Posted in Personal by MB on 11/01/08
Back when I was fresh out of graduate school, I was sitting in my favorite local pub with a buddy of mine. We were talking about navigating the bureaucracy of a typical graduate art program. That or girls. Probably girls.
At some point in the conversation, after my friend had described a vexing problem, I said:
The problem is, you want it to be some way it’s not.
We both laughed because this was obvious, trite, and exactly true.
I think this idea applies equally well to the seemingly never ending dust-up regarding the fact that Apple will only sell iPhone apps through their store, on their terms, and have had the audacity to (oh noes) reject some apps from being sold in their store.
This is like complaining that your free ice cream doesn’t have sprinkles — I simply don’t understand the brouhaha.
I think, though, it might come down to this: When Apple announced the iPhone, we were told that it was running OS X and that it connected to the internet via WiFi. Technical folks understood that this implied that the iPhone–despite having a dirty, dirty, cellular radio–was basically a really tiny UNIX machine and a really tiny (though not especially powerful) Macintosh computer. Cool!
Immediately great hordes of nerds imagined a Narnia-esque world where anyone could write an iPhone app and a winged, talking, lion would ferry him across a great river of nymphs so he might sell his app to his queen.
However, Apple decided to make money. So, they created a controlled product and “ecosystem” (I hate that word when applied to “product accessories”). This means that all things iPhone (3rd party or not) work reasonably well together and give off the fresh baked aroma of quality that Apple is known for.
When the fantasy did not become a reality there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Simply, people were upset because things were not the way they wanted them to be.
It is technically feasible to sell the iPhone as a general purpose mobile/cellular/computing platform. That this technical feasibility exists, and that Apple does not choose to pursue it, drives some folks to conniptions.
In response many people yelled “Monopoly!”. I can only assume they are upset because they didn’t get to play the car piece (I always choose the hat) because they clearly don’t understand what that word actually means.
There are many examples of product sales being tied to other products. For example, I cannot buy Sony PSP games for my Nintendo DS. I cannot buy Wii Store titles on Xbox Live. I cannot get genuine Toyota parts for my Honda, etc. Each of these programs require some sort of membership, fees, and certification if you want to participate.
One might argue that “well these things are nothing like an iPhone” so here’s another example. Prior to the release of the iPhone, Apple began selling games for the original iPod. These games were made by 3rd parties, and sold exclusively through iTunes through a non-publicized, apparently private, developer program. Where’s the gnashing of teeth? I want to see some teeth-gnashing!
What? Nobody cares? Why is that? It’s because the typical iPhone customer opens the App Store and says “Super Monkey Ball! Sweet!” and feels warm and tingly as she get out her credit card. The relative “openness” of a platform is not very important to customers. Customers care about a lot of things like quality, price versus value, prestige, neat-o-factor, and so on. Openness is not a marketable issue.
I suspect, as the iPhone platform matures–remember, it’s not a year and half old yet–and Apple wishes to continue expanding their market share, they may be willing to explore more “openness”. They may allow applications developed in other environments like Java. They may allow browser plugins like Flash. They may allow competing browsers like Firefox or Opera. But only if they need to, and only if it makes market sense to do so.
Until that time, all 7 or 8 neckbeards who want to distribute apps willy nilly for the iPhone, who don’t want to use the App Store, and who are too chicken to jailbreak it will just have wait or buy an Android compatible phone (you know, use that free market thing that exists outside of a monopoly).
As a final note, the (ever) Daring Fireball linked to this website, which seeks to document ‘dead’ (woe!) apps that Apple has rejected from their App store: http://boredzo.org/killed-iphone-apps/
When I last counted there were 11 applications listed. This list is padded by one. If you read through, you’ll see that “Box Office” was taken down and renamed due to a copyright conflict, and is currently available as “Now Playing“. Hardly a dead, rejected application.
I could make a good case for rejecting all of the other apps myself. Even if there is no good case, Apple announced publicly that they reserve the right to reject applications for whatever reason. Sorry, you’ll just have to sell that fart joke app for the Blackberry.
The above site links to a blog which lists a number of games which have been rejected from the app store. My cursory run-through indicates that all of these games were rejected because of copyright issues as well.
I doubt these two web sites are exhaustive in any way. I’m sure there are more tales of woe to be told. Apple reported some 3000 apps in the App Store as of September. These two sites list less than 30 apps. We’re talking about less than 1%. I can live with those numbers.
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