Apple helping its rivals by driving away developers
Apple might be hurting its App Store by driving away its key asset – the app developers. Its heavy-handed handling of the store, with restrictions and even NDAs on rejection letters, might just drive programmers into the welcoming arm of the competition.
Already there’s Google’s Android platform waiting with open arms. There’s already been one public defection. Alex Sokirynsky, who created an app that rivalled Apple’s own podcasting program, found his app pulled from the store and then his account disabled. Sokirynsky didn’t commit a crime; he just made something better than what Apple had to offer and it wasn’t going down well with the company. In a post on his blog, he wrote "At least there(Android), I will be welcomed instead of being walked all over.”
Instead of opening up the app store to creative and talented developers, Apple is vetting the developers to a ridiculous extent. The way Sokirynsky was treated pretty much means that developers can create any app they want…as long as it doesn’t compete with anything Apple has. That will mean no alternative mobile browsers to compete with Mobile Safari, either. And Firefox lovers can probably continue to dream on about having their favourite browser on the iPhone. Even Mozilla’s said it isn’t likely to happen due to Apple just making the entire process difficult.
Does Apple want the iPhone developer community to devolve into Windows Mobile’s? Windows Mobile’s market share keep shrinking, no matter how hard Microsoft pushes its phone maker partners into shipping phones with Windows Mobile. Apple could soon push itself into a niche corner at the rate it’s going.
Android’s not the only thing the iPhone needs to be worrying about. Nokia’s Symbian will also be open source and developers will be able to download the SDK very soon, if rumours are true. With developers having two open, hassle-free platforms to choose from and the ability to create apps for multiple phone models, developers will be spoiled for choice. The way things are going, the smart choice might not be Apple.
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April 20th, 2009
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