Michael Arrington is absolutely, positively bang on in suggesting that developers will keep on making products for the iPhone even if Apple does silly things like arbitrarily deciding an application isn’t worthy of getting into the App Store, or rejects a service because it’s a competitive threat.
The iPhone platform is going to be too big, too popular and, potentially, too lucrative for a developer to dismiss because they’re pissed at Apple.
It would have been like a developer a decade ago turning away from Windows because they didn’t like Microsoft’s dominance. If you wanted to sell software, you had to develop for Windows if you wanted any chance of selling some software.
Arrington nails it when it says the iPhone ecosystem – 12 million devices and growing by about three million every month – is “too much of an opportunity to pass up. Developers will complain, but ultimately they’ll play by whatever rules Apple demands”.
More: Dave Winer kicks off the Techmeme Sunday iPhone-fest by suggesting the iPhone is an unreliable platform.
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5 Comments
LOL .. I just finished posting a piece on this and getting taken to task on FriendFeed because of it (http://www.winextra.com/2008/09/14/its-apples-playground-so-quit-the-grumbling/ )
People can’t seem to separate the physical device from the service. You can own the device but that doesn’t mean you own the service OR what is available on it – there are no inalienable rights here – just Apple’s
Life’s not always fair and you don’t always get the rules you want. Anyone who has been forced to stand in line outside a hot bar while the bouncer lets the beautiful people in knows exactly how this game works. Apple sets the rules; there are not always fair but if people want to play, they play by Apple’s rules.
When will a ‘cross platform mobile’ application market will be launched?
Obviously there are more windows mobile applications than any other mobile platform out there just seems strange nothing competing with the iPhone app store has been launched.
Seems like an obvious choice with
http://windows.MobileAppStore.net
or
http://android.MobileAppStore.net
or
http://iphone.MobileAppStore.net etc etc.
Cheers,
Dean
“Some developers demand Apple try to communicate better, lest they assume the worst of the platform vendor. While that sounds plenty reasonable at face value, given the curatorial demands on the fledgling state of the App Store platform and Apple’s overall reliance on product-plan secrecy, we shouldn’t realistically expect Apple to ‘open up’ anytime soon,” as I explain in:
Resolved: Apple is right to curate the App Store
http://counternotions.com/2008/09/15/app-store/
Huh, funny. When I was saying the same thing three months ago (and even before that), others were saying iPhone was “boring”:
http://mrblog.org/2008/07/18/why-iphone-is-not-boring/
As I said then: “this is about distribution and execution – Apple has the right capabilities to create this “perfect storm”. Unlike carriers, Apple knows how to build and manage software and services (can you say iTunes?). Unlike other device makers, Apple has their own distribution and marketing – they don’t need to rely on the carriers to market their device.”