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All Articles Tagged phil schiller
Apple VP Phil Schiller Emails Steven Frank, No E-Book Rejection Policy, Working to Improve App Store
Mac developer and Panic luminary Steven Frank’s public break-up with the iPhone over Apple’s capricious App Store policy was one of the few so grounded in rationale and reason we couldn’t discount it, and neither could Apple’s Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller.
While Schiller previously responded to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber over concerns about the Ninjawords app, Schiller’s response to Steve Frank was different in kind, if similar in sentiment:
I haven’t sought Phil’s explicit permission to republish the letter, so I won’t do so here. But to summarize, he said: “we’re listening to your feedback”. Not all of my suggested solutions were viable, he said, but they were taking it all in as they continue to evolve the app store.
He went on to say that the rumors of widespread e-book app rejection I’d heard were false — that specifically one e-book app had been rejected because it facilitated iPhone-to-iPhone sharing of (potentially copyrighted) books. But that otherwise, there was no sweeping ban on e-book readers.
First, it’s interesting to see such high level and yet fairly intimate intervention by an Apple executive when it comes to the App Store. It’s not an open letter by Steve Jobs — it’s something subtler, and yet seemingly targeted to engender the type of good will that could give Apple the time and good faith they need to fix the App Store approval process if — and it’s a huge if — they truly take the time to fix it. And that’s the fulcrum of actions and results upon which Schiller’s intervention will ultimately succeed or fail.
Second, Steven Frank is now left to wonder whether to continue his boycott of the iPhone given the lack of those observable actions visible results, or to extend his hand back to Apple and give them that same second chance.
It will be interesting to see what happens next…
Daring Fireball received a response from Apple Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, regarding the App Store incident involving the Ninjawords iPhone dictionary app.
Gruber quotes “the salient parts” of the email in full, but the gist seems to be that, unlike other dictionaries approved for the App Store, Ninjawords drew from Wiktionary — an open internet source — and thus the App Store suggested they wait until iPhone 3.0 was released with parental controls before re-submitting it. Not knowing the release date of 3.0 and not wanting to wait, the Ninjawords developers went ahead and filtered it themselves, thus ending up with a filtered app that took long enough to approve it timed itself into the 17+ rating anyway.
However, other dictionaries with the same “objectionable content” haven’t been flagged as 17+, so the capricious nature of the App Store — the very thing developers fear most — remains. Check out the above link to Daring Fireball for more on that aspect.
For his part, Schiller closes his response as follows:
Apple’s goals remain aligned with customers and developers — to create an innovative applications platform on the iPhone and iPod touch and to assist many developers in making as much great software as possible for the iPhone App Store. While we may not always be perfect in our execution of that goal, our efforts are always made with the best intentions, and if we err we intend to learn and quickly improve.
On the heels Tim Cook’s comments about improvements needed to the App Store, if observable actions follow the sentiments, perhaps developers and users alike will begin to regain some faith in the approval process. Until then, it remains an unsightly blemish on Apple’s otherwise brilliant mobile platform.
(No word yet on whether Gruber asked him about Google Voice…)
As covered in the Apple Q2 2009 conference call, Apple Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer, repeated the company line that they “looked forward to [Steve Jobs'] return at the end of June”.
Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) — where in 2008 Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G to the world — takes place this year June 8-12, which is decidedly before the end of June, and thus the end of Jobs’ leave of absence.
Does that make it impossible for Steve Jobs to pull out a surprise appearance, iPhone the Third Generation in pocket? No… but it makes it unlikely.
That leaves Apple marketing honcho Phil Schiller, who handled Macworld 2009, or iPhone marketing head Greg “Joz” Joswiak, who handled part of the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Peek as the likely suspects, doesn’t it? (Perhaps with Scott Forstall again on the 3.0 software?)
Apple COO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Openheimer, and Marketing VP Phil Schiller gave an analyst briefing recently, according to Barron’s, which said, among other things:
- The trio was “most bullish about the iPhone business,” seeing a chance to gain share, with its software as the principal differentiator.
- In iPods, Apple is pushing the iTouch, which benefits from its ties to the App Store.
- Sacconaghi says the company does not appear to be pursuing his idea of an “iPhone Nano,” and that any new phones will likely include both a browser and ties to the App Store.
- Apple said “emphatically” that it did not believe in fixed keypads for phones, since the touch screen provided more flexibility for alternative keypads and for various App Store offerings, and that it is portable across geographies and languages, providing significant scale economics.
So there we have it, software is king, the nano is a no-no, and the hard keyboard just ain’t happening.
(Thanks to The Reptile for sending this in!)
