Should Apple Really Be Determining What Is Useful?
from the steve-jobs:-the-decider dept
Ten years ago, if someone told you that they were going to create an encyclopedia that anyone could edit, at best, you would have decided the site would be of "limited utility." Five years ago, if someone told you that they were going to create a service to let people write 140 character updates, you would have decided the site would be of "limited utility." How about a site that will let you sleep on a strangers couch? The Internet has bred success stories because it allows inexpensive experimentation; in amongst the rickrolling and other dribble that fills the tubes are sometimes deceptively compelling ideas. These aren't ideas that come through corporate meetings or product development; they come from the edge. Yet, Apple continues to stifle innovation in their App Store by rejecting and removing applications. Now, the company is ejecting applications based on the rather vague rational of "limited utility." While I agree that the application in question has little use, this is a dangerous precedent that could easily have been used to ban Wikipedia, Twitter or CouchSurfing.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: app store, applications, iphone, useful
Companies: apple
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Silly Apple
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...Except that there was no
We saw what happened when things were open. At least six people bought IAmRich and a couple complained that they somehow didn't think it was real / they made a mistake. These were not children. They were all customers at least of legal age, who had credit cards, a spare thousand dollars, all the education the world could offer, and they still couldn't take care of themselves.
Is the argument being made that since there's money involved it's somehow not alright to filter content?
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except this straw man argument?
Some good apps will be refused/lost because of someone's evaluation that they are of limited use. They will still make it as programs for jailbroken Iphones, but last I checked non-jailbroken won't run things not from the app store too well. All it does, is make the phone more crappy, and harder to support a developer of a program you wish to buy.
Instead of supporting apple + developer you can only now donate to the developer or something. I'm all for cutting out crapple anyway, but still, this is an example of how things are missed.
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Quite a Monopoly
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until today (but not for long i guess) Iphone with apple store are still a unique product and Apple can afford to do what ever it pleases with them.
Although Apple has placed it self in some sort of a niche market and having a Iphone today is some sort of social status that might not work for long.
i think we will have to wait and see how the Android phones do and if the Google App. Market delivers on what it promises. Then again the 2 year contract Iphone users had to sign with there carriers might delay all that thats only if the Android phones do not work with ATT and other carriers (which is doubtful)
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Re:
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oblig star wars reference
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After much thought...
After finding my self spending hours playing useless games on my ipod touch, I have come to the conclusion that they are mind control devices.
Prepare your tin foil hats!
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It's their store...
Do you think Walmart would let you just put your widget on their shelf and say "Here's my contact info, send me my check when any of my stuff sells."
Would you do that if you were running a store?
If you want to sell an app for one of apple's systems there are other ways to do it. Set up a website of your own. If your app is successful let Apple come to you begging to have it in their store.
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Re: It's their store...
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Re: It's their store...
you have no idea what you are talking about.
unless an advanced user has cracked (or jailbroken) their iPhone they can only buy and use apps from the apple store. So this isn't like the real world where if a single store won't carry your product you just go to another or open you own stand. if the apple store won't carry your program then you could manually send it to a few friends, but there is no real way to set up a commercial site to make a profit from the majority of users.
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Re: It's their store...
There is only one place to sell iPhone apps.
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Re: It's their store...
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Don't like Apple? Buy Nokia
Every device has it's limitations - do you know that Sony approve ALL games for PSP? Do you know that there's order of magnitude more PSP's than iPhones?
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Re: It's their store...
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I agree that Apple's business philosophy is shortsighted....
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I had always wished that Palm would have strapped their PDA's onto a real harddrive (40Gig min, not that measly lifedrive offering). However, after this current re-affirmation of the Apple walled garden, I'm going to pick up a Palm TX after all. Not near as nice as an iPod Touch. And I would probably never want to install and use anything that Apple would ban, but I can install whatever "I" please onto it. Now affordable SD cards make up for storage space. And come to find out, you can stream radio over wifi on it too.
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You'll Have To Explain
I truely wonder how Apple is not getting brought up on charges by the DoJ for being anticompeditive. They are worse then MS when MS was brought up on charges.
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Since when....
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Re: Since when....
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Good for Apple and good for Apple's customers
The letter to "Pull My Finger" developers did suggest a perfectly valid alternative in Ad Hoc distribution. Perhaps by successfully reaching the limits of Ad Hoc distribution, these developers might re-submit having proved utility sufficient to attract 100 users via Ad Hoc distribution.
Personally, I think the video for "Pull My Finger" shows that it is pretty weak, and deserves to be sent to the minor leagues. Looks like the general app UI is decent (or at least familiar) but the meat of the application is weak. If they would add animation synched to the act of finger pulling, they could have vastly improved the user experience.
It is all interconnected folks: people make apps, apple has a store, other people buy apps. Let's try to think differently about how to efficiently make this the most delightful experience possible.
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monopoly
One cannot be a monopoly at less than 10% of the market. The simple fact is that Apple sells the iPhone, the App Store is THEIR App Store, so Apple gets to make the rules. They do so, as Steve has noted time after time, to prevent malware from getting into the system. If you can't load it without iTunes, and iTunes won't load it without approval from Apple, that sets a high bar for malware to cross.
I'm happy with a safe phone, thankyouverymuch.
Don't like it? Buy something from Samsung, or RIM! Then you don't have to agonize over it.
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Re: monopoly
No, Apple is NOT monopolistic. The iPhone is...south of 10% of the market. How is THAT monopolistic?...
"The simple fact is that Apple sells the iPhone, the App Store is THEIR App Store, so Apple gets to...prevent malware from getting into the system...I'm happy with a safe phone, thankyouverymuch. Don't like it? Buy something from Samsung, or RIM! Then you don't have to agonize over it."
Agree wholeheartedly, rwahrens. I started as a DOS user and became an Apple computer user. From years-ago DOS and such, I know just enough BASIC programming to understand how easily something can get destroyed by a novice. (Ever C:/delete *.* when you didn't want to?) Since Apple's products can't be fudged with, anyone who considers herself a developer and wants to 'take apart the toaster to see if it can be made to work better' shouldn't buy it unless they wanna just play. Apple's best market is who their products are designed for: the Novice (less than 50% of the market I'd imagine) who needs something they cannot easily destroy *because* of all the closed gateways. Strictly from a tech support view, the fewer non-approved apps on a system, the better chance it will (nearly) always perform well.
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Who do they think they are
Look at the flashlight program. Could you not just load a blank webpage in safari and get the exact same result, so doesn't that program qualify as 'limited utility'?
What about the iPhone light saber, that uses the accelerometer to make light saber sounds as you swing the iphone around like a ninny. Isn't that of 'limited utility'?
There are hundreds of games on the app store. I'm sure they are all very fun, but they are most definitely of limited "utility".
I just see 'limited utility' as an excuse to control competitive software on the iphone.
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