A key aspect of the ingenious iPhone platform is its software distribution channel, the App Store.
For iPhone developers to sell their app through Apple, it has to pass a cascade of quality control steps conducted by Apple for every single App Store submission.
Ever since the App Store was born, Apple has been blamed for this gatekeeper setup.
The discussion heated up lately with prominent developer Joe Hewitt, author of the very popular Facebook app, publicly announcing to stop programing for the iPhone platform. The story even ended up on TechCrunch front page.
Others had complained before and some even state that
“The way Apple runs the App Store has harmed their reputation with programmers more than anything else they’ve ever done.”
I largely disagree.
Besides writing for The Next Web I am CTO at GrandCentrix. We run a cloud platform for massively scaling smartphone services; at this moment quite naturally, the iPhone is the predominant client.
Earlier this week we unveiled a small piece of our location based affiliate platform, iMiles. Part of it is an iPhone application and our plan was to announce it during Germany’s iPhone Developer Conference.
Getting rejected.
Our entire conference planning was based on the availability of iMiles in the App Store. Well, what can go wrong will go wrong and the evening before the show Apple rejected iMiles for using a private API.
And they were right.
Though we carefully peer review our code, a single line slipped through and in deed, it’s been a call to a private method, something which is clearly not ok. The fix took us 10 seconds and we resubmitted the new version to Apple.
The problem is, that on resubmitting an update, you literally reset the review process back to zero. So, while 98% of iMiles’ journey into the App Store was done on our first submission, we were now thrown all the way back to the start.
Clearly, iMiles would be available earliest 20 days after the show.
What should we do? According to public opinion the App Store folks at Apple do not care about individual go-to-market planning and never respond anyway.
Surprise!
We were quite desperate and finally decided to chance it: Let’s contact Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller. Schiller reports directly into Steve Jobs and is largely seen as a potential candidate to become Apple’s next CEO. If he couldn’t help, nobody could.
Contacting the second guy in a company like Apple is not that easy, though. For obvious reasons I don’t disclose the details but through my LinkedIn network I eventually worked out a way and told Phil what happened.
Some 15 minutes later we received a direct response:
“[...] while we don’t ordinarily approve applications out of cycle, I went ahead and reviewed your app and approved it. Good luck in the store and with the conference.”
Half an hour later, iMiles hit the App Store.
Not only has this been the fastest review we’ve seen ever, but Apple also sent us best wishes for the conference. Nice!
(iTunes Connect screenshot, the web based tool to manage App Store content.)
Why we think the review process is not evil
The events surrounding the iMiles release made us think about all the negative stuff we’ve read about the review process lately.
In-transparency
A repeating accusation deals with the alleged in-transparency. However, we honestly don’t see much in-transparency. Apple recently introduced a more detailed status history (see screenshot above) which at any time lets you know the stage you’re in, all nicely timestamped.
Inconsistency
The rules iPhone devs got to obey are documented exhaustively and most of them clearly ensure a pleasant end user experience.
While there have been some prominent rejections that seem to be somewhat inconsistent, in light of 10,000 new submissions per week, it is fair to say it’s an absolute minority.
Gatekeepers are evil because, hmm, they are Gatekeepers
For whatever reason this seems to be the single most cited complaint with regards to Apple’s policies.
I’ve got to admin that I don’t understand the rational behind it. Let’s face it: The App Store is nothing else than a digital software retail store. And retailers deserve the right to decide what they put in their shelves and what not. I’d not expect Staples to let anybody sell whatever they want.
If you’re unhappy with Apple’s policies distribute your service via the Web or to a different platform.
If, however, you want to benefit from their fantastic marketing, Apple’s ability to craft the first mobile shopping experience that ever worked for the mainstream, you’ve got to allow them to play a vital role in quality control.
After all, this is business, not religion.
And: The overall poor quality of the Android Market and the extremely low value of many Android apps I’ve tried clearly proof what happens if the store owners simply don’t care.
Ignorance and Arrogance
Quite frequently the fact that Apple is pretty strict when it comes to enforcing its policies is misinterpreted as ignorance or arrogance.
No doubt: The way Apple communicates is somewhat “special”. But again: Every single aspect of how they handle their business is an important piece of the complete picture – and Apple’s outstanding success. While the rest of the industry struggles, they are proven right time and again.
In a recent interview Phil Schiller explained some of the difficulties Apple went through with respect to the review process and also outlined where he thinks the company has to learn and improve.
And hey, my company is a small startup trying to revolutionize how location based services monetize, and not a Fortune 500 enterprise. But here’s Apple’s possible next CEO approving our service to help us doing a great show.
Not all that ignorant, or?
To make a long story short: Blaming Apple for its review process has become pretty popular lately. Rejections are a rare exception and in no other market we would ask retailers to relinquish their right to decide what to sell. Google is praised for its pretended openness but astonishingly rarely criticized for it’s exhaustive hunger for personal data.
Apple’s execs respond. I’m not sure whether the same is true for Google’s Larry Page. (Know what? I’ll try next and let you know!)
Overall, one year and a half with the App Store have been a very well balanced experience for us in terms of “value for our money”.
I’d love to see more success stories as opposed to just reading about the next individual developer fleeing the platform while 800 new ones join each day.
> The overall poor quality of the Android
> Market [...]
What does ‘poor quality’ mean, exactly? Could you be more pointedly – and, in what appears to be a common trait among iPhone devs, self-aggrandizingly – vague?
Specifically, were you referring to Android’s native market app? If so, which iteration? Did you mean to target the web version? Or, perhaps you are referring to the apps therein? And, if the latter, then may we assume you are simply being charmingly redundant, viz the second half of your sentence…
> [...] and the extremely low value of many Android apps [...]
…merely to add phony weight to your perspective?
The moment I hit the “Publish” button I was pretty well prepared to get some heat from Android addicts.
My favorite quote about Android is available here: http://www.24100.net/2009/11/android-quote/.
I’ve used the Motorola Milestone (the EU version of the Droid) for a week and am surprised how not mainstream ready it is.
I know all the flaws of Linux for the Desktop that prevented it from getting any serious grip on consumer desktops but I expected that Google might have gotten it right for the mobile. (Which has not so much in common with the desktop pc model at all).
Question here: Why do people continue to pay for a desktop os when there has been a fantastic absolutely free alternative for years? It’s not ready for mainstream.
Android is neither. It’s a nice mobile OS for geeks and folks that want to use their phones as full blown mobile computing platforms, installing SSH daemons etc. but frankly, that’s a tiny minority of the global mobile market.
The majority wants phones that just work. Unfortunately, Android does not deliver at all and many of the Android Market apps are buggy, crappy pieces hacked together quickly and rushed out to the market.
I had Java runtime exceptions after one day of playing with various apps on the Milestone. I did not have any exception causing the iPhone to crash in the last two years.
That’s the difference.
Unfortunately this is no article about the AppStore, it’s a pure commercial for a (at least in my opinion) useless App, with a infunctional business model and for your conference.
The AppStore process is flawed and your special care by Phil even proves it. If developers have to contact senior people in a company in order to get something done that should be no problem, it’s a clear indicator that something is utterly wrong.
Apple just HAS to switch to a “Approve First and Reject later” model.
We are fine with downloading Apps for our Macs and PCs, so why shouldn’t we with our phones?
Android will get more and more traction and Google will definitely continue to pump money and manhours into the project, so Apple HAS to “open the gates” in order to keep the iPhone attractive.
While I do respect your personal opinion about iMiles I will not comment on it, as it has nothing to do with the key of the article.
The point you are missing is: Nothing went wrong. Apple rejected the app because it used private APIs which would potentially break with the next OS update.
In this case the review process did exactly what it has been designed for: It prevented thousands of users from downloading a software that contained a serious bug and forced us to fix it before we offer it in a trusted environment delivered by Apple.
The fact that asking Apple to bypass the queue and help us getting it out was purely for our benefit to help us with our go-to-market planning.
Apple proved to be extremely flexible, made sure that we fixed the code and put it into their store.
Nothing is flawed with this. The opposite is true: It’s a very common, proven business practice and it serves the majority of mainstream mobile users.
I’ve heard the argument that we are fine with downloading apps for our Macs and PCs over and over again. It’s ignoring a key aspect, though: Mobile phones or not mobile desktop PCs.
Smartphones never took off until Apple invented the iPhone platform. One reason for this is that all other vendors treated more capable phones as the equivalent for mobile desktops. Letting users install software from any arbitrary source without any quality assurance.
Those users more often than not found their phones rendered useless in a very short time. Something which is fine for the geek. Geeks love to restore firmwares, watch out for third-party stuff to add missing features etc. It’s just not what the mainstream mobile user wants.
The vast majority of mobile smartphone consumers want
a) A phone that simply works. Always.
b) A phone that simplifies using the mobile internet and helps them fulfill common tasks.
The iPhone is just perfect in addressing these two needs. Apple deliberately decided to prioritize reliability and quality control over letting users install what-ever-weird app. Of course it sounds way better if you claim to be entirely open. It’s a very popular theme these days.
Well, the iPhone has this part two: Web applications.
And once again, I’d doubt Google’s long term motivation in driving Android as a platform. My favorite quote is here: http://www.24100.net/2009/11/android-quote/.
First off you must of not have been looking to deep into the App Store to realize that the majority of the apps are crap.
And I am talking about the iPhone.
Also, when it takes a dude from the top to approve an app, that is ridiculous.
The iPhone experience I find to be subpar to that of Android and guess what… I don’t do rooting, hacking or anything at all really. I just use it and it works.
Your argument as well as your judgement on Android is seriously flawed and it is quite obvious you have not looked past the first level of iPhone apps in the app store. I can say this as well, considering I am an owner of a G1 and the latest ipod touch and I spend *hours* going through the app store looking for apps that will improve my experience.
As for your argument that Google is not criticized for obtaining personal data, you are wrong. Nearly every new product Google has and is written about nearly always brings up the fact of personal data and should we be worried.
You need to reevaluate, maybe not the argument that you approve of App Store’s policies, but your assumptions about Android.
nice article.
i think the biggest problem is not that they are a gatekeeper its just when they move the goal posts it makes it hard to plan ahead.
Are developers expected to beg corporate VPs to fast track critical releases? If that is not a glaring problem, I don’t know what is…
The fact that they had to contact a corporate VP highlights the biggest problem with the App Store review process. There is no official two-way communication channel between developers and Apple. In a normal partnership (yes, technically developers and Apple are partners as they both mutually benefit from the App Store sales), there is a two-way dialog and partners *work together* to succeed. Unfortunately, the relationship between Apple and developers is not a partnership at all.
The app submission process is essentially a one-way street: throw the app into a chute whose length can vary from 1 day to months and wait for the app to, hopefully, emerge at the other end. There is no way for developers to engage with the review team before or during the review process, there is no way to prioritize updates (e.g. critical, major, minor, etc.), in practice there is very little hope of getting responses to inquiries after a rejection, there is no way for developers to know up front whether an app is likely to be rejected, etc. In short, there is no dialog. There is no cooperation. It’s “throw the dice” and see what comes up. THAT is a major problem.
This comment was originally posted on App Rejections