The iPhone Is Now Doomed
I cannot claim to be a developer, but I have been watching the whole iPhone application development issues with interest. As of today’s news, it appears that the iPhone development process is like this:
- Ask Apple for permission to make an application.
- Sign a non-disclosure agreement.
- Invest time and money into an iPhone application.
- Ask Apple for permission to sell or give away your application.
- If Apple says YES: start making money and hope Apple does not change their minds.
If Apple says NO: shut up and deal with it. If you say anything, Apple can sue you, further raising the wasted investment money.
It just makes no sense.
For months now, Apple, the company known for being good at generating a lot of good free PR, has received an almost continuous stream of negative press, first over MobileMe, then the 2.0 software, then over iPhone applications being semi-arbitrarily not approved, and now Apple has extended the NDA so developers cannot say why their applications were not approved. Essentially, Apple has responded to push back over a too tightly controlled system by controlling it even tighter. Worse, Apple managed to time this perfectly with the release of Android, a completely open platform.
Apple has not shot itself in the foot. They shot themselves in the leg or heart. If Apple does not loosen up on their NDA policies soon, developers may leave the iPhone for the much more open Android platform or another more open platform. If the developers leave, Apple has suddenly doomed a potentially promising and incredibly successful platform. The only question that remains to be seen is how far iPhone developers are willing to be pushed? My guess: not much more.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Obvious question from a simple user/non-dev:
Why would you code for anything that wasn’t open? You’re always at the whim of the corporation, who inevitably changes its mind at the worst times.
All those guys need to come to GNU/Linux and code for that iPhone here.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:41 am
maybe you should just read that nda, before you start your work, all the info is there, and it is maybe not the most transparent process in the world but it is a clear on none the less
September 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am
The iPhone was doomed from the start, as soon as people realized what a vastly overpriced, cheaply made, poor performing product it really is!. The only reason there were any sales at all is that Apple managed (as it somehow did with the iPod) to get the Iphone to be thought of bya lot of people as some sort of status symbol. I can get a much better engineered and built product for a far lower price than eother the iPod or the iPhone.
Oh and BTW Apple, you do not own the word pod, nor do you own every product name that begins with the letter i.!
September 25th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Don’t forget the reality distortion field. Apple faithful will be on hand to shout down anybody that dares to say anything negative. The apps will obviously be rejected because they were not good enough, or that they duplicated existing apps, or whatever the standard excuse is. It’s fascinating to watch these people in full flow.
I do agree though, Apple has done a very stupid thing, but this seems to be Apple SOP, so not exactly unexpected. I’ll be interested to watch the Android phones mature, and I would love to see them carve out a nice big market.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Your assessment is spot on and probably the most likely reason people will continue to “jailbreak” their phones to get the apps and functionality not sanctioned by Apple Inc.
September 28th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I don’t think it’s that Apple is making stupid blunders as much as Apple is being proprietary-Apple in an increasingly Open Source world. Ten years ago something like this wouldn’t be very news worthy. Now it’s like General Motors introducing a “Bigger” “Better” Cadillac Escalde completely ignoring rising gas prices. As the Open Source way becomes more and more common, “mistakes” like the one Apple is making in regards to its developers, will become more and more common. At least until Darwinian forces reduce the offending holdouts to a class lesson in BUS101.