What’s really retarding the iPad? Apple’s App Store

What’s really retarding the iPad? Apple’s App Store, Lukas Mathis writes for Ignore the Code. No third-party developer is going to make the investment in time and money into an iPad killer app when Apple can, on a whim, decide not to carry that app in their App Store.

Lukas Mathis:

The thing that truly hurts the iPad is the App Store.

When the original Mac came out, it didn’t have multitasking, either. But it also didn’t have an App Store. There was no gatekeeper deciding what was allowed on the Mac. So when Andy Hertzfeld wrote Switcher, he knew that he could sell and distribute it.

Who is going to write something like Switcher for the iPad? Nobody, because it can’t get on the App Store, so it can’t be sold.

Who is going to write a real, truly integrated file manager for the iPad? Nobody.

Who is going to invest a year – or more – into creating an incredible, groundbreaking new app, the killer app, the desktop publishing equivalent for the iPad? Knowing that Apple could (and probably will) just decide to not put in the App Store, destroying all of that work?

Nobody.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple could free the iPad, but that would open up the platform to all of the same security and privacy issues we see on traditional platforms. If Apple wants to keep the iPad tied to the App Store and within their walled garden, they should continue to make iPadOS not only more powerful (and more intuitive), but also work to provide certain App Store guarantees and engineering assistance to promising third-party developers who are interested on taking iPad to the next level.