The company Apple, lauded and applauded for it’s innovative devices and software has hit some bumps in the road as of late. Continued controversy surrounding it’s methods for approving and (seemingly more often than not) denying apps from showing up in its iTunes Store has brought new decisions to light over the past several weeks. It seems that Apple can (and will) readily deny any app from showing up in the store for any reason. This could be something from not liking the look and feel of the application to rejecting it simply because it competes with an existing Apple-created app. This is the very definition of a company that has become involved in anti-competitive practices.
Yet, while I can’t necessarily comment on the legality of Apple’s operation, I will say this: every time I read an article about yet another app-rejection from the iTunes Store, it reminds me of a communist/fascist 2nd world government. Certainly it doesn’t align with the capitalistic system of business we strive for within the United States.
The Apple App store needs some drastic changes. I’m fine with them taking a cut of each app’s sales. They built a good infrastructure for app distribution and they deserve to profit from their efforts. I also believe that it’s okay for Apple to charge developers a fee for access to the SDK; however, I believe this should be a one-time fee. Not yearly as is the current policy. From there, they need to abolish the entire app-review process entirely (other than perhaps scanning for viruses or truly malicious code) and allow any developer to publish any app to the store, for any price, at any completion level they choose. They say they’re worried about half-baked and bad applications cluttering the store, but honestly this is probably not too much of a concern. Customers will indubitably continue to rate and review apps they purchase and download, so good apps will rise to the top and bad ones will sink to the bottom. This is the way a capitalistic system works! It is the customer satisfaction that makes or breaks the company or product. Not a 3rd party who has no idea how useful or useless a product may be to any given customer.
Take two apps rejected just this week: Google Voice and Riverturn VoiceCentral–the former rejected because it supposedly competes with AT&T’s mobile service and the latter not approved because it allegedly “duplicates existing iPhone functionality.” The funny thing is, four months ago, Apple approved Riverturn’s app along with several updates in the interim only to pull the app from it’s app store this week after rejecting the Google Voice app. Additionally, customers are requesting refunds for purchased copies of VoiceCentral since it’s no longer available. That sort of thing could break the company’s bank especially since RiverTurn would have to foot the entire bill whilst Apple keeps their 30% profit margin. I can see the contentedly smug expressions on their faces already.
Ultimately, developers will leave Apple’s fold in droves if the current conditions and policies continue in effect. They’ll abandon Apple for other more friendly developers. Can anyone say the Palm Pre? Or what about the Android Marketplace?
The consumers and developers will decide the fate of Apple’s App Store. But the way things are going now–it’s just a matter of time…