Posts Tagged "apple"
App Store approval process = quality?
Over on the 37signals blog, David makes the argument that the App Store review process doesn’t actually serve to improve the overall quality of the apps posted to the store.
iPhone vs. Mac app quality
If you compare a typical Mac app with a typical iPhone app, you’d probably have to agree with David. I’ve experienced far more issues with some fairly popular iPhone applications than I have with popular and successful Mac applications, despite the lack of any sort of approval process.
David argues:
Only good stuff in the App Store: Ha! The App Store has some 140K+ applications. I can guarantee you that the bulk of that is less than average. There are some 100 fart apps for christ sake!
[...] In fact, lots of software has lower quality because of the App Store process. Developers can’t easily get bug fixes out and they certainly don’t release new versions as often as they otherwise would. This harks back to the era where software was really cumbersome to release on CDs, so you did it much less frequently.
His argument, as I’ve understood it, is basically: there are shitty apps on the App Store because updating an app is so cumbersome and slow, so developers can’t iterate as often.
I think that’s an oversimplification though. A large number of developers on the App Store are probably new to Objective-C programming and its pitfalls. The iPhone’s limitations also mean that apps are more severely affected by problems that wouldn’t affect a desktop app (memory issues for instance) – another reason that iPhone app quality is lower than Mac applications.
There are definitely other reasons as well, but I think those go a large way towards explaining why so many apps on the App Store are pretty mediocre, when compared with desktop Mac apps.
Newbie developer + extremely limited hardware resources = poor software quality.
If the App Store didn’t have the approval process, you’d still have a lot of crappy apps.
But what about “real developers”?
But let’s ignore the shitty apps on the App Store for a second; Does the approval process improve the quality of apps made by respectable, experienced software developers?
In my experience, it does.
On the Mac, built-in update mechanisms (such as the excellent, ubiquitous Sparkle framework), make it easy for a developer to push out a release and fix any issues almost instantly.
An iPhone app doesn’t have that luxury, precisely because of the delay caused by the approval process. Instead you’re stuck with 7-14 days of angry customers and lost sales due to poor reviews.
So “real developers”, with a reputation to protect, are forced to test and review their own apps more extensively before submitting them to Apple for approval.
In that sense the approval process is a blessing and a curse for consumers: it forces developers to test their apps more thoroughly, but it also means that if a bug does slip through the cracks, you’ll be forced to put up with it for quite some time.
So is the approval process a good idea?
Assuming the approval process forces developers to test more and therefore does improve the quality of apps – is it beneficial overall for consumers?
I’d still argue it’s not. Every piece of software has bugs. The approval process means developers spend a large amount of time hunting down the million and one things that could go wrong – time that might be better spent adding new features or polishing another area of the app.
And when an issue inevitably does crop up, the artificial delay means your paying customers will be stuck waiting 7-14 day for a (probably tiny) fix that a Mac developer could have pushed out in an hour or two.
I think one solution would be for Apple to insist on a very thorough review for initial releases, but then only quick reviews for updates and fixes.
Read MoreThoughts on Snow Leopard marketing
As predicted, 10.6 will be released August 28th, slightly earlier than promised. It certainly makes sense for Apple to release 10.6 before Microsoft Windows 7 marketing can hit: Rather than trying to compete with Microsoft for reviews and media attention, release early and hog all the attention for yourself.
However, the extremely short lead-up between announcement and release is a bit surprising: both the 10.4 and 10.5 releases had longer marketing build-ups, with big release countdown clocks dominating the Apple homepage.
But the slightly more subdued marketing plays into the way Apple has positioned 10.6 as an incremental release: If you stick a big countdown clock on your website, people are going to expect huge fantastic changes. But with so few visible changes to Snow Leopard, that’s clearly not the kind of message Apple is trying to send. At the same time, early reviews have been very favorable and at the unbeatable price of $29, it’s hard not to be far more impressed by the new “fine-tuned” version of OS X, than the marketing would lead you to believe.
I guess that the goal of this positioning and marketing strategy is mainly to allow Apple to under-promise and over-deliver – a great way to prepare for Windows 7 this fall.
At any rate, existing Mac owners have some great improvements to look forward to, potential first-time customers will be reminded which OS is the pundits’ favorite and developers get some under-the-hood improvements to play with. All-in-all it should be a very solid release for Apple.
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4 things Amazon’s Kindle 2 has learnt from the iPod
When Amazon first introduced the Kindle, many pundits were already comparing it to Apple’s introduction of the original iPod – predicting it would be a similar game changer for the book industry as Apple’s device was for the music industry. But the device’s design and marketing seemed slightly out of date for such a cutting edge device. Whilst very distinctive, it was hardly the kind of gorgeous design that gets heads turning.
Amazon’s marketing and redesign efforts for the introduction of the Kindle 2 have shown that Amazon has taken the criticism seriously and has made mimicking Apple’s success their new strategy:
Read MoreJetLinked: iPhone headphone mod
The original iPhone headphones are great in a lot of ways (sleek design, unobtrusive microphone and remote), but are a bit lackluster where it counts – sound quality. There are various 3rd party alternatives of course, but I’ve yet to see one with a mic / remote as nice as Apple’s original.
One iPhone user over at everythingicafe decided to take matters into his own hands and has modded his original headphones, replacing the earbuds with the in-ear buds from his Crossroad X3′s.
The result looks pretty nice and others have had success with this mod as well. (I’m not brave enough to try it with my Shure SE310′s though…)
Link to original everythingicafe post.
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Jobs’ Reasoning for Rejecting Political iPhone app
(This isn’t really a new story, but I didn’t see it get much coverage despite arguably being one of the more interesting iPhone app rejection stories – so I’m bringing it up now a week or two later)
“Freedomtime” is basically a countdown app that lets users track George W. Bush’s last days in office. It’s obviously designed to poke fun at the current US administration, but isn’t really overly offensive in my opinion.
The application was rejected by Apple, so the developer wrote Steve an email. Steve responded personally (in keeping with the semi-new communication strategy Apple has been making use of) with the following statement:
Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What’s the point?
Steve
It’s an interesting response for several reasons. First off he voluntarily reveals his personal political leanings. Whilst it’s hardly a secret that Jobs is a supporter of the democrats (Al Gore is on Apple’s board and public records of political donations are easy to find) you don’t often hear CEO’s admit it in public for PR reasons.
In fact, Jobs actually spells out those reasons: Personal political preferences are not often brought up out of fear of alienating customers. But “personal” is the key word here – if Steve is deciding not to let his own political leanings sway him into approving the app for political reasons, shouldn’t it follow that an app also shouldn’t be rejected for purely political reasons?
By Apple’s standards, it would seem this app is objectionable, whilst the Barack Obama campaign app isn’t. I’d agree with that assessment as I’d wager most people would. But where do you draw the line? Does this mean that political apps are okay, as long as they don’t poke fun? Who makes the distinction between objectionable and non-objectionable political content?
Removing Apps for business considerations (Netshare, Podcaster) is one thing, but I think Apple is really skating on thin ice by rejecting apps solely by their content – political or otherwise.
(Screenshot and quote from the developers blog)