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Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

> More and more developers will start (slowly, but surely) to neglect Apple's Appstore by default due to the fear of the ridiculous approval process and the uncertainty that their development efforts for the iOS platform may go a waste, because they have seen the history of popular apps like 500px and others.

I really hope this happens, but it seems so far that people are more than happy to put up with Apple's draconian App Store policies. We're not even talking about equal treatment - iOS apps continue to come out before Android apps, and Windows Phone apps often aren't even made.

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I like Apple's draconian policy. Not all of their policy, but sometimes it's just appropriate for them to keep developers in line.

For example, about two years ago we released an app for a running event in our state. It used background GPS events to record the runners' locations on a map. Gave them stats and all that.

Apple rejected it because we didn't prominently warn users that background GPS could affect their battery life. This was a good change, that we would not have made, had Apple not reviewed our app.

Sometimes it feels like developers think they have an inherent right to pollute whatever platform they want with their apps, just because they can write code.

If anything, I think Apple is not strict enough. There's a lot of crap on the App Store. And I say this as someone who has had apps rejected a ton of times, and would seriously benefit from being able to include downloadable code and a JIT interpreter in my app (both disallowed).

I disagree with you here rgarding Apple Policy and GPS - one area that Apple has absolutely been failing for the last couple years is in their horrible policy regarding background GPS draining of the battery. Almost every time my battery goes to zero (in fact, I actually think it IS every time) - it is because of background GPS lighting up the radio and draining my battery. Lots of apps do this, and it is a blight on the iOS platform.

If windows mobile/blackberry come up with better policies regarding developers that would increase the quality of the applications, and reduce the amount of crap that the iOS developer engage in, then I suspect those platforms will start to pick up users.

Android = Ultimate Freedom, but you need to manage it. Apple IOS = Some Freedom to shoot yourself in the foot.

Like I said, I think Apple should be more strict with their policy.

I just thought it was nice that they actually checked our app, and told us to clearly warn our users about background GPS.

They've done this sort of thing a lot to our apps. One game we had still had placeholder art. They found it, rejected it, and told us to fix the placeholder art.

I also like that they reject outright if your app crashes during the review process.

Sadly, I think they have been getting more and more lenient as the sheer volume of App submissions increases.

>it seems so far that people are more than happy to put up with Apple's draconian App Store policies.

Devs are going where the market is. But where the market is will eventually change and Apple may be forced to open up to compete.

Like I said, I predict it will be a very slow change. You know how MySpace was once THE Social Network to be on, and when you weren't there, you would be looked down upon? Now, despite an epic re-design, nobody even talks about it, except for examples like these, perhaps. It could be the same case for Apple's Appstore, assuming they continue this painful trend of pissing off developers.

I don't think that analogy works very well. If anything, the App Store is more comparable to Facebook: despite all of its pitfalls and drawbacks, everyone is already so invested that switching seems impossible. Developers will go where the money is, and as long as Apple continues to sell millions of iDevices, most developers won't abandon a profitable platform.

Why do people keep bring up with this stupid Myspace argument ?

There are plenty of examples of market leading companies that have remained on top despite additional competition e.g. Windows, Office, Google Search.

of the examples you supplied, only windows fits, and it barely. MS Office beat the entrenched lotus 123, google beat yahoo. I can only think of one more that fits - Amazon - which hasn't been replaced.

It seems its more common for a first mover to be displaced than to remain...

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