Comments on: iPhone Dev Program: 13% Acceptance, 99% Chaos?

By: Rene Ritchie

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:56:15 +0000

@Mr. X:

I think there's definitely something to that. It's like X-Mas finally arrives but some of the devs realize they're on the old calendar and have to wait a few more days to open their presents. Reasonable? Maybe. Emotional? They're human.

And people in on the beta sure will have an early start.

By: Mr. X

Mr. X — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:11:00 +0000

There's nothing "shocking" about this if you understand the purpose of a Beta Test program. It's not to give developers a head start over the competition. It is to provide Apple with the opportunity to test the software and the program before they roll it out to the world. To do that, they need a representative sample of developers from both large and small organizations. The number is restricted to the number of Beta testers Apple can support. They do not have infinite resources, despite what outsiders may think.

I can tell you for a fact that not all individual developers were accepted, let alone accepted within 24 hours. I certainly wasn't.

Kafasis's whining is simply unprofessional. Anyone who understands how Beta test programs work knows the program isn't broken.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:56:51 +0000

I think it is more a case of letting the worthy ones in and ignoring the rest. Look at WinMo with its near 20 thousand third party apps. How many are garbage? How many are duplicates of the same thing?

I would prefer 4 thousand good developers than I would 100 thousand hacks. Why do we need to choose between 45 To-Do apps? Why have 36 calendar apps?

Just my two cents, but I think this will be yet another thing the nay-sayers cling to with misinformed claws. I for one like the concept of being selective.

By: molo

molo — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:21:00 +0000

I hope apple dont come to regret this. Developers are finicky people, if you chase them away it is harder to get them back. “once bitten, twice shy.