For the rejected developer, try again. Or on another OS, i.e. Microsoft’s App store (whenever they decide to open the doors) or even for the Android. gasp

A company can be both hated and loved. MS was hated by much of the industry, but MS absolutely drew plaudits from MSDN developers, and always has. As I stare at my dusty PowerComputing PowerTower Pro150 in the corner, I recall well the impact Apple’s licensing (or lack thereof) had — but I also recall getting any answer I needed on DirectX from Microsoft or its developer community, and a cold shoulder from Apple when I had similar questions developing for Classic MacOS. I also recall Microsoft asking us for feedback, and regularly updating their APIs and tools specifically in response to our answers. Guess which one I, and thousands like me, continued to develop for?

(Hint: check 15 years of USENET posts on how Macs could do anything Windows could do “except games” or “the only thing to still use Windows for is games” — then understand that Apple could have kept at least some presence, had they made any effort to respond to developers who really, really wanted to keep making cross-platform titles. Even as an unlicensed single source hardware provider, Apple could have remained competitive had they kept third party developers in the fold — but they chose not to, and paid the price.)

I am one of those developers eager to leave the iPhone. Every time I deal with Apple I get upset and their lack of communication is appalling. I wish they could be as “evil” as Microsoft. As the actual developers here have noted, Microsoft is wonderful to work with. Apple is the very worst company I have dealt with in my 15 years in the business, and it’s not even close.

As it stands now, I have an existing popular application with a minor update for OS3.0 compatibility that has been sitting in review for two and a half weeks. Tomorrow when people upgrade to 3.0 the application will cease to function for them and they will bomb the review score. Thanks, Apple.

On which planet? On planet Earth Apple withered as it would not license its OS for industry use. Simple as that. It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with providing support or any lack thereof. Microsoft flourished only because their OS was licensed and installed on all non Apple products. If you think Microsoft support in the 80s and 90s drew plaudits and industry cooperation, you are either very young and uninformed or have a very vivid imagination.

No, this is good old fashioned Apple evil.

Microsoft may be evil, but they have always treated Windows “developers, developers, developers” as their bestest buddies. Apple’s unwillingness or inability to provide support or cooperation in the same league as Microsoft killed Apple in the 80s/90s. The Mac had a technical lead at one point, but applications drive platforms. Better developer support == more developers == more and better apps for your platform. Microsoft saw this, and shifted that advantage completely to Windows, and the Mac withered as a result.

It boggles my mind that not only has Apple not learned this lesson from their own history, but that they have gone one worse, adding opaque app store processes to already poor levels of technical support. Sure, the iPhone seems unassailably on top now — but the Mac’s advantages seemed almost as great in 1985. Apple is creating a developer community eager to go to Android, or to WebOS, or even to WinMo, should any of them rise to “good enough” status. Eventually, some challenger will, and Apple had better wake up to their developers needs before then.

Just to give you an idea without having to do any of the legwork myself…

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/06/12/apples-latest-app-store-rejection-policy/

See Ramon Paster’s response.