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The article provides no evidence to support the conclusion that it's about Job's or Apple's trust of developers. It just recounts some history and then jumps to

The article provides no evidence to support the conclusion that it's about Job's or Apple's trust of developers. It just recounts some history and then jumps to disjointed conclusion. In fact, it has nothing to do with trust. I can predict with 100% certainty that developers will flock to popular platforms and mostly stay away from failed platforms. In the platform business Jobs had failures (NeXT, Macintosh classic) and successes (Apple II, iPhone, iPad). His successful platforms had no problems attracting developers, his failed platforms less so. The trust relation actually goes in the other direction: it's important that the developers trust the platform maker. Platform providers have a symbiotic relation with their developers which creates a positive feedback loop: successful platform attracts developers which make useful programs which makes the platform even more successful etc. At the same time platform providers invariably compete with developers on their platform. Nintendo competes with other game companies writing games for their consoles, Microsoft competes with some companies writing software for Windows and Apple competes with other companies writing software for Mac or iOS. To me the core of the issue is: how fair is the game. Platform provider will always have technical and marketing advantage over independent developers. Nintendo programmers probably know the hardware the best and Nintendo can cross-promote their games with their console. At the same time we know it's not enough to win: there are games that, at a given time, sell better than Nintendo's games. Microsoft Money couldn't beat Quicken and the Windows software market is so huge that Microsoft is not even playing in most categories. Apple did set up the game to be unfair and they are fully taking advantage of that to maximize profit. As such, they've broken my trust and trust of many developers. First, unlike Android or Microsoft, they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even allowed to run on iOS. When Microsoft was competing with Netscape, they actually had to write a better browser for Windows. Due to Apple rules (no interpreters allowed => no JavaScript allowed) you can't even write a competing browser for iOS which is why there's no FireFox for iOS or Chrome for iOS. When they didn't like Google Voice app, they just banned from iOS (despite it not even violating any official rules). It allegedly took government (FCC) investigation to get it enabled. But that wasn't enough: the new in-app payment rules target companies that have much bigger and comprehensive businesses that just writing iOS apps. Apple wants to interject themselves between any service that offers some kind of paid service and users using iOS devices and collect chunk of the revenue despite the fact that for many such businesses 30% is economically impossible. Those are major violations of developer's trust on the part of Apple. I for one will not write a single line of iOS code as long as there is a viable alternative like Android. Breaking developers' trust isn't enough to break the platform. If the platform is successful enough, most developers will just swallow the bitter pill. However, if there's one thing that doesn't change it's this: things change. Apple is on top of the world right now but Android is gaining momentum. Apple's greed is a dangerous game: if the Android momentum continues, it'll be much easier for developers to walk away from Apple's platform into a welcoming embrace of Google.

cletus 16y ago
> The article provides no evidence to support the conclusion... +1 I also agree that success of the platform was the driving factor in attracting developers. In fact I think some pundits put way too much weight in the argument about attracting developers. If people use it, they will come. > they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even allowed to run on iOS Personally I think this policy is part of the successful formula. The ugly truth is this is the right decision fr most people. Building trust in the platform by the users is FAR more important than the philosophical objections by a few developers and users. As for competing browsers it's a little more complicated than that: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile-ever-be-released-for-ios-devices-no-blame-apple/10770 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile-ever-... I'm not sure than stance is still correct either. Technically Google Voice wasn't banned either. It was just held in limbo with no decision. The end result is basically the same however. I for one am waiting to see what happens with the Kindle. I think it's now so influential that Apple would be idiots to kick it off. If they don't it'll lead to confusion about their policy. If they do it'll be the first competitive advantage Android tablets will have (IMHO). Lastly when it comes to App Store rejection, in spite of Apple's nebulous rules it really is a case of "you'll know it when you see it" 99% of the time (if not more). There seems to be a trend for some people to create apps that were never going to get rejected, submit them, get rejected and then immediately come to places like this to complain about how they've been victimized, which of course gets a certain level of support from the Apple haters irrespective of the merits. It's almost like the blog post complaining about rejection is written before the app is submitted.
redial 16y ago
Im the author of the blog post, so first I wanted to thank you for your feedback. Second, I thought a lot about what you said and it seems that I wasn't clear enough with my use of the word 'trust'. I also thought that the historic recount provided enough evidence that they do not let others control the experience of their devices. Apparently, it needed some more explanation. To be clear, I'm not talking about the App Store in general, but in the context of John Siracusa's article. I have updated the blog post accordingly, and here is what i wrote: ------- Update: It seems that I wasn’t entirely clear with my decision to use the word ‘trust’ . The main question seems to be, Apple has over 400.000 apps on the App Store, then, how can they not trust developers? The point I’m trying to make isn’t that Apple is not willing to work with developers on improving the platform, or in creating new uses for their devices. You can see their disposition every time they invite a third party developer on stage to talk about their apps, and how much money the are making from them. What I was referring to was the idea of the complete experience of a product from day one. Every aspect of the hardware has to have a counterpart in the software that can be used in a real world scenario. They would never include a hardware component without a killer way to take advantage of it in the software on day one. And for strategic reasons they have to control that software. Case and Point: FaceTime. There were videoconferencing apps before it, even on the App Store, but Apple felt that they were not showcasing the full potential of the new device, so they made their own. You may say that it’s just videoconferencing and that Skype already did everything. To that I tell you, Skype was not ready to take advantage of both cameras, they could only use the one on the back, so if you wanted to use the new front facing camera on day one, you simply couldn’t. You had to wait for Skype to issue and update. How is that a complete experience?. By contrast Motorola seems fine shipping a Barometer and even a SD card slot that have no use at all on day one, or shipping 4G support when they don’t have the hardware for it. When they announced the iPad they explicitly said that it needed to be better than a laptop and a phone on two key areas: browsing the web and reading ebooks. They already had a killer mobile browser in the form of safari, what they didn’t have was an ebook reader, so they made iBooks. This is what I mean when I say ‘trust’. They are never going to trust a third party with a core competency of the device. Even if the software or service already exists. The only difference now, is that the device does so much, that they are stepping on everyone’s toes. And thats the main idea behind John Siracusa’s article, they are now on both sides, and this could end up badly for Apple. The new subscription rules are just the latest expression of this internal discrepancy, as was the rule to ban apps created using Flash from the app store, and rejecting Google Voice from it altogether. I’m sure there are gonna be at list a couple more before Apple decides to or is forced to change their ways. -----

cletus 16y ago

> The article provides no evidence to support the conclusion... +1 I also agree that success of the platform was the driving factor in attracting developers. In fact I think some pundits put way too much weight in the argument about attracting developers. If people use it, they will come. > they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even allowed to run on iOS Personally I think this policy is part of the successful formula. The ugly truth is this is the right decision fr most people. Building trust in the platform by the users is FAR more important than the philosophical objections by a few developers and users. As for competing browsers it's a little more complicated than that: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile-ever-be-released-for-ios-devices-no-blame-apple/10770 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile-ever-... I'm not sure than stance is still correct either. Technically Google Voice wasn't banned either. It was just held in limbo with no decision. The end result is basically the same however. I for one am waiting to see what happens with the Kindle. I think it's now so influential that Apple would be idiots to kick it off. If they don't it'll lead to confusion about their policy. If they do it'll be the first competitive advantage Android tablets will have (IMHO). Lastly when it comes to App Store rejection, in spite of Apple's nebulous rules it really is a case of "you'll know it when you see it" 99% of the time (if not more). There seems to be a trend for some people to create apps that were never going to get rejected, submit them, get rejected and then immediately come to places like this to complain about how they've been victimized, which of course gets a certain level of support from the Apple haters irrespective of the merits. It's almost like the blog post complaining about rejection is written before the app is submitted.

redial 16y ago

Im the author of the blog post, so first I wanted to thank you for your feedback. Second, I thought a lot about what you said and it seems that I wasn't clear enough with my use of the word 'trust'. I also thought that the historic recount provided enough evidence that they do not let others control the experience of their devices. Apparently, it needed some more explanation. To be clear, I'm not talking about the App Store in general, but in the context of John Siracusa's article. I have updated the blog post accordingly, and here is what i wrote: ------- Update: It seems that I wasn’t entirely clear with my decision to use the word ‘trust’ . The main question seems to be, Apple has over 400.000 apps on the App Store, then, how can they not trust developers? The point I’m trying to make isn’t that Apple is not willing to work with developers on improving the platform, or in creating new uses for their devices. You can see their disposition every time they invite a third party developer on stage to talk about their apps, and how much money the are making from them. What I was referring to was the idea of the complete experience of a product from day one. Every aspect of the hardware has to have a counterpart in the software that can be used in a real world scenario. They would never include a hardware component without a killer way to take advantage of it in the software on day one. And for strategic reasons they have to control that software. Case and Point: FaceTime. There were videoconferencing apps before it, even on the App Store, but Apple felt that they were not showcasing the full potential of the new device, so they made their own. You may say that it’s just videoconferencing and that Skype already did everything. To that I tell you, Skype was not ready to take advantage of both cameras, they could only use the one on the back, so if you wanted to use the new front facing camera on day one, you simply couldn’t. You had to wait for Skype to issue and update. How is that a complete experience?. By contrast Motorola seems fine shipping a Barometer and even a SD card slot that have no use at all on day one, or shipping 4G support when they don’t have the hardware for it. When they announced the iPad they explicitly said that it needed to be better than a laptop and a phone on two key areas: browsing the web and reading ebooks. They already had a killer mobile browser in the form of safari, what they didn’t have was an ebook reader, so they made iBooks. This is what I mean when I say ‘trust’. They are never going to trust a third party with a core competency of the device. Even if the software or service already exists. The only difference now, is that the device does so much, that they are stepping on everyone’s toes. And thats the main idea behind John Siracusa’s article, they are now on both sides, and this could end up badly for Apple. The new subscription rules are just the latest expression of this internal discrepancy, as was the rule to ban apps created using Flash from the app store, and rejecting Google Voice from it altogether. I’m sure there are gonna be at list a couple more before Apple decides to or is forced to change their ways. -----