App Store, I love you but you're bringing me down
I am convinced that within the next two or three years, Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch will become the dominant smartphone and PDA. Sadly, the mobile computing platform that will push smartphones fully into the mainstream, a full-featured computer in everyone's pocket, will remain broken if Apple does not allow third-party applications to be installed without permission or vetting from Apple.
The latest evidence: Apple has rejected an iPhone application, after a 33-day waiting period, for using a non-public API. The problem? The application did not in fact use a non-public API, but instead replicated the same effect (CoverFlow) using custom code.
The App Store approval process isn't working. It's taking too long for applications to be added, while it's clear that those vetting the applications are making mistakes. It's understandable — they're human, and probably overworked, besides — but it's also unnecessary. The App Store, a collection of Apple-approved applications available directly on the device, is a great asset for the iPhone, but it should be only one of many ways to put applications on a device — a computer — that you own.
The solution is simple: Apple needs to make jailbreaking — if not sanctioned — at least not a violation of the DMCA.
I'm fully aware that for most current and future iPhone users, the ability to add unsanctioned third-party applications isn't critical. But like most seemingly esoteric issues of ownership and user rights, just because it isn't something that will affect most users doesn't mean it isn't important.
It's my suspicion that users will lose this right by ignorance. With such a well-made product, traditional market forces are incapable of sending any nuanced message. This mistake will not cost Apple any appreciable market share. And I certainly don't think posts like this will do more than reify iconoclasts' opinions and cause moderates sadness. So what do we do?*
iPhone: Peeps Rejected for Private API ... Huh? [LandonF.BikeMonkey.org via ★]
* Besides donate to smart, allied lawyers?
Image: siyublog
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All of this is why you are wrong about the iPhone being dominant in 3 years. Android is far less evil (despite you really wanting to believe it's somehow not open, Joel) and doesn't inhibit the people that make it great (developers) with stupid policies. Sure, right now the G1 is more for geeks than anyone else... but who writes the apps for the app store and the android marketplace? Geeks. And hey, look at that, you can use that app on any number of devices, not just one.
"This mistake will not cost Apple any appreciable market share."
well its cost them my market share...
@Pork: We shall see! Obviously Android is more open in some ways, and good on them for that. But it's certainly locked down in many ways that are similar to other phones. Still, I feel that's irrelevant to consumers unless, as you say, developers somehow start flocking to Android. And even then they'll need multiple killer apps to turn the tide.
One of the reasons the iPhone could maintain its pace is ironically the App Store: fewer developers will make quality code for free than will do it to make a living. I fear that Android may end up being the desktop Linux of the mobile world, at best. (As you know, though, I'd be happy to be wrong there. Apple needs competition.)
Pork Musket:
People are quite happy with the fact that some application on their Smartphone isn't going to - by design - steal their contact information and raid their bank accounts.
-- unless they're on the McCain / Palin 2008 campaign, in which case all bets as to their motives are off. --
Can you imagine what would happen if we were talking about the Microsoft App Store instead of the Apple App Store?
What if the only legal way to install software on your Windows Mobile phone was to submit it to Microsoft, wait 30 days, then learn whether your app gets the SteveB seal of approval. If your app is rejected for a bogus reason, tough shit.
If Microsoft decides it doesn't like your app at any point, it has a remote kill switch to remotely delete it from all your paid customers.
Is there any chance Microsoft could get away with that? Of course not. Lawsuits would shut it down before it got halfway through a concept phase.
And yet the dominant smartphone & music platform comes with exactly those restrictions. Don't want to play ball? Go find yourself a Blackberry or GooglePhone.
If you want to develop for the iPhone, you pay the Steve Jobs shakedown tax and let them make the rules.
Someone please explain how this isn't anticompetitive and a blatant abuse of a near-monopoly?
@4 Yes, I agree with you. So what are you arguing? What does Android lack that Apple doesn't? You think Google doesn't review apps on the Marketplace? You have the same controlled distribution point if you want it; the difference is you have other options as well. And At least on Android if you suspected something fishy was going on you could easily monitor processes and debug it. You'd have to hack the hell out of your iPhone to do the same.
I gotta say that the fact that we are even thinking about smartphones as something somehow separate from computers means that things aren't quite in the right place for people to realize this.
When I first saw the command prompt on my iPhone, that's what did it for me. The apps are going to help bring people closer to that, but I agree that until it is opened up for real, it is going to be an elaborate toy, not quite a real computer.
Android lacks spit polish and good, all-around apps. The non-Gmail client was junky. The music player was crap. It's half-baked all around, and Google expects developers to fill in the cracks. And they may! But the beauty of the iPhone is that it feels comprehensive to the average person out of the box.
Still, point is, no third-party apps without approval is wretched. And I wish there were a way to force Apple's hand to do the right thing.
@Jeol - Oh I agree with you, it's not ready for primetime yet... I was asking what it lacked in terms of security, in reply to #4. There's a reason I have an iPhone and not a G1, I just think the Android model is poised to take off. Android might be half-baked, but it didn't take them long to bake it and it's still a respectable OS comapred to, say, WinMo or BB OS. The beautiful thing is OS isn't at the whim of the company to make it as comprehensive as an iPhone. Other people will improve it.
Should be interesting to see, I just can't imagine closedness beating openness.
What do you do? What you do is you stop supporting the iPhone until it is available without crippling restrictions.
I'm a Mac user, and if the iPhone was an open platform I would have been all over it. We'd have two in our house. But deliberately crippled as it is, I'm not willing to consider it a smartphone.
I'm sticking with BlackBerry, which will run any Java mobile application, including anything I may choose to write myself. Once they get Android syncing with OS X properly, I'll probably switch to an Android phone.
What makes the Peeps incident doubly awful is the fact that Google has publicly admitted using an unpublished API (and to good effect) in its voice-recognition app. So you've got the double-standard (or inconsistently applied standard) and the misunderstanding of how the app works.
Well, as an application developer who's thinking of making the jump to wireless apps, Apple's sandbox filled with crushed glass is definitely a turn-off.
Then again, Google's sandbox appears to be BYOS (Bring Your Own Sand).
My Kingdom for a sandbox filled with LEGOs!
-S
"One of the reasons the iPhone could maintain its pace is ironically the App Store: fewer developers will make quality code for free than will do it to make a living. I fear that Android may end up being the desktop Linux of the mobile world, at best. (As you know, though, I'd be happy to be wrong there. Apple needs competition.)"
Not sure why seem to be implying that you can't make a living from an Android app in just the same way you can from an iPhone app. The Android Market is slated to add a payment service in January I believe, plus there are already ad networks that are supporting Android if you want to go the ad supported route.
When people attempt to hold their iPhones over my G1, I use one simple line: "Well, what picture do you have on your background? What? NO picture at ALL? Hold on, I'll send you this hot pic of Mr. Jackman...wait, you can't get WHAT??"
Their comebacks are always pitiful, but not as pitiful as the iPhone. I'd rather have a phone for geeks than a phone for rich scene-sters anyday.
"Their comebacks are always pitiful"
Mine is that apparently they have this thing called email now. You may be familiar with it, from an article in Parade Magazine or similar. Why, I hear that Google even offers a special "Google email" as some sort of free service. So, since both of us are using phones with excellent email clients, why did you just spend fifty cents to send a picture that you could've sent for free? That seems rather stupid to me.