Why Apple Doesn't Trust Developers
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There is a big, undeniable, compelling reason for Apple to distrust us iOS developers: as a whole we're incompetent bumblers. I'm talking about security. The number of iOS developers who do things like transmit the UDID (Universal Device ID) in plaintext, or who "encrypt" their communications by doing things like zipping it (no encryption, or the same key for every client) then "securely authenticate" it with CRC32 is just jaw-dropping. In terms of doing things with just a competent level of security, large numbers of us are screwing the pooch in ways that severely contaminate the pool for the rest of us.
Of course, this points to the ultimate incompetent bumbler in this regard: Apple. Apple should've built a better security library -- one which makes it harder to use security in an incompetent way. (Forces you to do security right, or the API doesn't work at all.) For heaven's sakes, they require you to muck with 3 objects just to shift a date from one month to the same day-number the next month. Some better support in security might benefit the iOS developer community just a bit more than the ability for our apps to work smoothly in both Julian and Gregorian calendars.
I plan on making my living through iOS in the next year, but Google seems to be way ahead of Apple with regards to security.
It all sounds pretty reasonable until you remember that the 30% tax is more or less aimed directly at removing Amazon ebooks from the platform, and that the kindle app was available well before iBooks.
Lots of books apps were available before iBooks. Apple has no interest of driving any content provider off iOS: anything that helps sell hardware is good for them.
And Kindle App is still available on iOS.
Once June 30 goes past, Apple isn't going to reverse their policy again; if Amazon is there on the 30th, they're not leaving.
No, Amazon leaving now would make it look like Amazon pulled the app. Perception is very important. Most of the customers do not read tech sites, but they will notice when apps are pulled, and will ask 'Who pulled my app?'? Amazon (and I suspect Apple as well) wouldn't want to be the answer to that and be object of rage.
If Amazon doesn't want to play by the new rules, I suspect they will wait for Apple to make the first move.
This is definitely true of Netflix too, I suspect there's a percentage of iPad buyers who bought the device just for Kindle/Netflix apps.
It wasn't the only reason I bought an iPad, but had the Kindle app not been there, it would have certainly been a deal-breaker. And even if they back off now, the uncertainty Apple has introduced has driven me to an Android replacement. I simply don't trust Apple to proceed with the customer's best interests in mind anymore.
Make a beautiful logo out of it, constantly reminding people that the price increase is due to Apple.
... and at the same time offer a clue that they can get the same services/goods cheaper on another platform (say... Android).
Would that help to drive users to understand how bad Apple is and hopefully start a public uproar?
Perception right?
No one except very small companies are going to go this route, if any.
He's saying that Apple doesn't sit around waiting for developers to create compelling apps for their products, not that developers are "untrustworthy."
To me those have different connotations.
Apple seems determined to avoid depending on Photoshop and Final Cut Pro to sell hardware, to the point of curbing software offerings that might become the reason to own an Apple device.
They don't simply believe that "you can't count on third-party software to sell your device." They believe "if you let third-party software sell your device, you have made a deal with the devil that you will regret."
I suppose next you'll be telling me Apple invented the helicopter, and next week will be increasing the chocolate ration.
It as if, when it comes to Apple, some people completely lose their perspective.
Arguably, it's the right attitude to have when you're riding a wave that is now over 60% of your revenues...
The funny thing is, I bet Apple prefers that to the alternative - having the health of platform being dependent on a 3rd-party act. Love 'em or hate 'em, it's clear to me that pretty much all of the decisions Apple made over the last 10 years has been to keep them out of the position they were in in the 1990's where Microsoft and Adobe were essentially threatening to sink the Mac platform by yanking their most popular applications.
I still don't think that's true. The key strategic asset is the unbeatable user experience and the core functionality - web browsing, movie watching, book reading, maps, stuff that comes built in.
A very large number of iPad users have never downloaded an app. Same for iPhone users. They find the core functionality to be sufficient for their needs. And they would be unhappy with ANY Android device because the user experience is sub par.
er, I'm going to need some sort of citation on that as it's pretty much the exact opposite of what I've seen
I would assume it's even more for the iPhone... I know several non technical people with iPhones who have never used the app store but they're still happy with the phone.
The number of apps, which Apple mentions frequently in their ads, is one of Apple's key strategies to bring people in to make a purchase. You can't really say that the "unbeatable user experience" is as key because you don't experience that until you've made the purchase and used it for a while, and you'll never find out if it's unbeatable until you've used something else. Something like number of apps is easy to compare when making a decision among platforms, just like screen size is easy to compare, because it's a number. Unless you're in the lead on the specs, you downplay or don't mention specs because the numbers are not subjective like "unbeatable user experience" is. Number of apps is one of the few objective measurements Apple continuously uses when doing comparisons.
They try them out at the store or they play with a friend's. This is the common pattern. Have you ever been to the Apple store? It's one big room full of people playing with iPads and iPhones
The user experience is unbeatable and everyone knows it, the non-techies just don't call it "user experience".
But they play with the iPad/iPhone/iPod and then they play with a few other competitors and the difference is beyond obvious. And this keeps them sticking with Apple.
Especially with phones -- everyone has tried blackberries, androids and iPhones because it's so easy to try out other people's phones. There are a few really nice android phones that are as beautiful as the iPhone but they are rare - it's rare to run into a person with one of them.
Most of the non-iPhone phones people own are ugly pieces of crap. This is negative advertising for the Android/Blackberry platform. Blackberries in particular are incredibly unintuitive on the first usage, while typical Android phones (admittedly cheap, but no one talks about the price at a party) suffer from blurry screens and clunky animation.
I use my phone as a phone, an e-mail reader, a GPS, and a web browser. I bought it for those things, and apps are a nice bonus, but a pretty negligible part of the overall value proposition for me.
There is something we call competition in a free market. Example: when only IE was relevant, Microsoft couldn't care less about making IE better, but when things started to heat up, Microsoft took up the challenge and made IE a lot better.
Apple shipping a default browser and whatnot is good, but not letting developers compete with them is terrible.
Here is an example when Apple was forced to relax it's restrictions: http://my.opera.com/community/countup/
In fact, it has nothing to do with trust. I can predict with 100% certainty that developers will flock to popular platforms and mostly stay away from failed platforms.
In the platform business Jobs had failures (NeXT, Macintosh classic) and successes (Apple II, iPhone, iPad). His successful platforms had no problems attracting developers, his failed platforms less so.
The trust relation actually goes in the other direction: it's important that the developers trust the platform maker.
Platform providers have a symbiotic relation with their developers which creates a positive feedback loop: successful platform attracts developers which make useful programs which makes the platform even more successful etc.
At the same time platform providers invariably compete with developers on their platform. Nintendo competes with other game companies writing games for their consoles, Microsoft competes with some companies writing software for Windows and Apple competes with other companies writing software for Mac or iOS.
To me the core of the issue is: how fair is the game. Platform provider will always have technical and marketing advantage over independent developers. Nintendo programmers probably know the hardware the best and Nintendo can cross-promote their games with their console. At the same time we know it's not enough to win: there are games that, at a given time, sell better than Nintendo's games. Microsoft Money couldn't beat Quicken and the Windows software market is so huge that Microsoft is not even playing in most categories.
Apple did set up the game to be unfair and they are fully taking advantage of that to maximize profit.
As such, they've broken my trust and trust of many developers.
First, unlike Android or Microsoft, they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even allowed to run on iOS. When Microsoft was competing with Netscape, they actually had to write a better browser for Windows. Due to Apple rules (no interpreters allowed => no JavaScript allowed) you can't even write a competing browser for iOS which is why there's no FireFox for iOS or Chrome for iOS.
When they didn't like Google Voice app, they just banned from iOS (despite it not even violating any official rules). It allegedly took government (FCC) investigation to get it enabled.
But that wasn't enough: the new in-app payment rules target companies that have much bigger and comprehensive businesses that just writing iOS apps. Apple wants to interject themselves between any service that offers some kind of paid service and users using iOS devices and collect chunk of the revenue despite the fact that for many such businesses 30% is economically impossible.
Those are major violations of developer's trust on the part of Apple. I for one will not write a single line of iOS code as long as there is a viable alternative like Android.
Breaking developers' trust isn't enough to break the platform. If the platform is successful enough, most developers will just swallow the bitter pill.
However, if there's one thing that doesn't change it's this: things change. Apple is on top of the world right now but Android is gaining momentum. Apple's greed is a dangerous game: if the Android momentum continues, it'll be much easier for developers to walk away from Apple's platform into a welcoming embrace of Google.
+1
I also agree that success of the platform was the driving factor in attracting developers. In fact I think some pundits put way too much weight in the argument about attracting developers. If people use it, they will come.
> they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even allowed to run on iOS
Personally I think this policy is part of the successful formula. The ugly truth is this is the right decision fr most people. Building trust in the platform by the users is FAR more important than the philosophical objections by a few developers and users.
As for competing browsers it's a little more complicated than that:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile-ever-...
I'm not sure than stance is still correct either.
Technically Google Voice wasn't banned either. It was just held in limbo with no decision. The end result is basically the same however.
I for one am waiting to see what happens with the Kindle. I think it's now so influential that Apple would be idiots to kick it off. If they don't it'll lead to confusion about their policy. If they do it'll be the first competitive advantage Android tablets will have (IMHO).
Lastly when it comes to App Store rejection, in spite of Apple's nebulous rules it really is a case of "you'll know it when you see it" 99% of the time (if not more).
There seems to be a trend for some people to create apps that were never going to get rejected, submit them, get rejected and then immediately come to places like this to complain about how they've been victimized, which of course gets a certain level of support from the Apple haters irrespective of the merits.
It's almost like the blog post complaining about rejection is written before the app is submitted.
Second, I thought a lot about what you said and it seems that I wasn't clear enough with my use of the word 'trust'. I also thought that the historic recount provided enough evidence that they do not let others control the experience of their devices. Apparently, it needed some more explanation. To be clear, I'm not talking about the App Store in general, but in the context of John Siracusa's article. I have updated the blog post accordingly, and here is what i wrote: -------
Update:
It seems that I wasn’t entirely clear with my decision to use the word ‘trust’ . The main question seems to be,
Apple has over 400.000 apps on the App Store, then, how can they not trust developers?
The point I’m trying to make isn’t that Apple is not willing to work with developers on improving the platform, or in creating new uses for their devices. You can see their disposition every time they invite a third party developer on stage to talk about their apps, and how much money the are making from them. What I was referring to was the idea of the complete experience of a product from day one. Every aspect of the hardware has to have a counterpart in the software that can be used in a real world scenario. They would never include a hardware component without a killer way to take advantage of it in the software on day one. And for strategic reasons they have to control that software. Case and Point: FaceTime. There were videoconferencing apps before it, even on the App Store, but Apple felt that they were not showcasing the full potential of the new device, so they made their own. You may say that it’s just videoconferencing and that Skype already did everything. To that I tell you, Skype was not ready to take advantage of both cameras, they could only use the one on the back, so if you wanted to use the new front facing camera on day one, you simply couldn’t. You had to wait for Skype to issue and update. How is that a complete experience?. By contrast Motorola seems fine shipping a Barometer and even a SD card slot that have no use at all on day one, or shipping 4G support when they don’t have the hardware for it. When they announced the iPad they explicitly said that it needed to be better than a laptop and a phone on two key areas: browsing the web and reading ebooks. They already had a killer mobile browser in the form of safari, what they didn’t have was an ebook reader, so they made iBooks.
This is what I mean when I say ‘trust’. They are never going to trust a third party with a core competency of the device. Even if the software or service already exists. The only difference now, is that the device does so much, that they are stepping on everyone’s toes.
And thats the main idea behind John Siracusa’s article, they are now on both sides, and this could end up badly for Apple. The new subscription rules are just the latest expression of this internal discrepancy, as was the rule to ban apps created using Flash from the app store, and rejecting Google Voice from it altogether. I’m sure there are gonna be at list a couple more before Apple decides to or is forced to change their ways. -----
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/03/01/the-mother-of-all-an...
(not a slam on Android, but just the natural progression - if you allow anything, someone, somewhere will abuse the privilege)