Where do I sign up? Thoughts on iPhone app development, one year later
carpeaqua.com
carpeaqua.com
It's been a fun year learning the cocoa language and getting applications out there that lots of people find useful (my most popular app was #1 on the free app store for a week within a week of it going online).
I'm just unsure if I should continue. I'm working on a game, but it's hard to find motivation to continue when there's so many others out there getting rejected with no reason after all their hard work. I'm still in the "it hasn't happened to me so who cares?" camp, but I could easily get burnt after spending 3 months of spare time developing.
Even if some "big name" developers leave the scene, I don't think it will matter much. The barrier to entry for creating apps isn't that high.
As for the "unsustainable pricing structure" he talks about, that's partly due to the above. It's not prohibitively hard to create a simple app–therefore, any simple, successful app will have competition and the price will fall. I think it's also due to the fact most people are create B2C apps. In my opinion there's a good market for niche/vertical-focused B2B apps. The kind you can charge $10+ for and that don't require app store visibility.
Just my $.02
It stinks even more when Apple adds new built-in functionality that competes with your existing application and you are notified that your application is no more. In fact, the more successful your application, the greater the chances Apple will decide to make it part of the OS.
Examples: * Coverflow(first standalone app by a developper) was bought by Apple. * The new iTunes visualizer was also first developped and then bought by Apple.
We'll see how Apple handles it with the iPhone
For example: Watson (http://www.karelia.com/watson/), was killed by Apple's Sherlock. Later, SandVox (http://www.karelia.com/sandvox/) was later followed up by Apple's iWeb. The list goes on...
Indie Mac developers have taken to calling this act, "Sherlocking". See a mainstream usage of the term here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1137
So, Apple swings both ways. :)
Exactly what built-in functionality was Google Voice competing with that caused Apple to flip out? According to the gizmodo article posted earlier today Apple has approved numerous apps that duplicate dialing and sms functionality, so I guess it must have been something else right?
e.g. this: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa... and this: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...
full gizmodo article here: http://gizmodo.com/5325539/apples-chickenshit-approval-proce...
But there have been other cases where the "reasons" given have been completely without explanation.
I'm a huge Apple fan. But I'm no fanboy — their behavior here is unacceptable and it makes me outright ashamed (as I'm usually the one to praise them).