App Store Control

And again the App Store evaluation process is under heavy attack. Fact and are really mixed and it is unclear what is real.

The first thing to know is how good or bad the situation is. There is no real analysis. And there is only anecdotal evidence of bad experiences. How many false negatives and false positives are there? And how bad/good does that look on 100.000 apps approved? How many apps do we miss that we really need? Or are all bases covered? Does the user really care or is it all just a philosophical discussion?

People are also watching at alternatives, but that road is quickly discounted.

The first question one has to answer is whether there needs to be an evaluation process at all. Why can’t it be as open as a standard computing platform, such as the Mac. Apple’s take on this is that a Telephone Platform is something different than a computing platform.

I have mixed feelings about this. I really want my phone to work in ALL circumstances. In fact I got rid of my Internet phone options as provided by several ISPs, to turn back to plain old telephony, in order to get better reliability. The same will hold for my phone, so no App should interfere with it. So not multiple apps running simultaneously either. Or make an exception for the phone app.

The same is true for the quality of the network. One wants that it works. And for the moment this might require restrictions on apps (think tethering) in order to reduce the load on the network. Most mobile operators have already enough trouble meeting this new demand.

The iPhone and iPod Touch seems to be used by any age group. I have seen kids walking around with an iPhone. Some would like to limit the access their kids have to some content. That is were rating systems can help. So if you have a rating for an app, then you can automaticly restrict access to those apps. Unfortunately someone has to rate the app then. And/or someone has to check the rates provided by the developers. This requires clear guidelines. Unfortunately this is a process which is subjective and will lead to false positives and false negatives. Another point where one can complain about.

And there is the trademark issue. Is Apple protecting itself here? Why do they need to check on this? Why is that differnet for this platform?

The false negative apps are the shaking baby app, the app that nicked phone numbers, etc.

And there are the false positives, where it is unclear why they are rejected. Airfoil Speakers is one of those.

And then there is the process itself. I see two subjects here.

Turn-around time - it seems that it can take a long time before a submitted app is approved. Although I have not seen any good statistics on this. And with 10.000 apps per week submitted, it is inevitable that some apps take longer time to be evaluated. Statistics at work here. You might complain and Apple might throw more people at the process, but your are still talking a Poisson process here. It would be nice however if Apple showed some statistics though. And developers just need to take these turn around times into account.

However Apple should create a separate process for handling bug fixes. This would guarantee some quality level of apps already in the store.

Communication - there seems to be a lack of good communication once an app is rejected. Why is an app rejected? What can a developer do? And again how bad or good is it in reality. Do we see only anecdotal evidence? Are some developers treated differently? One can image that Apple automates the work for cheap apps or less well known developers in order to reduce costs. Maybe they should create a paid program for developers who want better respons.

So for the time being only the road through the appstore is an option. And I discount the jailbroken road, as this has its own problems.

In the end it is all about quality for the end-user. And Apple does quarantee some extra level of guarantee in this way. And I highly appreciate this quality.

PS All links are just gathered from my morning fedd update.

 

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