Jason Snell: ‘Don’t Drive iPhone Developers Away, Apple’

Jason Snell goes deep with a comprehensive look at the App Store situation:

If you don’t want to sympathize with developers, let me rephrase it to describe how this will affect users: If developers are afraid to write programs for the iPhone that aren’t games, to-do lists, and tip calculators, for fear that all their hard work will be wasted by a malicious or capricious Apple rejection notice, they will stop writing programs for the platform. And the well of innovative, interesting iPhone software will dry up.

A must-read essay. Apple’s stewardship of the App Store, to date, can only be explained by malevolence or incompetence. Either way, they should change course.

★ Wednesday, 24 September 2008