Frankly, this article annoys the hell out of me. Firstly, what trend is he talking about? He gave me two examples - Sparrow and QuickOffice. That's not a trend,

Frankly, this article annoys the hell out of me. Firstly, what trend is he talking about? He gave me two examples - Sparrow and QuickOffice. That's not a trend, thats two apps, and if there really is one, then that should've been made clearer. Now, assuming this is a recurring trend, it still remains to be seen whether its one worth dealing with for Apple. Even if this kind of poaching happens, its likely that its on such a small scale that it makes almost no difference to the ecosystem of the app store. Basically, the assertion that "Apple is depending on apps like Sparrow to make the iOS platform shine" is backed by nothing. If nothing else, the points about what Apple could do to help devs make more money are useful. Even in this case, I don't see why apple providing support for subscription fees is superior to letting the app creators handle that through online accounts. If the subscription part were handled by Apple, that just means more of a delay when the app makers want to change the structure/pricing of the subscription and even less control over the statistics that they can gather. The point about providing detailed statistics is great. As achampas said, acquisitions and talent poaching is simply an economic reality, and a good one for developers because it gives them better economic prospects and more freedom in choosing their jobs. Overall, a personal disappointment over the fact that Sparrow will no longer be under development is completely acceptable("my favorite email application on both iOS and Mac OS"), but thats not a good reason to decide that some trend is bad and that it should be fixed.