Have you not understood a single post discussing the merits of Apple approving apps? The simple fact is that it is a good idea. Apple's execution is somewhat flawed and could certainly be improved.
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Facebook iPhone Application Developer Quits Over Apple's Review Process
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Have you not understood a single post discussing the merits of Apple approving apps? The simple fact is that it is a good idea. Apple's execution is somewhat flawed and could certainly be improved.
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Updated
Facebook just updated this afternoon. I wonder if Apple rush approved the update because of all this?
Facebook just updated this afternoon. I wonder if Apple rush approved the update because of all this?
It Didn't Have To Be This Way
It's a shame the scenario played out this way. Joe's Facebook app is brilliantly crafted, easily the best (imperfections and all).
But I'm disappointed that he's thrown his arms up and decided to give up. To me, this is akin to the weak willed who threaten to leave the US when a regime philosophically detestable to them come into power. So you'd rather run away with your tail between your legs than stick around and strong arm your commanders into a compromise?
Hewitt, if Facebook had the cojones to support him, could have been the spark in the room of dynamite Cocoa Touch developers needed to convey to Apple that their review process has got to dematerialize. Or, at the very least, turn the austerity knob down from "11". The Facebook app is high profile and an 800lb gorilla. That's leverage to be used.
But Hewitt has his own agenda, and Zuckerburg's too busy picking his toe cheese to care, apparently.
It's a shame the scenario played out this way. Joe's Facebook app is brilliantly crafted, easily the best (imperfections and all).
But I'm disappointed that he's thrown his arms up and decided to give up. To me, this is akin to the weak willed who threaten to leave the US when a regime philosophically detestable to them come into power. So you'd rather run away with your tail between your legs than stick around and strong arm your commanders into a compromise?
Hewitt, if Facebook had the cojones to support him, could have been the spark in the room of dynamite Cocoa Touch developers needed to convey to Apple that their review process has got to dematerialize. Or, at the very least, turn the austerity knob down from "11". The Facebook app is high profile and an 800lb gorilla. That's leverage to be used.
But Hewitt has his own agenda, and Zuckerburg's too busy picking his toe cheese to care, apparently.
I'll make this point again... How is what Apple is doing any different than what Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony do with approvals for applications on their devices? If anything, Apple should be commended for giving everyone access to the development environment at a significantly reduced cost. The reason for the approval process is clear: they want to do QA before the product is released because if something bad happens, every news organization will feature headlines about it for a week.
That's an absurd argument. Hewitt has written one of the most popular applications for an emerging consumer platform. You're going to discount his significance in this context because he doesn't write industrial applications for narrow markets? What's your criterion for becoming a relevant developer -- coding packet switching routines for an Avaya KSU? Please.
Furthermore, his age is irrelevant.
Your post smells of jealousy and indignant condescension. I'm sorry that you haven't attained the fame you dreamt of by writing a nuclear power plant management system in ADA. Try to get over yourself.
Consoles have never been regulated to this extent. Apple wants you to add a +17 to your app because it can access the web. Rogue Amoeba was told by Apple that they can't even use the likeness of Macs on their Airfoil app. It's hilarious because Apple already allows you to do this on OSX and provides you the ability to do so. Apple initially denied the NIN app because of language yet they sold the song in the store.
This has become so sickening and I hope Apple gets hurt by this. You can't keep running commercial of apps by third party devs and then treat them like garbage.
I no longer want to hear this excuse for bad press. Virtually every other platform now has an app store and have to deal with the same issue, yet they are far more open as a product.
what the hell are you talking about? there is a ton of software available for windows that doesn't need the approval of MS. no idea why you even bring up gaming systems like nintendo/sony. you basically make a very bad and idiotic point.
Microsoft does offer a way for anyone to make apps creators.xna.com. If I remember correctly your game get peer reviewed, and can be sold on the 360 for a small fee after passing peer review. There is also Kodu which allows pretty much anyone to code for Microsoft Platforms with an Alice like language (not saying it is the best thing in the world, but it is a easy start).
I don't recall massive outcry from the devs on those other platforms. Why do you think that is?
So he thinks he's a rockstar programmer and should act like one. I think it's just ridiculous. So in the end the application was given to someone else to continue and nothing changes. So is this 2 seconds taken from his fame or what?
The Apple Application review process is going to be the topic for turmoil now? So after Apple is beat down, who is next to rise and beat on then. It's all becoming really insane to me. It's nothing more than flavour of the month reporting and debating to be all.
that f_ing breaks their sh_t every other day.
Seriously, facebook is constantly screwing stuff up. I HATE that all my damn friends use it so I am FORCED to use it to communicate with them only because to most of them anymore facebook=internet.
facebook can't even get chronological order right...
Um, the same sort of NDA that Apple had in the beta phase of their developer's program?
Compare App Store to other mobile stores
Anyone complaining about Apple's app approval process has clearly not developed for other mobile devices for the US Carriers. Even with its faults, the App Store is a walk in the park compared to Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon.
1) All US carriers are very restrictive about what new apps and games they will carry. Even big companies like WB and Disney have had major apps and games turned down. The carrier decks have limited space.
2) The signing/DRM and uploading process for all carriers can be very arcane, with unclear procedures, long delays for hearing back about the status of content, etc.
3) US Carriers require an extensive amount of testing on all builds that they are going to sell. Most of the phones on Verizon, for example, require going through the BREW development process, which entails getting the game build for each handset tested by NSTL, at a cost of $700-1000 per build. Verizon does further testing after that, and neither BREW or Verizon offer a full test bed for network features.
4) European carriers don't do their own testing -- they simply don't guarantee that games and apps will work. As a result, there is a large amount of piracy for apps in the European market, and because devices often aren't tied to a specific carrier/carrier storefront, it's often easier to find the games you want on the pirate sites than it is to buy them.
5)US mobile carriers have very strict content guidelines for most mobile content, including ringtones and graphics. Each carrier has a different content management partner and infrastructure with different procedures.
6)If you plan to submit your game to a US mobile carrier, each carrier will have a list of phones you are required to support, usually about 40 of their better sellers. While this generally includes modern top-of-the-line phones, it also will include some really horrible 4 year old handsets with no features. This has been a big reason for the lack of innovation on the carriers -- it's hard to launch a great new location-aware app if you are required to run it on phones without a GPS, and you can't easily launch a 3D game, since only about 6 or 7 phones will run it, and the other required phones won't.
7)Apple's process puts the onus on the developer to properly test their app, with a minimum of testing on Apple's side. A full test from Apple would cost money, probably hundreds of dollars, and would pretty much eliminate the ability to offer 99 cent apps or free apps. The penalty you pay for insufficient testing is that it may take 3 weeks to get your bug fixes live on the store. Inconvenient, but poetic justice.
8) The Danger Sidekick app store was a real nightmare. Danger prides itself on the fact that nobody submitting an app can get it approved in less than 3 passes. Most of the reasons they turn down apps have to do with how underpowered and buggy the Danger hardware is. Furthermore, in order to sell anything on that store, you have to cut a deal with Danger as well as the carrier offering the device.
So, all said, the reason mobile developers are so excited about iPhone is that for all its faults, the App Store is a breath of fresh air compared to most carrier marketplaces. It's substantially less restrictive than phone carriers or any of the console manufacturers, the cost to get in is minimal, and the process is quite a bit more transparent.
While the process is not perfect, much of the problems people are having are probably attributable to the sheer volume of submissions every week. They are processing thousands of apps during every 40-hour week with a finite staff; the figure I've heard is that the average app gets 6 minutes of review time, which certainly would account for the few flubs they've made.
Considering the hoops Facebook has probably had to jump through for every other phone they support, Hewett just sounds like a whiner. And a web-based Facebook mobile client is even more of a hassle, take it from someone who had to ensure that a major entertainment company's mobile site worked properly on over 500 handsets. If facebook wants to be everywhere, they will pay a price, and the price on the App Store is pretty reasonable.
Anyone complaining about Apple's app approval process has clearly not developed for other mobile devices for the US Carriers. Even with its faults, the App Store is a walk in the park compared to Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon.
1) All US carriers are very restrictive about what new apps and games they will carry. Even big companies like WB and Disney have had major apps and games turned down. The carrier decks have limited space.
2) The signing/DRM and uploading process for all carriers can be very arcane, with unclear procedures, long delays for hearing back about the status of content, etc.
3) US Carriers require an extensive amount of testing on all builds that they are going to sell. Most of the phones on Verizon, for example, require going through the BREW development process, which entails getting the game build for each handset tested by NSTL, at a cost of $700-1000 per build. Verizon does further testing after that, and neither BREW or Verizon offer a full test bed for network features.
4) European carriers don't do their own testing -- they simply don't guarantee that games and apps will work. As a result, there is a large amount of piracy for apps in the European market, and because devices often aren't tied to a specific carrier/carrier storefront, it's often easier to find the games you want on the pirate sites than it is to buy them.
5)US mobile carriers have very strict content guidelines for most mobile content, including ringtones and graphics. Each carrier has a different content management partner and infrastructure with different procedures.
6)If you plan to submit your game to a US mobile carrier, each carrier will have a list of phones you are required to support, usually about 40 of their better sellers. While this generally includes modern top-of-the-line phones, it also will include some really horrible 4 year old handsets with no features. This has been a big reason for the lack of innovation on the carriers -- it's hard to launch a great new location-aware app if you are required to run it on phones without a GPS, and you can't easily launch a 3D game, since only about 6 or 7 phones will run it, and the other required phones won't.
7)Apple's process puts the onus on the developer to properly test their app, with a minimum of testing on Apple's side. A full test from Apple would cost money, probably hundreds of dollars, and would pretty much eliminate the ability to offer 99 cent apps or free apps. The penalty you pay for insufficient testing is that it may take 3 weeks to get your bug fixes live on the store. Inconvenient, but poetic justice.
8) The Danger Sidekick app store was a real nightmare. Danger prides itself on the fact that nobody submitting an app can get it approved in less than 3 passes. Most of the reasons they turn down apps have to do with how underpowered and buggy the Danger hardware is. Furthermore, in order to sell anything on that store, you have to cut a deal with Danger as well as the carrier offering the device.
So, all said, the reason mobile developers are so excited about iPhone is that for all its faults, the App Store is a breath of fresh air compared to most carrier marketplaces. It's substantially less restrictive than phone carriers or any of the console manufacturers, the cost to get in is minimal, and the process is quite a bit more transparent.
While the process is not perfect, much of the problems people are having are probably attributable to the sheer volume of submissions every week. They are processing thousands of apps during every 40-hour week with a finite staff; the figure I've heard is that the average app gets 6 minutes of review time, which certainly would account for the few flubs they've made.
Considering the hoops Facebook has probably had to jump through for every other phone they support, Hewett just sounds like a whiner. And a web-based Facebook mobile client is even more of a hassle, take it from someone who had to ensure that a major entertainment company's mobile site worked properly on over 500 handsets. If facebook wants to be everywhere, they will pay a price, and the price on the App Store is pretty reasonable.
Please compare the iPhone to other smart phones before you go your standard bashing crap and miss information.
I got all those point you made on how to get in to the Carriers apps store. Guess what the US carriers do not block you from downloading 3rd party apps from other location or even installing your own ring tones on the phone. Google offered its apps on multiple phones NOT threw the apps store.
On my old LG CU 400 AT&T labeled and locked I downloaded multiple apps from third parties. Yeah very few worked but that is not the point.
Also all the crap you listed other failing is it it compared iPhone to dumb phones which are VERY different ball parks. In the smart phone world guess what those phones have never had the restrictions you are trying to put on them.
People would not be so up in arms about the crap apple is doing for the apps store if people would install apps from places other than the App store. Then apple can be as hard as they want on what gets in THEIR app store since others can make there own or load them off there own site.
He should have strict bounds checking, rich exception handling before he submits his social app--I don't know how we'll survive without it.
For Nintendo back in the 80's, there was massive outcry. Not only did they gatekeep but they had a high licensing fee and capped the number of releases per year per developer. So yeah, devs were pissed. Atari even lied to the patent office just so they could reverse engineer the lockout chip (and got sued for it).
So if you don't recall, you probably weren't paying attention
There is a reason you don't use Apple private APIs in Cocoa. They are fluid and will break your application.
Public APIs are meant for mass consumption and have been through several levels of SQA.
You write your own private APIs for the functionality you want that is not current in Public APIs. You submit requests for your functionality to become part of the Public APIs if you feel it would save a lot of time in the future.
Using private APIs by the parent Company violates any basic common knowledge of OOA/OOD.
On reason might be because when was the last time a gaming console had 100K games for it?? I don't think any of them have. Could be wrong thou.
You have far more developers for the iPhone platform then you do for the games thus we hear about it more. I would also speculate that now that we live in an age of instant communication, we don't have to wait it to make the paper or trade magazine we are hearing about it much sooner and more often.
Hi,
According to me,Facebook application is very useful in the making of the i-phone application.It is very quit relevant to the i-phone application.
According to me,Facebook application is very useful in the making of the i-phone application.It is very quit relevant to the i-phone application.
That was posted by Joe Hewitt almost 5 months ago. Was it before or after he said he was no longer writing code for the facebook iphone app?
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=255247258033
Now-a-days there are lots of iPhone and iPod Touch game/apps on appstore.Maximum good quality apps are paid.But apple gives developers an opportunity to give promotional code to the gamers.
In this group iPhone apps developer will share their apps/games promo codes for the iPhone game lovers.
And the gamers/user should make a review or atleast give a good rating for the promoted apps/games.
Get the Promo code,Write a review and enjoy your Freedom!
The Promo Codes are only available to US, thus alienating other users from your comment.