I partially agree, evil is such a hyperbolic word. However, Apple and its rank and file during the Steve Jobs era believed 3rd party developers to be rather inc

I partially agree, evil is such a hyperbolic word. However, Apple and its rank and file during the Steve Jobs era believed 3rd party developers to be rather incompetent, and 3rd party software could never live up to the beauty that Apple itself could create. (I also worked at Apple) If it somehow proved Steve Jobs wrong and some indie company made popular beautiful software, Apple would bend over backward to acquihire them, sell off (read. kill) the product, and get them making beautiful software for Apple. Of course, back then, it was a dream for so many to get noticed by Apple and end up working there. Don't try to minimize the bad faith moves from Apple by calling them "clumsy". SJ (and proved through documents released from the Epic trial) absolutely treated everything as a zero-sum game and was exceedingly ruthless in getting what he wanted. On the one hand, yes, the iPhone App Store was just an expansion of the iTunes/iPod platform they had started and found worked well. Yes, it also simplified, what at the time, was an insanely complex web of mobile app markets that carriers themselves didn't truly understand the potential of. All would have been fine if they approached it with an open mind and listened to feedback. The main issue and feelings of "evilness" that so many people express about Apple, is that they so quickly used the App Store process as a weapon against anything that showed signs of stealing market share away from them. For example, around the start of the iPad, so many interesting book store startups launched, (ie. comic books, out of print books, etc.) and I loved it. However, SJ wanted his iBooks platform and through draconian changes in App Store policy, shut them all down over night. Sorry, but there's nothing clumsy about that that. It was very intentional, and very much directed at Amazon's Kindle, regardless of who got hurt along the way. Developers tried, repeatedly, to give feedback about ways to improve the App Store, time and time again. Instead, Apple closed feedback forums, canceled Q&As at WWDC, and followed up with more App Store policies against speaking out and essentially made it a privilege to work with them. I loved woking there, I really did, but we shouldn't minimize these feelings of evilness that so many developers express. Their intuitions are right and they deserve to get as much visibility for their pain as possible. Keep in mind that essay was coming from the perspective of a VC who was dealing with a lot of his startups struggling with the App Store and him trying to get Apple to listen. If that meant being dramatic with words like Evil, so be it, but in the end, surprise, it didn't really do anything heh.