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I'm an iPhone developer and I like the new rules. The privacy thing was getting out of hands - according to survey of 600 people I ran on mturk about 1/3 of th

by DenisM 17y ago

I'm an iPhone developer and I like the new rules. The privacy thing was getting out of hands - according to survey of 600 people I ran on mturk about 1/3 of the users are concerned about privacy ("what do you mean my data is collected!?"), 1/3 are willing to give developers benefit of the doubt and 1/3 don't care one bit. Apple should get praise for addressing this thing before it blew up, not "after numerous warnings were ignored". We don't want scared users, we want users happy and safe. I also like the ban on 3d-party analytics for purely selfish reasons - I have my own and this ban gives me an advantage. It also paves the way for me to sell my analytics package to people to use in-house later on. Apple has shown indifference to dev analytics (beyond daily sales numbers) so I hope they keep doing that. I like the cross-language compiler ban as well, again for selfish reasons. I was not looking forward to a horde of flash developers joining the fray and flooding the app store with more apps. It also elevates value of my Obj-C skills, should I decide to market them instead of building products. I'm only concerned about smooth transition from current regime to the next one - I wanted to release an ad-supported app next week and I hope these new rules don't put me in limbo (e.g. Apple's ads aren't there yet, other ads are banned).

cpr 17y ago
Other ads are NOT banned--that was in the Q&A session specifically, and Jobs said you can use any package you like. (I guess as long as it's not collecting data that's user-specific.)
- irons 17y ago
  The intersection of ads with the new rules only has to do with location-targeting. Apple had unofficially discouraged it before, saying your app couldn't use Core Location "primarily" to serve targeted ads, and they've now strengthened that language and put it in the dev agreement (3.3.9). There's no reason to think the Deck or FusionAds or AdMob are going away in their current incarnations.
  - DenisM 17y ago
    Not true, agreement forbids using user data in ways not related to the primary function of the app and it also forbids passing device data to third parties. I'm fairly sure moblcix and admob libraries collect device ID which falls under "device data".
- DenisM 17y ago
  There are currently ad libraries you link into your app, and I really have no idea what's in those libraries and what kind of stuff they send home. Which is the crux of the problem, really, and one of the things Apple is trying to address - we should know where we send the data and how it's being used, but individual developers are not powerful enough to affect change from ad provider. Apple is. So anyway, since I don't know what these apps collect, I can't be certain if thy will be banned in short term. Obviously once they clean up their act they will be admitted, but the transition period may be messy, that's all I'm saying.
10ren 17y ago
BTW: Is there a market in 3rd party libraries for the iPhone?
- DenisM 17y ago
  Not that large - most iPhone devs are poor and value there time less than money. But I think if you move away from "library" towards "I will solve your problem around X so you don't even have to think about it" there will be more people like me willing to pay. I didn't write my own analytics because I enjoy doing it - I needed the data but I didn't want to give up all my data to admob/mobclix etc to party on, and I wanted data to be high-granular. Here is one guy selling stuff: http://www.drobnik.com/touch/ http://www.drobnik.com/touch/ I planning to buy his calendar control because Apple can't be arsed to give me theirs and I don't want to spend weeks writing my own.
  - 10ren 17y ago
    Thanks, 3rd party library are a healthy sign for a platform. I was thinking they go partially towards the fears in 3.1.1, of a layer, potentially cross-platform, and out of Apple's control. But I guess if they are iPhone-exclusive, it's less of a concern.
kbob 17y ago
Your second and third points could be read as, "I like it because it makes the app store less competitive." I guess I like it too because I don't want the next decade of personal computing to be an Apple monopoly, and making the app store less competitive is a good thing.
- DenisM 17y ago
  Well, I have admitted to selfish motivation. If Apple did an about-face and encouraged flash development I would like it too because I could better reach my target customers. In that sense I like clarity of any kind over uncertainty that was there a week ago. I guess my point really is that as circumstances change I will find best way to use them to my advantage by changing what and how I do things. People who can't change some/any of that will obviously suffer, but I don't see why I should care about them. The only bad things are when they change too fast, so I appreciate warning shots so I can maneuver out of the way in time. This time Apple gave us two months after a hard warning, and if they stay consistent with timing I'm fine with that too.

by DenisM 17y ago

cpr 17y ago

Other ads are NOT banned--that was in the Q&A session specifically, and Jobs said you can use any package you like. (I guess as long as it's not collecting data that's user-specific.)

irons 17y ago
The intersection of ads with the new rules only has to do with location-targeting. Apple had unofficially discouraged it before, saying your app couldn't use Core Location "primarily" to serve targeted ads, and they've now strengthened that language and put it in the dev agreement (3.3.9). There's no reason to think the Deck or FusionAds or AdMob are going away in their current incarnations.
- DenisM 17y ago
  Not true, agreement forbids using user data in ways not related to the primary function of the app and it also forbids passing device data to third parties. I'm fairly sure moblcix and admob libraries collect device ID which falls under "device data".
DenisM 17y ago
There are currently ad libraries you link into your app, and I really have no idea what's in those libraries and what kind of stuff they send home. Which is the crux of the problem, really, and one of the things Apple is trying to address - we should know where we send the data and how it's being used, but individual developers are not powerful enough to affect change from ad provider. Apple is. So anyway, since I don't know what these apps collect, I can't be certain if thy will be banned in short term. Obviously once they clean up their act they will be admitted, but the transition period may be messy, that's all I'm saying.

10ren 17y ago

BTW: Is there a market in 3rd party libraries for the iPhone?

DenisM 17y ago
Not that large - most iPhone devs are poor and value there time less than money. But I think if you move away from "library" towards "I will solve your problem around X so you don't even have to think about it" there will be more people like me willing to pay. I didn't write my own analytics because I enjoy doing it - I needed the data but I didn't want to give up all my data to admob/mobclix etc to party on, and I wanted data to be high-granular. Here is one guy selling stuff: http://www.drobnik.com/touch/ http://www.drobnik.com/touch/ I planning to buy his calendar control because Apple can't be arsed to give me theirs and I don't want to spend weeks writing my own.
- 10ren 17y ago
  Thanks, 3rd party library are a healthy sign for a platform. I was thinking they go partially towards the fears in 3.1.1, of a layer, potentially cross-platform, and out of Apple's control. But I guess if they are iPhone-exclusive, it's less of a concern.

kbob 17y ago

Your second and third points could be read as, "I like it because it makes the app store less competitive." I guess I like it too because I don't want the next decade of personal computing to be an Apple monopoly, and making the app store less competitive is a good thing.

DenisM 17y ago
Well, I have admitted to selfish motivation. If Apple did an about-face and encouraged flash development I would like it too because I could better reach my target customers. In that sense I like clarity of any kind over uncertainty that was there a week ago. I guess my point really is that as circumstances change I will find best way to use them to my advantage by changing what and how I do things. People who can't change some/any of that will obviously suffer, but I don't see why I should care about them. The only bad things are when they change too fast, so I appreciate warning shots so I can maneuver out of the way in time. This time Apple gave us two months after a hard warning, and if they stay consistent with timing I'm fine with that too.