News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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Apple needs to deal with this problem before it gets any larger. Speirs may only be one developer, but that’s all it takes to get the ball rolling.
App banning: it’s all the rage these days. Last week came news that Apple had refused entry to an application called Podcaster, because it “duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.” Which is either extremely suspect or just someone at Apple not understanding the difference between what the app does and what the podcast section of iTunes does.
Now the folks at Nullriver, makers of the controversial NetShare application that lets you use your iPhone as a modem for your laptop, report that their application has also been officially banned from the App Store. A post on the company’s website reads:
Looks like Apple has decided they will not be allowing any tethering applications in the AppStore. As such, NetShare will not be available in the iTunes AppStore. We are seeing a lot of similar reports from various developers who’s [sic] applications were abruptly removed and banned from the AppStore without any violations of the terms of service. This is all unfortunate news for the iPhone platform end-users.
Developers have already voiced their concern over Apple’s unwritten rules of what can and cannot be sold through the App Store, but the situation has become even more dire with this most recent round of rejections. It's prompted some, such as Fraser Speirs, developer of iPhone Flickr browser Exposure, to say that they’ll cease developing for the platform until Apple clarifies the rules.
Apple needs to deal with this problem before it gets any larger. Speirs may only be one developer, but that’s all it takes to get the ball rolling. The App Store is big—by some accounts, bigger than the iTunes Store was at a similar point in its life cycle—and Apple needs to take steps to ensure that the developers who populate it with its goods are happy.
And more than that, there’s an issue of image here. Apple’s long been perceived as the underdog, the little guy in the big market, the rebels, dreamers, and round pegs in square holes, as their very own advertising would have it. That image has engendered them not only goodwill but also enthusiasm and incomparable loyalty among both developers and consumers—two things that they’re in danger of losing if the Kremlin-like non-communication continues in this vein.
Apple needs to deal with this problem before it gets any larger. Speirs may only be one developer, but that’s all it takes to get the ball rolling.
By any reasonable measure the transition from .Mac to MobileMe was a debacle — a slapstick shambles of vaudevillian proportions. The only upside is that if Apple's claims that only one percent of users were affected are true, there's about 100 times as many MobileMe users as I thought. But there is another benefit: if users had been able to use the service, they'd have seen just how limited it actually is. Hardly anyone's noticed that even on a good day the default e-mail client on iPhone kinda sucks. There just haven't been enough good days.
Matthew JC. Powell | Jul 25, 2008
There's nothing wrong with protecting your intellectual property if you're a business. On the other hand, leaving consumers high and dry when licences fail to work as they're meant to really sucks, even if the property in question is just a relatively minor game title. Thankfully, Apple does this a lot better than its biggest competitor. The future of software delivery, as we've been promised for some time now, is in digital delivery. Certainly, it's a model that's proven wildly successful for a number of shareware-style operators with applications that are easy to download and install, but what about larger applications? Well, that market's being tested out right now in the games world, and Apple is right in the thick of it, thanks to the digital delivery of games via the iTunes Store.
Alex Kidman | Aug 20, 2008
Apple has officially decided to be a monopolist, and to abuse its monopoly power to the detriment of its partners, competitors and, ultimately, its customers. I feared this would happen, and had heard intimations that it might, but I held out hope that it would not be true — that good old Apple would not be like big bad Microsoft, that Obi-Steve would not follow the dark path of Darth Bill. I was wrong. And now that Apple has chosen this path, forever will it dominate its destiny. It's a pity.
Matthew JC. Powell | Sep 15, 2008
The denial and removal of applications from the App Store has become a hot-button issue and adding fuel to the fire is news from over the weekend that Apple has blocked another program.
Dan Moren | Sep 23, 2008
