4 ms·

I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like another excellent reason to keep that developer out of the market. Remember that the App Store is a business an

I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like another excellent reason to keep that developer out of the market. Remember that the App Store is a business and a marketplace, where products are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and everything that runs on it--to be reliable. IE: this is a professional realm. Professional programmers don't have a problem with learning a new language, if that's what's required to target a new platform. If someone "has trouble writing in ObjC", then they really need to work on their skills. This person sounds like a hobbyist who probably shouldn't be selling his wares to run on consumer electronics devices with limited RAM and battery life.

davidw 17y ago
I'm not talking about professional programmers. Here's a use case: someone in a niche field - say, an archaeologist, just to pick something - has a clever idea for a phone app that will assist him in his job. He knows a little about programming, and manages to put together a Lua script that does most of what he needs. Several of his colleagues find his code really useful and recommend it to their friends too. You're probably right that the app store isn't the right place to distribute it, but Apple doesn't give you a lot of leeway there, does it? In any case, if it's some random app for a niche, and people find it useful, who cares if it's got some deficiencies?
- clawrencewenham 17y ago
  But Apple does give you leeway. You can distribute up to 100 copies outside the App Store, and they're now adding the ability to distribute as many copies as you like to in-house users over WiFi: http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/preview-iphone-os/ http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/preview-iphone-os/ Such apps are not bound by 3.3.1.
  - davidw 17y ago
    What you're calling leeway, I would call 'crumbs'. I'm not convinced in the slightest that that sort of world is one I'd want to inhabit or recommend to friends.
pyre 17y ago
> I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like another excellent reason to keep that developer out of the market. Remember that the App Store is a business and a marketplace, where products are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and everything that runs on it--to be reliable. IE: this is a professional realm. By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so you're legally banned from doing so. > where products are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and everything that runs on it--to be reliable How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no conflicts? > Professional programmers don't have a problem with learning a new language, if that's what's required to target a new platform. If someone "has trouble writing in ObjC", then they really need to work on their skills. This person sounds like a hobbyist who probably shouldn't be selling his wares to run on consumer electronics devices with limited RAM and battery life. We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from the lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification program. Sort of like a bar-exam for programmers. Then we would know that no professional programmer was lacking in any respect. All code produced would be perfect and of the highest quality. I mean, it works for lawyers. No incompetent lawyer has ever passed the bar-exam, and no medical professional that was incompetent has ever received a license practice medicine.
- clawrencewenham 17y ago
  > By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so you're legally banned from doing so. That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy. A startup does not have to ask Apple to provide a storefront, distribution network and billing system for them. > How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no conflicts? By creating a marketplace with a baseline of quality, you improve everybody's bottom line. Developers can spend less effort convincing the customer that their product isn't a buggy piece of crap that won't run, or needs special access to a restricted service, or any of the other things that Apple's review process screens out. Apple is removing barriers-to-purchase for the customers by converting them into barriers-to-entry for the developers. Doing this has made the App Store an impulse-buyer's dream, and this benefits everyone. > We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from the lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification program. Perhaps that's coming, too. Despite your sarcasm, a legal profession with Bar exams or medical profession with licenses is still substantially better than one without. Even if, at the very least, they only provide a mechanism for taking consistently poor practitioners out of the system. But that's unlikely, because professional certifications are used when the professional himself is the product. Here, the app is the product, and Apple is screening on the merits of the product. I'm going to guess it's logistically impossible to train so many reviewers to look at each product in detail (with turnover, very high submission rates, etc.), so they have to give them broad rules. Right now, someone is claiming that CS5-compiled Flash games HAVE made it to the App Store, and that they are slow pieces of crap: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yourself_why_flash_was_banned_from_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel... If CS5 unleashes a tidal wave of Flash games into the App store, then yes, I imagine that iPhone owners will be disgusted with the state of the market, hurting everyone trying to sell a product there. (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) Even developers who've spent a little more time learning Objective-C so they can create a better product.

davidw 17y ago

I'm not talking about professional programmers. Here's a use case: someone in a niche field - say, an archaeologist, just to pick something - has a clever idea for a phone app that will assist him in his job. He knows a little about programming, and manages to put together a Lua script that does most of what he needs. Several of his colleagues find his code really useful and recommend it to their friends too. You're probably right that the app store isn't the right place to distribute it, but Apple doesn't give you a lot of leeway there, does it? In any case, if it's some random app for a niche, and people find it useful, who cares if it's got some deficiencies?

clawrencewenham 17y ago
But Apple does give you leeway. You can distribute up to 100 copies outside the App Store, and they're now adding the ability to distribute as many copies as you like to in-house users over WiFi: http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/preview-iphone-os/ http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/preview-iphone-os/ Such apps are not bound by 3.3.1.
- davidw 17y ago
  What you're calling leeway, I would call 'crumbs'. I'm not convinced in the slightest that that sort of world is one I'd want to inhabit or recommend to friends.

pyre 17y ago

> I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like another excellent reason to keep that developer out of the market. Remember that the App Store is a business and a marketplace, where products are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and everything that runs on it--to be reliable. IE: this is a professional realm. By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so you're legally banned from doing so. > where products are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and everything that runs on it--to be reliable How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no conflicts? > Professional programmers don't have a problem with learning a new language, if that's what's required to target a new platform. If someone "has trouble writing in ObjC", then they really need to work on their skills. This person sounds like a hobbyist who probably shouldn't be selling his wares to run on consumer electronics devices with limited RAM and battery life. We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from the lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification program. Sort of like a bar-exam for programmers. Then we would know that no professional programmer was lacking in any respect. All code produced would be perfect and of the highest quality. I mean, it works for lawyers. No incompetent lawyer has ever passed the bar-exam, and no medical professional that was incompetent has ever received a license practice medicine.

clawrencewenham 17y ago
> By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so you're legally banned from doing so. That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy. A startup does not have to ask Apple to provide a storefront, distribution network and billing system for them. > How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no conflicts? By creating a marketplace with a baseline of quality, you improve everybody's bottom line. Developers can spend less effort convincing the customer that their product isn't a buggy piece of crap that won't run, or needs special access to a restricted service, or any of the other things that Apple's review process screens out. Apple is removing barriers-to-purchase for the customers by converting them into barriers-to-entry for the developers. Doing this has made the App Store an impulse-buyer's dream, and this benefits everyone. > We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from the lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification program. Perhaps that's coming, too. Despite your sarcasm, a legal profession with Bar exams or medical profession with licenses is still substantially better than one without. Even if, at the very least, they only provide a mechanism for taking consistently poor practitioners out of the system. But that's unlikely, because professional certifications are used when the professional himself is the product. Here, the app is the product, and Apple is screening on the merits of the product. I'm going to guess it's logistically impossible to train so many reviewers to look at each product in detail (with turnover, very high submission rates, etc.), so they have to give them broad rules. Right now, someone is claiming that CS5-compiled Flash games HAVE made it to the App Store, and that they are slow pieces of crap: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yourself_why_flash_was_banned_from_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel... If CS5 unleashes a tidal wave of Flash games into the App store, then yes, I imagine that iPhone owners will be disgusted with the state of the market, hurting everyone trying to sell a product there. (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) Even developers who've spent a little more time learning Objective-C so they can create a better product.