Kincaid reports, “We reached out to Hewitt for more details, and he attributed his decision to quit the project entirely on Apple’s tyrannical App Store approval policies:”
My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer.
The web is still unrestricted and free, and so I am returning to my roots as a web developer. In the long term, I would like to be able to say that I helped to make the web the best mobile platform available, rather than being part of the transition to a world where every developer must go through a middleman to get their software in the hands of users.
Kincaid writes, “I couldn’t agree with Hewitt’s sentiments more, and it’s a breath of fresh air to see such a prominent developer quit the App Store… He has essentially been the one-man show behind the iPhone’s most popular application of all time… Apple has built some truly fantastic products, but their approach to the App Store is frightening — especially given the fact that other platforms may see the iPhone’s success and start adopting a similar model.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We disagree with Hewitt as we do believe that Apple is right to have an approval process for App Store inclusion, it’s just that they seem to have arbitrary criteria. As we we stated in the previous article (please read our full Take here): Apple should make sure that apps are safe to run on iPhone OS and leave taste, or lack thereof, out of the approval equation. Apple’s only considerations should be to make sure apps do not harm the device and/or encourage physically harming others, directly or indirectly.
You don’t think Mr. Hewitt has some sense of entitlement do you?
While I agree that the App Store approval process isn’t a problem in theory, Apple has a lot to do to make it as seamless as possible. It’s just too cumbersome right now, and I understand developers’ frustration.
Apple should create some sort of trusted developer status. Developers on this list would get to push updates faster (not necessarily new releases, just bug fixes and that sort of thing). This would allow things to get out faster without threatening security and take some of the volume off the approvers’ plates.
Apple also needs to revamp the upgrade process. Developers should be allowed to offer upgrade pricing to existing users when they release a new version of their apps, which is likely to happen more and more now that the App Store is roughly a year and a half old. In-App Purchasing is a crude way to implement this. iTunes knows which apps you’ve downloaded; just have it display the upgrade price if your app is eligible. Done.
In addition to the criteria cited in the MDN Take, I also appreciate Apple’s efforts to keep the platform as porn-free as possible, even though that does take some subjective judgement in some cases.
However, they should stick to that criteria. The rejection justification of “Mocking public figures” is beyond outrageous. Apple’s process is very broken at this point.
What’s Facebook?
“The web is still unrestricted and free”
Oh really. Have you talked to Microsoft lately and their little special hooks that forces users to use Internet Explorer. The web is not unrestricted or free. Better get that fact straight first.
Mr. Kincaid… Meet Kettle. Kettle… Meet Mr. Kincaid.
Apple’s damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Still waiting for someone on Android to come out with a Mein Kampf porn app. (I’m not even sure what that means.)
Piss on him.
All these babies want to stammer off to grab a headline, I say piss on em and let em go.
Anybody other whiners that want to join him? If you leave, keep your ass out for good and don’t come back.
Good riddance.
I tried FaceBook once. Created a page and kept it updated. Didn’t see any results and lost interest. Then I lost the password. Occasionally, Mad Cow offers benefits.
Good! This is how it’s done folks, draw I line the sand. He’s leaving to make a very powerful statement and I commend him for it. I disagree with his reasoning, but I believe his actions speak louder than words, which is all we get around here!
You listening proud american. Pffhht!
The little premadonna – never had it so good and never again will.
Facebook, what a joke.
This guy needs to have his diapers changed, pronto!!!!
Apple certainly has a right to manage THEIR APP STORE as they see fit, like any other store out there. My local corner market refuses to cary porn or gun magazines and cigarettes, for example. He wants the store to be a wholesome environment for children. He wants the respect of parents in the neighborhood. All of the liquor is locked up behind the counter. You have to ask for it and have proper identification.
Apple is doing nothing different. They wish to keep the App Store at a certain level.
Some people cite the rejection of the Google App as an example of Apple crossing the boundaries, however the Google App is competition.
Imagine opening a restaurant and someone coming into your highly successful restaurant and demanding to offer your customers their menu with their food, and when you refused, calling you draconian.
Imagine my friend the store owner being criticized for not carrying products in his store such as coupons for the store down the street.
@Tommy Boy
It’s when you fall asleep in the library. Somebody patented it and now they’re worth millions.
I also think you’re going to see a shift of the smartphone buyers into two camps… the iPhone people and the “cool people” who buy Android phones.
Google must be stopped. Heh.
12/21/12
THE DAY GOOGLE BECOMES SELF AWARE!
What on earth was he programming into his ‘FaceBook’ app that would cause a problem with Apple?!
Cry baby cry.
Apple does it for the safety of iP users, not because they are aholes.
I agree with MDNs take but I also think Apple is still figuring the whole app store thing out as it develops. Apple has been completely and totally overwhelmed by the unprecedented and unexpected success of the app store.
That said, Apple has $30 billion in the bank so it ought to hire a couple hundred more engineers to vet apps and speed up things, not to mention providing a lot more feedback to devs.
And yes, saying caricatures of politicians are offensive is sillier than the caricatures themselves. I have a feeling that Apple will backpedal on that app. What next, are they going to block e-books and pod-casts that have political satire? That app rejection has to be a misguided app-approval drone.
@holy mackeral
apple has no beef with his facebook app, and is one of the most popular apps out there, he thinks that if he goes public with his dramatic exit, he’ll score some points.
It’s called grandstanding. Something Palin and Prajean know a little something about.
App was a crash-happy and average, at best.
Here’s hoping that one of approximately one billion developers who would give their left nut to code a Facebook app step over this bawler’s corpse to design something worthy of the service.
You won’t be missed, Joe.
Why can’t those who have an Apple ID offer an up or down vote on whether an app is allowed in the store?
Oh wait… We do, with our wallets.
But what about free apps? I don’t believe we can apply the same market principles to free apps and Apple HAS to take a proactive roll in the approval process for free apps.
Rogue Amoeba is also grabbing headlines with their departure from the App Store, though arguably they brought their problems upon themselves: http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/11/rogue-amoeba.html
Hewitt’s pissed because people using his pet Three20 library on their iPhone apps are getting rejected left right and center. It’s making him look very bad, of course, because the reason cited is that Three20 accesses private and undocumented APIs and therefore risks future operability.
He basically wrote some hacky iPhone programmer toolkit and now all his acolytes are running scared! It has very little to do with Facebook at all, that’s just his (disingenuous) ticket to free publicity.
Yeah, control is what we need, like ISPs should be able to control what websites they route to so if they want they can ban macdailynews.
Great idea.
The success of the App store speaks for itself:
1. 100000 App released in just over a year
2. 200x more apps that other mobile or gaming plaforms
3. Minimal quality issues – surprising given the number of apps
4. Developer support in term of well made SDK
5. Amazing distribution systems – many developers have significantly increased their income due to Apple’s generous royalty system.
Sure there are some issues – but it just works for the majority of devs and users.
Apple have been cautious is releasing apps (yet still 100000 are there) because they want to maintain the quality. Apple are still refining their submission system and in the case of political content may need to lighten up. But given the overwhelming load I think they are doing a fantastic job.
Once Android gets up and running we’ll see how unrestricted app submission work. It will just be like PC app – some good most crap and buggy.