spaghetti

This fun puzzle illustrates some of the ideas: Bob wants to send Alice something valuable in the mail. Unfortunately the postal system is very corrupt and very efficient. Any package containing a valuable item will always be spotted by postal workers. If the package doesn't have a lock the postal workers will steal the item. Also postal workers will always spot any key sent through the mail and hold it indefinitely. So even if a locked box is sent through and Alice receives it she will never receive the key when it comes through hence she can't obtain the package contents. How can Bob successfully deliver a valuable item to Alice?

Answer: Bob puts the item in a box with a lock and sends to Alice. Alice receives the box, places her lock on it and sends it back to Bob. Bob removes his lock and sends the box back to Alice. Now Alice removes her lock and obtains the package contents.

It would be awesome if mobile developers could put targeted ads in their apps. I've tried Admob and Apple's iAds and there's literally no targeting. Two apps, one that focuses exclusively on pizza and another app that focuses exclusively on beer will show the same totally irrelevant ad for, say, some game app or "free text messages!".

Rovio excels at monetization on mobile. Same with Popcap. Obviously these companies' mobile products are different than facebook's.

Why is mobile monetization so difficult? Seems like a company that can monetize the desktop experience can do mobile too. They're both computers on which users consume information. If ads work on the desktop then I can't see a reason why they won't work on mobile.

Apple could solve this problem with money by licensing Google's existing service. Actually building a competing service can't be solved with money alone. Just think of the number of people involved.

It would be kinda neat to have Apple and Google street view mobiles going around and pseudo-competing with each other.

Apple has the money to do it no question. However it takes more than just money. On the data collection side there's designing, building and integrating the sensor system on the car. That has to be tested. Then it needs to be replicated many times. The data collected needs to be stored somewhere. Either locally on the car or in the cloud. Either way that has to be figured out. You need to hire drivers, protect yourself from liability etc. While all of the these pieces are doable they're non-trivial. Especially when you consider the number of people involved. And that's just collecting the data.

Now Apple has to process the data and make that available to the maps app. And there needs to be software written for the maps mobile apps. Perhaps desktop too. All that needs to be tested. This "presentation" side of the problem involves a bunch of people too.

So how long do you think it takes a company the size of Apple to accomplish all that? I'd set a lower bound of one year. So for 12 months Google maps still has street view over Apple and will probably improve it (especially if they know Apple is creating a competing product).

While money isn't an issue the amount of time, energy and other resources required to make a product as refined as Google street view is enormous. Can Apple do it? It probably comes down to leadership. Steve probably could have done it. I wonder if the current leadership can.

I noticed that too. Some of the issues can be fixed over time. But how is Apple going to match street view? Start their own fleet of cars driving around the city? I just tried street view (iOS 5) on iPhone and iPad and it's really awesome. So yeah claiming "the best mapping platform on any mobile platform" is BS.

Good point about the 10 day time frame. Perhaps that's when Google's app was submitted for review?

As an iOS developer I'm not too thrilled about this. However as a mobile developer I'm actually happy to see this. And I'm glad that Apple's review process is pissing off developers. And I'm glad that Apple took an awesome, frequently used app (Google maps) and just removed it. And I'm glad that the new devices' taller screens make developers' lives harder (at least in some cases). Why am I glad? Because all these screw ups provide incentives for developers and other companies to stay in the game and compete with Apple. So as mobile developers I believe it's in our best interests to have a diverse ecosystem that's not dominated by a single company or at the very least where there exist incentives for multiple organizations to compete and innovate.

Perhaps I did misinterpret. However the given reason for rejecting the app suggests there's something else going on behind the scenes. "Your app doesn't have enough native iOS functionality" is obviously BS when the app's primary navigation is a tableView, uses the accelerometer and in general is filled with native iOS functionality.

Maybe the app's use of Google maps was frowned upon because of some tense relationship between the two companies. So instead of rejecting the app for "using Google maps because we don't feel comfortable with that" the reviewer tried to find a crash. When they couldn't they gave me the hilarious BS reasons. Hence a pretense to reject the app could make the reviewer's life easier.

It's interesting to think about in terms of a rational profit-maximizing-response. Perhaps rejecting apps for silly reasons is Apple's way of trying to get rid of apps they deem crappy. This is only a problem when they label something crappy but users would enjoy quite a lot. But it might be a problem that's too small to care about when it comes to a rational response.

There's a difference between legit apps being rejected for silly reasons and spam, hate etc apps. You're right it's probably appropriate for Apple to draw some line when it comes to those apps. However my frustration comes from totally legitimate apps being rejected for non-sense reasons.

I don't expect the review process to be perfect. I'm just curious why Apple hasn't improved it beyond it's dismal state in the last four years.

I'm not sure if approving a bad app hurts Apple. If the app is truly awful customers can get a refund. Also the app store has some sort of collaborative filtering in place. Namely apps that are highly rated and/or downloaded a lot and/or some other reasons bubble up to the top. So apps that stink will just float to the bottom.

Is Google hurt when a bad webpage makes it into the search index? Not really. In general it just floats to the bottom.

I agree there's an over abundance of app developers. I wonder if the costs to Apple in terms of hosting all the free apps, paying reviewers, dealing with refunds and dealing with rejection appeals just isn't worth it?

However in a way the review process is broken for customers. Say I have a free app with 100 reviews and a 5-star average. The app has been downloaded on average 90 times per day for a year and the monthly average has been slowly growing (except for the initial release spike). Also the analytics show retention and daily usage going up. IMO it's safe to say that users like this app. Therefore users suffer when an update to the app is rejected or the app is pulled for superfluous reasons.

In my experience the appeal board are just as stupid as the reviewer cited in the post. It was like my app was evaluated by a random different reviewer.

Something is strange about the whole app review process. It's been problematic for years. Apple could fix it if they had the incentive. IMO they do have an incentive (more developers, more sales etc) but something else is preventing the process from improving. Lately it seems like the review process is becoming worse.

Perhaps it's company politics? The VP of whatever group is ultimately in charge of hiring reviewers, adjusting policies etc may be standing in the way. However given the explosion of the mobile ecosystem it seems unlikely that organizational politics would come first.

One side note: for my last app that was reviewed and rejected multiple times (once by the appeal board) it seemed like the reviewers were really trying hard to make the app crash. I log almost everything users do in the app. Since the only people with copies of the app were myself and Apple I could see the reviewer(s) activity. If you've tested iOS apps that use even basic tableViews populated with remote data you know that swiping vigorously, pushing and popping viewControllers quickly etc can wring out some funny corner cases. It seems like the reviewer was trying to find one as a pretense for rejecting the app when the real reason was something they didn't want to say. Apparently they didn't find anything and went with "app is just a re-packaged website without enough native iOS functionality" when the entire app uses native iOS features.

Honest question: why hasn't Apple fixed this fucking stupid review process?

They have the resources to pay cheap reviewers who are probably better than this guy. I'm sure college kids with no job prospects would jump to "work at Apple" even if it's making $10/hour reviewing apps.

Why not allow all apps into the store as long as they pass some security checks done by Apple (no downloading executables etc)?

The current review process is just encouraging developers to look at alternatives. Android for starters. I'm even spending time learning about Firefox OS. If Apple would stop rejecting totally legit apps for "having limited entertainment value" when my Mixpanel analytics say otherwise I (unfortunately) wouldn't give a shit about Android or any other mobile OS.

This brings back memories of Computer Club in 5th and 6th grade. It was after school a few times a week. Had lots of fun with Hypercard. One funny side effect: my programs were stored on the school computers so during recess on rainy days I would try to make as much progress as possible in 20 minutes.

You're right that close proximity to VC and tech scene is important for many people. I wonder if this will change going forward?

If a VC wants to a fund my company is the physical proximity of my office and their office really a deal maker/breaker? One of us can just fly to meet the other if the meeting has to be in person. I've actually never dealt first-hand with VCs so perhaps they require frequent in-person interaction.

Minor note: are there really that many bars in the US with Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig on tap? If so where are they. I'd like to live close-by.

I also fail to see the attraction of SF. It's foggy, cold, filthy, crowded and expensive. Sure there's perks like great food and awesome beers on tap that are hard to find elsewhere. But is it really worth it?

FWIW the IKEA Markus is really nice. I previously had an Aeron and if I had to choose today I'd go with the Markus.

I wish the iOS reviewers were this clear and concise. Their rejection information would be something like: Your book has been rejected because it doesn't comply with App Store Review guideline 123.a.2: Apps that are like something else on the internet will be rejected, apps that may contain other things from other people may be rejected, apps that provide limited value when they imply they provide substantial value may be rejected.

It's happening already. For example I'm totally opposed to taking on any substantial debt. The only debt I accept in my life is temporary 30-day credit card debt which is of course payed off in full every month.

I find the massive debt associated with "owning" a home to be ridiculous. It's like you're renting the home from the bank for 30 years. In exchange for paying rent every month you get to maintain the home and pay for repairs, potentially deal with idiotic HOAs, pay property tax which in some cases is equivalent to renting an apartment for a year and endure the burden of cleaning the giant thing.

I realize there are circumstances where the above downsides of "owning" a home are acceptable. For example when one has a family and/or the home is purchased very early in the housing price bubble cycle. However I'm already planning alternatives for my family.

I forgot about the lack of turn-by-turn driving instructions. It's strange but I've actually never had any desire to use that feature on any product. When I use maps I just look once, memorize the major pieces of the trip (freeways, exits etc) and then just go and try to find my way.

I've heard this too. However there's a huge difference between having a nice, working maps app on my phone and a promise from Google to make an iOS app. To be fair I'll have to try out the maps from Apple.

Google maps is possibly my favorite app that currently ships with iOS. I think I might give up email and texting on the device before I'd give up maps. I'm disappointed that Google maps isn't shipping with iOS 6.

It's been a year since I deleted all my photos, removed all friends, changed my name and iirc swapped in a throw-away email address on fb. Haven't missed it a bit. Was doing some fb integration for work and logged-in to test out a few things. Seeing the timeline layout for the first time made me miss facebook even less.

If this is the case then why didn't his phone go to the homescreen after turning on?

I think you're right that actually moving back to the 4 would seem sluggish at first. What I find interesting is how the small delta between the 4 and 4S doesn't make me question moving back too much. The larger delta between the 3G and 4S makes it really clear there's no way I'd move back to the 3G. So the deltas (for me at least) are shrinking with each release.

I wonder if the "app ecosystem" will move towards paid web services that people use on their mobile devices. I know the whole native vs web app debate has been done to death. Many games probably won't run in mobile browsers in the future. Would be interesting if apple's (and other companies') mis-management of their centralized app stores ultimately incentivized developers to move to the web as the "app store" to the extent that one could make a living.

One data point or trend that seems to support the above idea: The popularity of free apps that are monetized via in-app-purchase. Would be great if the future saw more free web apps monetized via app-in-purchase provided by Stripe or similar.

Perhaps it was charged when he got it. He's probably not turning it on too frequently since the only feature is showing the "connect to iTunes" prompt.

I like the design, color and texture on the back. Also I think the centered front-facing camera is elegant. However my excitement over new iPhone releases has been steadily declining.

The iPhone 3G was my first device. The difference between that and my crappy flip-phone was enormous. I basically ignored the 3GS because my 3G was fast enough. My anticipation for new iPhone models peaked with the release of the iPhone 4. The retina display and increased speed over the 3G was quite nice. But it wasn't the same as going from cheap phone to 3G.

I'm currently using a 4S. Honestly I can't tell the difference between this device and my 4 except for the home button that actually works every time it's pressed. I've never used siri for anything other than novelty questions. And the count of those is about ten in six months.