I think its a good rule. Developers should take pride in their work and make their app reflect the quality of their product. Its sad that Apple has to enforce this (which should say something about the Dev's who have it done it's products.)
And what about any developers who develop exclusively for the older (pre4) platforms?
(They
do exist. Not every developer jumps on the must-upgrade bandwagon.)
This arbitrary change is basically Apple forcing developers to purchase more hardware.
It also puts the users at risk, since it imposes the possibility that a developer could opt-out of updating a fatal flaw or security hole in their app, just because they didn't/couldn't or didn't want to bend over backwards to satiate Apple's strong-handed need for new new shiny & new screen-shots.
I can understand that but what about the dev who say made the app a long time ago before the 4 came out or shortly after the 4 came out. All he had was say either a 3GS or iPod for testing and taking easy screen shots and much better screen shots than could be grab off the SDK.
All said dev wants to do is update some bugs in the app but lacks the tools to really do a full retake of the screen shots.
I think the rule is good for future apps but making it Apply to updates I think can be an issue as it can increase the work load on older apps just doing a basic patch.
Exactly!
If Apple wants screenshots to be standardized in
their store, they should take them themselves.
Apple has access to every app. They could easily automate it during the approval process.
At least Apple created screen-shots would be a more accurate third-party representation of the actual app (instead of the BS promotional "screen-shots" that are often used, that sometimes don't even reflect the actual functionality).