these guys badly if they want. But why? What harm does a little extra effort in communication do? Goodwill – as you say – isn’t enough to make a platform. We well know what to expect at Android. But it’s a great thing to have when everything else is on place.

What sounds like whining from the hotheads is just, as Gruber linked the other day: the tip of the iceberg. Fine, compared to Apple that iceberg is an ice cube, but still: it’s the last inch we’re talking about in communication. Not Google’s unfortunate thousand miles in infrastructure.