The problem with my self-imposed iPhone boycott is I’m not sure how I know when it ends.
It’s been just barely over a week, and so far so good. I’ve been trying out both Android and the Pre since that post. Neither are as good as the iPhone, but my world hasn’t ended just yet.
I said I wasn’t going to return to my iPhone “until there’s a resolution” with the various well-documented app store problems. But what does that actually mean? What set of criteria would constitute a “resolution” here?
Apple’s not the sort of company that’s going to have a press conference and say “Hey! We’ve been doing this app store thing all wrong. We’re going to do this and this and this from now on.” Never gonna happen.
So, I’m going to have to watch for more subtle cues. Because I am a huge nerd, I actually started writing a small list of “behaviors to watch out for that would change my mind”.
The Google Voice story was a lightning rod for app store process awareness in the media. The following day, 7/31, two new (to me) things were brought to my attention: a queue status widget on Apple’s iPhone developer news page, showing the average approval rate and wait time; and a new Apple email address for escalation of app store issues (like an urgent bug fix that may need to jump the queue).
These are both unquestionably good, positive things, I thought to myself, and was about to post to that effect, when Gruber’s article about Ninjawords appeared. Apple had gone up two rungs in my estimation and then immediately back down ten.
The next day brought Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board and the banning of Khalid Shaikh’s 900-app-strong copyright infringement money farm. You may be surprised to learn that I considered both of these things good news. Schmidt on Apple’s board has never made much sense to me when the two companies are seemingly in such obvious direct (and increasing!) competition.
And while it may seem hypocritical of me to support the perma-ban of Shaikh from the store while protesting the approval process in general, it’s hard to argue that what he was doing was, if not outright illegal, certainly a clear violation of the app store terms. It’s one thing to get a rejection for some fuzzy nonsense reason that nobody will explain to you, and it’s quite another when you’ve obviously and purposefully broken specific terms of a legal agreement almost a thousand times over.
On 8/6, we got to see Phil Schiller’s response to Gruber. This was especially noteworthy, not necessarily because of anything in particular he said, but because it was the first (to my knowledge) official response of any kind to backlash about an app rejection.
An “executive level response” was on my list of positive actions to watch for. Schiller gets a huge thumbs-up and thank you from me just for popping up and saying something, anything about the situation. Communication in both directions, not just a pig-pile of bloggers badmouthing Apple, is the key to sorting this whole thing out. That is absolutely the one thing that will make a difference in the long run.
So, it was good to see Schiller respond, especially his clarification that Apple did not request the developers remove any words from the dictionary. Although I’m still not sure I fully understand the reasoning that there are a certain set of “more vulgar” (to use Schiller’s own words) swears that are somehow worse than conventional swear words, which therefore requires Ninjawords to have a more restrictive age rating than other store-approved dictionaries. What’s odd is this also contradicts the developers’ own claims that the rejection letter they received cited only examples of conventional swear words as objectionable.
Anyway, this notion of some swear words being worse than others is precisely the sort of muddy decision that has many developers on edge. And Schiller’s letter did not seem to give the impression that there was anything he felt was hazy about that decision. Apple is absolutely within their rights to make judgement calls about what may be deemed “objectionable” before hosting it on their store, but developers have a right to know, to at least a reasonable extent, what to expect before they’ve written their first line of code if it’s going to be Apple’s way or the highway.
As a contrived example, there’s quite a distinction between an app that, say, begins hurling obscenity at you over the speaker as soon as you launch it, and a reference book that shows you only words you specifically asked to see. I doubt any reasonable person would expect the first app to not get rejected, or at least slapped with a 17+. But the second? That’s not so clear-cut.
So, I continue to wait and watch this drama unfold. Here are some of the other things I came up with on my list of actions that I would consider encouraging. This is not by any means my “list of demands” — just me brainstorming what I would consider positive reinforcement that things are improving for the iPhone ecosystem at large.
1) A public and detailed list of apps (or types of apps) that have been frequently rejected and why, so the developer can pre-determine where they’re likely to land. A more unlikely idea would be a tentative “pre-approval” process — you’d write in and say “I want to write a basketball game, but instead of basketballs, the players throw live chickens. Is that for sure going to get rejected?” and they might write back and say “No, but we suggest a 17+ rating when you submit.” Best to know these things before you’ve sunk two months or more into development. Again, unlikely.
2) A way to specify in more detail why an app is 17+. Rather than a one-size-fits-all warning, tell me what it is that I might object to. Bad language? Full frontal nudity? A controversial political opinion? Or is it just because the app has a WebView? This isn’t just good for developers, but it’s more useful to the parents and caretakers who actually have to make a decision about this.
3) Repeal or dramatically loosen the “duplicates existing functionality” rule. If Apple is going to take an anti-trust bullet, it’s going to be over this. There is no other way for me to view it than simply competition-stifling. It strikes me as way more dangerous to Apple than it is beneficial to them.
4) Go for at least 30 days without an app rejection that makes me want to beat my head against the wall after I read about it.
I don’t, for example, know where to begin with the rumor that Apple is broadly rejecting e-book readers on the grounds that they are “frequently used” to infringe copyright. There are so many ways to infringe copyright with an iPhone that you’ve just taken out of the box, I couldn’t begin to count them.
So, I’ll be here, monitoring the news and trying to gauge when it feels right to re-join the party. I hope it’s sooner rather than later, because scrolling on this Pre is laggy as hell and Cabel won’t stop giving me a hard time.
