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Comment by jamesk2 | Hacker News Reader

Apple is trying to do innovative things like the App Store. In trying something new, they made mistakes. And if they want to keep innovating, they have to keep making new mistakes. I hear all the time that we as entrepreneurs need to fail fast and fail often to innovate.

I think this is just the price of innovation. You're not going to hit ever ball out of the park and some foul balls will wind up hitting someone in the stands.

Keep making good reasoned arguments about the flaws but boycotting seems unreasonable.

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I've no doubt that many reports of app store horror stories are exaggerated and there are always two sides to every story, but as a dispassionate observer (I don't own an iphone or build apps for any mobile platform), I think boycott is absolutely reasonable.

The fact is if even half of the horror stories are half true, Apple is downright abusive to iPhone developers. Are they within their rights to behave this way? Sure. But they also shouldn't be given a free pass just because they have the best platform from a technical standpoint. End users don't really give a shit, so the burden to put pressure on Apple falls disproportionately to developers.

Given the blackhole nature of official channels to address grievances, I think Apple is just asking for this kind of developer backlash, and they deserve what they get. Schiller's responses so far to me are underwhelming. He has a right to make factual corrections, but Apple needs to take real action instead of just trying to placate big name Apple bloggers. Gruber's response in this regard was fantastic.

What is innovative about the App Store?

An innovation is a new way of doing something. A cell phone maker actually owning the store where applications are sold online was new and successful or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Really, how many applications would the iphone have if AT&T or Verizon controlled what was allowed to be downloaded there?

Dunno, but for-pay apps not endorsed by the carriers have been around forever. Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm have had third-party apps forever.

And nobody used them.

The app store has changed mobile application delivery forever. If you want proof, look at the recent moves by all 4 of the examples given.

I doubt the App Store matters. People loved the iPhone before there were apps, remember?

Palm OS, Windows Mobile, etc., etc., died because they fucking sucked, not because there was no single app store.

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