Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, in an attempt to get to the bottom of the PodcasterGate’s latest controversy, namely Apple reportedly slapping “NDA” (Non-Disclosure Agreement) on the rejection notices and discussion there off, confidentially polled developers and came to the following conclusion:
My conclusion is that as [redacted] up as this entire situation is, both with the App Store rejections for “duplication of functionality” and NDA frustrations, it does not seem as though Apple has changed its policy regarding whether rejection notices are confidential.
Indeed, some Mac (but not iPhone) developers reported all their communications from Apple, going way back, bore non-disclosure language. This latest wrinkle does indeed appear to be inconsistent legal notices from different Apple developer reps, rather than any substantive change in response to PodcasterGate.
Still, resentment levels among iPhone developers are still soaring, and due to the NDA, the public displeasure ain’t nothing compared to what’s building internally.
Start alienating your developer base and there’s two ways to handle it: the right way, and the current Apple way. Delicious Monster’s Wil Shipley offers up what should be required reading for both Apple PR and App Store staff, on how to go about the right way: let the market decide. Apple, much to their discredit on this one, has chosen pretty much the exact opposite. Macrumors reports:
Apple has now started labeling their rejection letters with Non-Disclosure (NDA) warnings: THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE
That’s right. Apple’s answer to upset developers? Shut them up. It’s the business equivalent of not only Apple putting their heads in the sand, but yanking the developers heads down with them. iSigh.
And if developers choose to use (or abuse) the Ad Hoc distribution method to provision 100 specific licenses at a time as a way of circumventing the App Store? Well, Podcaster got away with it for a while (read: 13,000 whiles!) but TUAW now says Apple has turned off the spigot on that one as well. Podcaster: no more licenses for you!
NetNewsWire’s Brent Simmons says this behavior is beneath the Apple he knows and loves. John Gruber, by way of linking to Simmons’ article, says the situation is beginning to give him “the Fear”. We know how, and what, both of them feel.
Hey, Eddy Cue: Didn’t Apple put you in charge of the App Store? You did great on iTunes and are fixing the MobileMe. Can’t you put foot to trouser seat on this fiasco before it drives all the best developers (and customers!) to You Know Where?
Seems it wasn’t a hair that broke the blogerati’s back, it was an App. Or more precisely, it was Apple’s denial of the Podcaster App that let loose the floodgates of negative internet reaction. Or even more precisely, it is the continued lack of certainty among developers as to what can and will be denied by Apple, leading many to reconsider the return on investment of hours upon hours of coding with 11th hour rejection hanging perpetually over their heads, like a virtual Sword of Damocles.
According to Read Write Web, Podcaster will be turning to Ad Hoc to distribute their App for nowwhile everyone from Daring Fireball to Roughly Drafted cover (and in some cases, recover from) the various comments and implications flinging back and forth across the blogsphere, the New York Times has decided to escalate the attention level:
I can’t see how distributing the program will hurt Apple. If anything it will make the iPhone a tad more valuable. On the other hand, treating developers capriciously is most certainly going to discourage them from spending nights and weekends working on new and useful applications that may give more people reasons to buy an iPhone.
Sure, the App Store is growing twice as fast as iTunes Music (though starting from zero is an easy way to generate an opening curve), and may well hit a billion units moved by 2009, but with Android’s open marketplace on the horizon, and Microsoft me-too’ing their way in with Skymarket, there could be alternatives. If Apple doesn’t take a page from their MobileMe fiasco playbook and rapidly standardize and clarify the rules of the game, they could lose their early lead. And that could cost them the Mobile Internet Platform dominance they so currently crave.
Don’t get us wrong. It’s Apple’s platform and they, like a Nintendo with the Wii, have the absolute right to approve or deny anything developed for their platform. But developers have the same right to stop developing for a platform they don’t think serves their best interests. And consumers have the same right to stop buying it for the same reason. As with the Blacklist push-back, that will be the ultimate officiator of this debate.
And a terse one-line email from Steve may not fix things if Apple waits too long…
Podcaster.fm, a pod-catching App designed to help you stream podcasts via WiFi or cell data, should you find yourself away from iTunes and unable to sync, has been denied entry into Apple’s App Store — the exclusive venue for legitimate iPhone distribution:
Today I finally got a reply from Apple about the status of Podcaster.
Apple Rep says: Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.
The developer finds this odd in light of the multiple calculator, weather, and other duplicative apps already in the App Store, as well as the dedicated pod-catchers from Digg and Mobility Today.
Apple does deny iPod App access via the SDK (likely for industry demanded DRM reasons), but this is new — and uncomfortable — ground Apple’s treading, if the denial is indeed upheld. Daring Fireball links to Steven Frank’s nightmare scenario to try to put things into a grander perspective:
Apple makes code-signing mandatory for desktop Mac applications. You can now only buy them through iTunes. Think it can’t happen?
It could, but as with the great app blacklist debate, I think the repercussions from the community would be near-nuclear, and I think Apple knows that.
(Via Ars)
