{"id":2716,"date":"2008-09-28T12:52:14","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T16:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=2716"},"modified":"2008-09-28T12:52:14","modified_gmt":"2008-09-28T16:52:14","slug":"iphone-just-sit-there-and-take-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2008\/09\/28\/iphone-just-sit-there-and-take-it\/","title":{"rendered":"iPhone: Just sit there and take it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Someone named Dan Kimerling, writing at TechCrunch, has some simple advice for developers who are upset about Apple&#8217;s opaque approval process for the iPhone app store: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techcrunch.com\/2008\/09\/27\/stop-complaining-about-apple-and-the-app-store\/\">Quit yer whining<\/a>, or as he puts it &#8220;don&#8217;t complain, just keep coding.&#8221; Dan &#8212; who, at least according to his LinkedIn profile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/4\/0A2\/3BA\">doesn&#8217;t appear<\/a> to have any development experience, either with the iPhone or any other device &#8212; argues that a) it&#8217;s Apple&#8217;s store, and therefore the company can do whatever it wants, and b) given the popularity of the iPhone, you have to develop for it whether you like it or not.<\/p>\n<p>Both of those statements are undoubtedly true, at least to a certain extent. Apple is well known for its attention to detail and its firm control over the design and use of its devices, software, platforms, etc., so it&#8217;s hardly surprising that it would take <a href=\"http:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/blog\/Webmonkey_Maps_iPhone_App_Developers__Frustration\">the same attitude<\/a> towards the app store. And there&#8217;s no question that it is the hot mobile platform at the moment, and so most developers &#8212; those who don&#8217;t decide to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.wired.com\/gadgets\/2008\/09\/apple-imposes-n.html\">quit Apple<\/a> and develop for the Google Phone &#8212; will <a href=\"http:\/\/furbo.org\/2008\/09\/24\/killing-our-enthusiasm\/\">grit their teeth<\/a> and develop apps for it regardless of how the company behaves. Fair enough, I suppose.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>That said, however, just because people <em>will<\/em> put up with that kind of behaviour for financial reasons doesn&#8217;t mean they <em>should<\/em>. Apple may be able to get away with approving or disapproving apps for the iPhone store without <a href=\"http:\/\/wilshipley.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/iphone-app-store-let-market-decide.html\">any real explanation<\/a> of the reasons behind those decisions, and it may be able to get developers to sign an NDA that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/135726\/2008\/09\/iphone_nda.html?t=213\">restricts them<\/a> from talking with other developers, but that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inessential.com\/?comments=1&amp;postid=3535\">doesn&#8217;t mean<\/a> it&#8217;s the right thing to do. And in the long run, that behaviour is likely to hurt both Apple and iPhone users. Isn&#8217;t that something we should be concerned about?<\/p>\n<p>Sure, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.wired.com\/gadgets\/2008\/09\/will-google-and.html\">all of<\/a> the developers who <a href=\"http:\/\/speirs.org\/2008\/09\/12\/app-store-im-out\/\">have said<\/a> they are walking away from Apple &#8212; or are <a href=\"http:\/\/stevenf.com\/archive\/on-the-app-store.php\">struggling to deal<\/a> with the restrictions and seemingly arbitrary decision-making on Apple&#8217;s part &#8212; could just be a bunch of whiners, along with those who say Apple&#8217;s store will become <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techcrunch.com\/2008\/09\/27\/stop-complaining-about-apple-and-the-app-store\/#comment-2484138\">just a collection<\/a> of games, tip calculators and goofy apps like flashlights or lighters. But they&#8217;re not the only ones raising a red flag: so <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.oreilly.com\/iphone\/2008\/09\/a-bridge-too-far.html\">are plenty<\/a> of respected <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2008\/09\/25\/engadget-cares-save-us-from-apples-groundbreaking-developer-s\/#comments\">tech-industry observers<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/135729\/2008\/09\/app_store_policies.html\">Apple supporters.<\/a> The only one who doesn&#8217;t seem prepared to admit that there&#8217;s a looming problem is Apple itself.<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone named Dan Kimerling, writing at TechCrunch, has some simple advice for developers who are upset about Apple&#8217;s opaque approval process for the iPhone app store: Quit yer whining, or as he puts it &#8220;don&#8217;t complain, just keep coding.&#8221; Dan &#8212; who, at least according to his LinkedIn profile, doesn&#8217;t appear to have any development &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2008\/09\/28\/iphone-just-sit-there-and-take-it\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;iPhone: Just sit there and take it&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}