5 ms·

The App Store: Quality control without the quality

58 points by cmelbye 17y ago

lethargus 17y ago
"Both platforms are much more open and on a mac you have very little trouble with stability or malware or even quality. " I believe there are other factors that can contribute to this. I think the laptop/desktop portion of Apple still attracts a certain individual that typically requires things to be well designed and stable. Unfortunately the cell phone market is not the same way, especially when you factor in free or extremely cheap applications compared to more expensive OS X counterparts. The iPhone appealed to a wider audience, including Windows users who arguably put up with a lot crappier inefficient software. I think when originally putting the app store in place, it was a fear to have this crap trickle into the Apple app store. Also, Apple has a vested interest in the success of applications in the app store whereas it doesn't have as much direct benefit from applications released and sold independently for OS X.
bobbyi 17y ago
"What’s there to loose except for the feeling of powah?" 30% of every dollar that goes through the App Store.
maxklein 17y ago
I'm an app store developer, and if Apple opens the doors, let me tell you what will happen : First of all, there will be hardcore porn immediately. Boob apps will flood the store, because that's what makes money. If apple implements a flagging mechanism, then you will be one click away from opening a website to purchase hard core porn (I'm looking at you On The Go Girls). Lots of people will create apps with 5 pictures and call it "Celebrity News". For example Britney Spears News, etc. Apps will be rereleased every single day so they are always visible on the app store new releases page. People will upload apps that do nothing but just have a title people will search for. And of course, apps that call a pay hotline somewhere. With the amount of money people are spending on the app store, and the fact that people are looking for cheap entertainment rather than useful tools, the app store would be a heaven for spammers and scammers. If Apple ever unlocked the gates, it would be the absolute end of the app store. I have a phone number of a reviewer and I talk to him every now and then. They get a lot of crap. The gate is not to QC an app, it's to prevent the app store from being a crapware and spammers paradise.
- wmf 17y ago
  If Apple did away with the review process, there's no reason they'd have to keep funneling all apps through the store. They could allow/force the cesspool apps to be distributed through the Web.
- ddrouin 17y ago
  The best compromise would be to trust a given application after its first (or first few) review(s) and allow its developer to update it without going through the review process afterward. This would keep the gate for spammy applications and establish a relation of trust between the devs and Apple. Of course, this is unlikely to happen as Apple is using the review process to make sure the apps are not calling private APIs or violating whatever rules Apple decides to apply. But giving up this last layer of "security" for Apple to allow for better developer AND user experience would be the best move Apple could do to improve the whole App Store frustations from developers.
  - lethargus 17y ago
    I do not believe they should just blindly get rid of the review process of app updates, but I do think that there should be some priority given to them. I believe that a developer should be able to push updates out to their apps with relative quickness compared to getting a new app approved. This would even benefit Apple for the applications that are teetering on making a decent amount of sales but are lagging in the sales due to some kind of problem/stability issue.
  - cmelbye 17y ago
    Well, the problem of filtering private API usage would be easy to fix. They're already using an automated tool to detect it, so why not just scan the app right when the user uploads it? That would actually be better than the current system. Right now, if you upload an app that uses private APIs, you have to wait for however long it takes to actually get to a human reviewer (2-14 days) and then they run the tool, wasting a lot of time.
- mrshoe 17y ago
  Apple shouldn't open the gates to the App Store, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't open the gates to the iPhone. If you want to be listed in the App Store and have Apple handle your payment processing and even a bit of marketing for you, you're going to have to go through their approval process. Every single store in the world decides which products it will and won't sell. The App Store isn't, and shouldn't be, any different. However, on the Mac platform you can develop an app and sell it on your own web site or put it on a CD in a box and sell it at Best Buy or any other store. You can't do that on the iPhone. I guess opening up the iPhone platform wouldn't really help DHH, since I'm sure he wants his app listed and sold in the App Store, but I can see why developers expect more parity between the two platforms (Mac and iPhone). However, I can also see how it's easier for Apple to provide a better (and more consistent) customer experience when the App Store is the only way to buy and install apps. And since Apple cares more about customers, and customers don't really care about the openness of their phone's OS... that's probably not going to change any time soon.
gte910h 17y ago
The apple review process is not to enforce quality. It is to enforce control. Apps will look like X, behave like Y, and we will nix anything we wish to.
snprbob86 17y ago
May I recommend that Apple copy Microsoft for once? The fine folks on my partner team, XNA Creators Club Online, have developed a clever solution to the app review problem. The whole process is transparent, community-driven/crowd-sourced, insulates Microsoft from legal liability, and has been running effectively for over a year, albeit not at App Store scale. Read about it here: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/quickstart_main http://creators.xna.com/en-US/quickstart_main The same technology backend has been white-labeled for other communities: http://creators.rockband.com/ http://creators.rockband.com/
jsz0 17y ago
"Do you think the App Store clerks are combing through source code to look for security issues? Ha!" Apple sometimes rejects applications for using private APIs they must be checking at some level. I'm not sure how much damage you could do using public APIs. We haven't seen any iPhone App Store malware so whatever they're doing must be working. It's hard to believe no one has tried to slip something in over the last 2 years. In my personal experience with the iPhone I cannot recall a third party App Store application locking up my phone, crashing the OS, or otherwise preventing me from taking an incoming phone call. Either iPhone developers are being incredibly careful, Apple's App Store policies are working, or I'm very lucky.
- maxklein 17y ago
  That's because you pay $100 to get in and if you do this once, you will get kicked off immediately. There is no profit in malware. It's tough to get the app in, and should you succeed, the profit will likely be less than the $100 you spent getting in.
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    Plus, as I pointed out elsewhere in the thread: Apple can remotely disable your malware app after it's identified, they can publicly shame you, and they may even be able to sic the cops on you via the paper trail that you used to register as a developer.
    - cmelbye 17y ago
      Oh yeah, they'd easily be able to. They're incredibly strict on the paperwork when you're registering. My account was frozen until I mailed in personal identification due to a minor discrepancy in the name that I used for the billing address.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
endergen 17y ago
The iPod, iPhone, and soon the iPad are from what I can tell the first time DRM has been successfully deployed in a non annoying way. I remember when 3DStudios used to require a hardware dongle(A device you had to have plugged in for the software to run.) The iPhone and co. are like dongles that you actually want to buy. We are paying for the store and then only buying from it as well as being held hostage by the fact that we don't actually own what we purchased as it requires the devices controlled by apple to use our purchases. It's the ultimate lock-in. Note: Protecting content can not occur without tight control by apple, otherwise apps for accessing pirated content would proliferate. I'm starting to actually think that Apple has found the perfect racket and there is no way open systems can compete until someone comes along with Apple's design and manufacturing skills. There platform is just bigger and more consistent than any other competitor's with better tools and less variation in hardware designs. ps. If you think the App approval process is annoying try being a game developer, it takes months to get your game through the processes required by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Games love it, it's the rest of you that aren't used to it, for us it's a welcome improvement plus it's a platform that extends beyond games into lifestyle applications and communication.
- pyre 17y ago
  > then only buying from it as well as being held hostage by the fact that we don't actually own what we purchased as it requires the devices controlled by apple to use our purchases. Huh? You're saying that iPhone Apps are 'locked-in' because they require an iPhone to run them. Does MS Windows 'lock you in' because you can only run it on x86 hardware?
  - endergen 17y ago
    You make a good point. I never really thought through what that point sounded like. (Partly I'm really just pissed I can't pirate as easily) My only slight rebuttal is that you can't trade or resell your purchases like you could with console games or regular desktop software.
RedJones 17y ago
Please learn the difference between LOOSE and LOSE.

58 points by cmelbye 17y ago

"Both platforms are much more open and on a mac you have very little trouble with stability or malware or even quality. " I believe there are other factors that can contribute to this. I think the laptop/desktop portion of Apple still attracts a certain individual that typically requires things to be well designed and stable. Unfortunately the cell phone market is not the same way, especially when you factor in free or extremely cheap applications compared to more expensive OS X counterparts. The iPhone appealed to a wider audience, including Windows users who arguably put up with a lot crappier inefficient software. I think when originally putting the app store in place, it was a fear to have this crap trickle into the Apple app store. Also, Apple has a vested interest in the success of applications in the app store whereas it doesn't have as much direct benefit from applications released and sold independently for OS X.

bobbyi 17y ago

"What’s there to loose except for the feeling of powah?" 30% of every dollar that goes through the App Store.

maxklein 17y ago

I'm an app store developer, and if Apple opens the doors, let me tell you what will happen : First of all, there will be hardcore porn immediately. Boob apps will flood the store, because that's what makes money. If apple implements a flagging mechanism, then you will be one click away from opening a website to purchase hard core porn (I'm looking at you On The Go Girls). Lots of people will create apps with 5 pictures and call it "Celebrity News". For example Britney Spears News, etc. Apps will be rereleased every single day so they are always visible on the app store new releases page. People will upload apps that do nothing but just have a title people will search for. And of course, apps that call a pay hotline somewhere. With the amount of money people are spending on the app store, and the fact that people are looking for cheap entertainment rather than useful tools, the app store would be a heaven for spammers and scammers. If Apple ever unlocked the gates, it would be the absolute end of the app store. I have a phone number of a reviewer and I talk to him every now and then. They get a lot of crap. The gate is not to QC an app, it's to prevent the app store from being a crapware and spammers paradise.

wmf 17y ago
If Apple did away with the review process, there's no reason they'd have to keep funneling all apps through the store. They could allow/force the cesspool apps to be distributed through the Web.
ddrouin 17y ago
The best compromise would be to trust a given application after its first (or first few) review(s) and allow its developer to update it without going through the review process afterward. This would keep the gate for spammy applications and establish a relation of trust between the devs and Apple. Of course, this is unlikely to happen as Apple is using the review process to make sure the apps are not calling private APIs or violating whatever rules Apple decides to apply. But giving up this last layer of "security" for Apple to allow for better developer AND user experience would be the best move Apple could do to improve the whole App Store frustations from developers.
- lethargus 17y ago
  I do not believe they should just blindly get rid of the review process of app updates, but I do think that there should be some priority given to them. I believe that a developer should be able to push updates out to their apps with relative quickness compared to getting a new app approved. This would even benefit Apple for the applications that are teetering on making a decent amount of sales but are lagging in the sales due to some kind of problem/stability issue.
- cmelbye 17y ago
  Well, the problem of filtering private API usage would be easy to fix. They're already using an automated tool to detect it, so why not just scan the app right when the user uploads it? That would actually be better than the current system. Right now, if you upload an app that uses private APIs, you have to wait for however long it takes to actually get to a human reviewer (2-14 days) and then they run the tool, wasting a lot of time.
mrshoe 17y ago
Apple shouldn't open the gates to the App Store, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't open the gates to the iPhone. If you want to be listed in the App Store and have Apple handle your payment processing and even a bit of marketing for you, you're going to have to go through their approval process. Every single store in the world decides which products it will and won't sell. The App Store isn't, and shouldn't be, any different. However, on the Mac platform you can develop an app and sell it on your own web site or put it on a CD in a box and sell it at Best Buy or any other store. You can't do that on the iPhone. I guess opening up the iPhone platform wouldn't really help DHH, since I'm sure he wants his app listed and sold in the App Store, but I can see why developers expect more parity between the two platforms (Mac and iPhone). However, I can also see how it's easier for Apple to provide a better (and more consistent) customer experience when the App Store is the only way to buy and install apps. And since Apple cares more about customers, and customers don't really care about the openness of their phone's OS... that's probably not going to change any time soon.

gte910h 17y ago

The apple review process is not to enforce quality. It is to enforce control. Apps will look like X, behave like Y, and we will nix anything we wish to.

snprbob86 17y ago

May I recommend that Apple copy Microsoft for once? The fine folks on my partner team, XNA Creators Club Online, have developed a clever solution to the app review problem. The whole process is transparent, community-driven/crowd-sourced, insulates Microsoft from legal liability, and has been running effectively for over a year, albeit not at App Store scale. Read about it here: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/quickstart_main http://creators.xna.com/en-US/quickstart_main The same technology backend has been white-labeled for other communities: http://creators.rockband.com/ http://creators.rockband.com/

jsz0 17y ago

"Do you think the App Store clerks are combing through source code to look for security issues? Ha!" Apple sometimes rejects applications for using private APIs they must be checking at some level. I'm not sure how much damage you could do using public APIs. We haven't seen any iPhone App Store malware so whatever they're doing must be working. It's hard to believe no one has tried to slip something in over the last 2 years. In my personal experience with the iPhone I cannot recall a third party App Store application locking up my phone, crashing the OS, or otherwise preventing me from taking an incoming phone call. Either iPhone developers are being incredibly careful, Apple's App Store policies are working, or I'm very lucky.

maxklein 17y ago
That's because you pay $100 to get in and if you do this once, you will get kicked off immediately. There is no profit in malware. It's tough to get the app in, and should you succeed, the profit will likely be less than the $100 you spent getting in.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  Plus, as I pointed out elsewhere in the thread: Apple can remotely disable your malware app after it's identified, they can publicly shame you, and they may even be able to sic the cops on you via the paper trail that you used to register as a developer.
  - cmelbye 17y ago
    Oh yeah, they'd easily be able to. They're incredibly strict on the paperwork when you're registering. My account was frozen until I mailed in personal identification due to a minor discrepancy in the name that I used for the billing address.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

endergen 17y ago

The iPod, iPhone, and soon the iPad are from what I can tell the first time DRM has been successfully deployed in a non annoying way. I remember when 3DStudios used to require a hardware dongle(A device you had to have plugged in for the software to run.) The iPhone and co. are like dongles that you actually want to buy. We are paying for the store and then only buying from it as well as being held hostage by the fact that we don't actually own what we purchased as it requires the devices controlled by apple to use our purchases. It's the ultimate lock-in. Note: Protecting content can not occur without tight control by apple, otherwise apps for accessing pirated content would proliferate. I'm starting to actually think that Apple has found the perfect racket and there is no way open systems can compete until someone comes along with Apple's design and manufacturing skills. There platform is just bigger and more consistent than any other competitor's with better tools and less variation in hardware designs. ps. If you think the App approval process is annoying try being a game developer, it takes months to get your game through the processes required by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Games love it, it's the rest of you that aren't used to it, for us it's a welcome improvement plus it's a platform that extends beyond games into lifestyle applications and communication.

pyre 17y ago
> then only buying from it as well as being held hostage by the fact that we don't actually own what we purchased as it requires the devices controlled by apple to use our purchases. Huh? You're saying that iPhone Apps are 'locked-in' because they require an iPhone to run them. Does MS Windows 'lock you in' because you can only run it on x86 hardware?
- endergen 17y ago
  You make a good point. I never really thought through what that point sounded like. (Partly I'm really just pissed I can't pirate as easily) My only slight rebuttal is that you can't trade or resell your purchases like you could with console games or regular desktop software.

RedJones 17y ago

Please learn the difference between LOOSE and LOSE.