Re: Re: Further development on Windows?

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009, Bert Latamore wrote:

# For third party developers one big problem with the iPhone (and to a 
# greater or lesser extent some of the other handheld platforms) is that 
# the manufacturer, in this case Apple, maintains total control over what 
# software can be sold for the platform. The only outlet is the iStore. A 
# few months ago Aplple pulled an application that was already being sold 
# through its store off the virtual shelves on the grounds that it 
# competed with something that Apple was developing. This was a real 
# eye-opener for third-party developers. It means that they can put months 
# of work into a product for the iPhone and then find access to the market 
# denied to them. CESD is very open that this was the deciding factor for 
# him in producing Pimlical for other platforms rather than the iPhone. He 
# is developing in Java, initially for Windows with the strategy of 
# porting to other platforms. I would recommend that Jeff seriously 
# consider a similar strategy if he decides to do a new
#  version of Shadow, btw. 

	More to Apple and their 'monopoly' of their own store. You can 
invest an enormous amount of development into an app, and they just decide 
not to pass it at all. Period. Bam, you're done.. a lot of risk up front. 
They can also muck around aribtrarily.. they're very busy, and a lot of 
apps coming in. They review each release as well .. I know of a few apps 
that got let through the gate with 1.0, and peopel found severe bugs. With 
a one day fix applied they were resubmitted.. but weeks and weeks of 
waiting for them to get cleared to go onto the store, meanwhile big 
support and reputation problems causing irreperable damage, due to the 
1.0. In some cases, the update might get rejected for artwork or who knows 
what, despite being the same as a previous biuld which was passed. Its 
just a bit of a mess these days..

	Another thing of course is the rule of 'no VMs', which means 
theres on one porting Java to it, and Apple hasn't really defined if 
they're going to bring Java to it. The VM rule has been broken several 
times and apparently is okay, but perhaps Apple just hasn't noticed or is 
giving the eye to it to see how it goes.

	Another thing .. if you develop an app using Apple SDK, and then 
they reject it fro mthe iStore .. you are supposedly not able to then try 
to sell it anywhere else. The contract to get into the Apple dev program 
is that you admit you can sell an app on the store, and not anywhere else 
_ever_, regardless if they skip you or not.

	A lot of devs have taken this sort of contract and just refused to 
pass step one (of many steps..) .. its roo risky to even go near it.

# I suspect that this situation explains the less than universal 
# participation by third-party developers in the iPhone platform.

	The larger issue is that theres a precedent of inexpensive 
applications.. $1-$4 or $5 i norm, with even $5 being considered 
'expensive'; a few $9.99 and more apps exist, but they're generally 
regarded as far overpriced.

	The assumption is that volume has to overcome that limitation, but 
it presents another risk. It certainly limits the 'scope' of an 
application up front.. you cannot risk an enormous investment in a fancy 
application, when you're risking all of these and more issues. Hence the 
prevalence of easy ports, or 'iFart' type apps. (And at the same time, the 
super casual super cheap apps are doing really well, which discourages the 
more serious heavy hitter apps. Its the same problem as Windows Mobile.. 
if MS bundles crappy office software in every device, theres almost no way 
to convince peopel to buy somethign that is very good.)

	Anyway, there is a lot going for the iStore as well -- with Palm 
OS, which was fully open, the chaos of every dev for himself meant the 
creation of the middleman, PalmGear, Handango, and others. Very few 
middlemen, meant they very much controlled the sales portals, and didn't 
really have to do a lot of work.. when we all started, PalmGear would eat 
say 15% of sales price as their own piece, which was reasonable. Nowadays, 
PG would be taking 50-65% or more sometimes, and its very difficult to 
track due to how they do it (VAT and all that.) Further, any 'fees' 
(random ones made up along the way usually) or 'sales' decided by the 
stores woudl be taken out of the dev piece.. so you have frontends, who 
discount massively from the dev portion, and yet also take random fees and 
sales out of the dev piece, and push all dev and support costs to the 
dev... it doesn't leave much. Apple instead is doing a lot of the work -- 
app installation and upgrading is all done via itunes, the portal is in 
one place for the usersw ot find and works on-device and off, and they 
take a flat 30% (currently, with no guarantee they will not raise it 
arbitrarily..)

	Apple on the one hand has made an excellent overall service, just 
with them holding all the cards.

	"Fun" is the term for mobile development :)

		jeff

--
If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.