Michal Ždanský Apple has been under media fire in recent weeks. This time, it's not about pseudo-lawsuits or bad conditions at Foxconn, but about the app approval process, which the company is still trying to keep as much under control as possible despite the huge number of new apps and updates coming to the approval process every day. With iOS 8, Apple has given developers completely new tools and freedom that they never dreamed of a year ago. Extensions in the form of widgets, the way applications communicate with each other or the ability to access other applications' files.
Such freedom, which until recently was the privilege of the Android operating system, was probably not Apple's own, and very soon the team responsible for approving applications began to trample on developers. The first victim was the Launcher application, which made it possible to dial contacts or launch applications with default parameters from the Notification Center. Another hyped one case se concerned functional calculators in the Notification Center of the PCalc application.
Written and unwritten rules
The last to know the flip side of the unwritten rules were the developers from Panic, who were forced to remove the function of sending files to iCloud Drive in the Transmit iOS application. "The best way I can explain why they didn't want the Launcher functionality to exist in iOS is that it didn't fit with their vision of how iOS devices should work," commented the Launcher author.
At the same time, none of the developers of the mentioned applications violated any of the rules that Apple issued for new extensions. In many cases, it offered a very broad interpretation or was quite vague. According to Apple, the reason for removing the PCalc calculator was the fact that it is not allowed to perform calculations in the widget. However, no such rule existed at the time the application was approved. Similarly, Apple's approval team argued in the case Stream iOS, where the app can reportedly only send files it creates to iCloud Drive.
In addition to the available rules, Apple has apparently created a set of unwritten ones that developers learn only when they have invested their time and resources in a given feature or extension, only to find out after a few days from submitting for approval that Apple does not like it for some reason and will not approve the update or application.
Fortunately, developers are not defenseless at such a moment. Thanks to the media coverage of these cases, Apple reversed some of its bad decisions and allowed calculators in the Notification Center again, and the ability to send arbitrary files to iCloud Drive returned to Transmit iOS (newly Transmit for iOS). However, these decisions based on unwritten rules and their cancellation a few weeks later show a disparity of thinking and vision for third-party apps, and perhaps an internal struggle among Apple executives.
Three headed leadership
The App Store does not fall under the competence of only one vice president of Apple, but perhaps as many as three. According to the blogger Ben Thompson the App Store is partly run by Craig Federighi from the software engineering side, partly by Eddy Cue who handles App Store promotion and curation, and finally Phil Schiller, who is said to be running the app approval team.
The reversal of the unpopular decision probably occurred after the intervention of one of them, after the whole problem began to be reported in the media. The most likely candidate is Phil Schiller, who otherwise runs Apple's marketing. Such a situation does not give Apple a good name in the eyes of the public. Unfortunately, not all developers saw the reversal of a bad decision.
In case of application Drafts there was such an absurd situation that Apple first ordered to cancel the functionality of the widget, which made it possible to launch the application with certain parameters, for example, with the contents of the clipboard. After removing it, it refused to approve the update, saying that the widget can do very little. It's like Apple can't decide what it really wants. What's even more absurd about the whole situation is that a few weeks earlier, Apple promoted the new Drafts app on the main page of the App Store. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
The whole situation surrounding the approval casts a bad shadow on Apple and especially hurts the entire ecosystem that the company is building so earnestly. While there is no danger that developers will start leaving the iOS platform, they would rather not invest their time and resources on useful features just to test whether they will pass through the web of unwritten rules of the App Store. The ecosystem will thus lose great things that will be available, for example, only on a competing platform, on which both users and ultimately Apple lose. "I expect the following to happen in the coming months: either these crazy rejections stop or stop altogether, or one of Apple's top executives loses his job," Ben Thompson opined.
If the company decided to loosen the belt to developers and allow things never seen before in iOS, it should also have the courage to face what developers come up with. The solution with unexpected restrictions acts as a weaker development equivalent of the Prague Spring. After all, who is Apple to force developers to follow the unwritten rules when it itself breaks the written ones? Applications are prohibited from sending notifications of a promotional nature, while exactly such notifications came from the App Storeú for the (RED) event. Although it was well-intentioned, it's still a direct violation of its own rules. Apparently some apps are more equal…
Well, what's been happening to Apple lately makes me want to scream... I can buy Android for a tenth of the price, I'll be the same qualitatively :-/
Definitely don't believe that. I used android for 4 years. Nexus tablets and galaxy S series phones. The processing of a tablet and phone for a tenth of the price of an Apple product absolutely corresponds to that price. Disgusting beyond disgusting. I've never had a tablet worse than the nexus. But okay, I understand that quality workmanship is not for everyone. But the problem is directly in android. Nexuses have pure Android and are reference devices. Even so, it does not run smoothly, the transition between screens also breaks, the settings are illogical, complex and something only works occasionally. Of course, the biggest weakness is applications. I haven't met an app on Android that didn't crash. And most games and apps crash multiple times a week. Backing up data natively is practically impossible, and everyday work with android is simply incredibly annoying. And it doesn't matter if it's a phone for 18 thousand or 2. Neither one runs smoothly. Android is usable only if you don't require reliability and the connection of different devices. If you only want a phone for calls, you don't have a tablet and you don't work with multimedia, then yes. Otherwise, no. So much for a cured androidist. :D
A lot of Android users here will answer that it's not true, that you can tweak the system... Unfortunately, a lot of them don't understand that not everyone wants to deal with it...
I would define it as more of a subjective feeling and that everyone is comfortable with something different. Android to some because… Apple to some because…
That's normal. When I registered my Apple ID as a developer, I was told that I was out of luck, because that Apple ID is registered as an iBooks publisher in the iBook Store, and that Developer and iBooks publisher cannot be on the same account. When I explained to them that I don't need iBooks publisher, let them remove it from my Apple ID, so it turned out that I had to create a new Apple ID anyway, which I would be able to use to develop applications... (The whole process lasted about 3 weeks with the fact that they even returned the amount paid to me so that I could later pay it again on a new Apple ID)
Apple has a great ecosystem, but although it swears that developers are the most important thing for it, its approach to them is so... strange. On the one hand, I understand that he does not want to have what he is building on (system stability) destroyed, but on the other hand, if he has problems with it, he should have introduced functionalities like Widgets only in iOS 9, when he has them debugged and functional. Only a fool could think that widgets will be used differently than the developers use them…
The "unwritten" rules regarding refunds when buying from the apple online store hurt them even more. After recent experience, I know that I will never order anything from the Czech Apple online store again in my life, because they are just fraudsters who also violate the laws of the Czech Republic!
Yes, that's right, you buy the app. It doesn't work. You type in Apple. No one answers. Money vp*****. In the last three years, I have cooked min. €20.