The iPhone sucks for developers.

I keep seeing this mantra repeated again and again, with the latest attack coming in Dave Winer’s “zealotry sucks” article where he concludes:

“I thought about returning my Droid and decided to keep it. Because while it is a piece of shit phone, at least it’s good for developers, and Verizon knows what it’s doing with its phone network. It sucks less than the iPhone. But it still sucks.”

So, people are switching from the iPhone to make a stand against it’s mistreatment of developers (and because of AT&T, but that’s another topic), but the only current serious issue Apple developers face is the patriarchal application review process. Which, based on a set of seemingly arbitrarily applied rules, has caused a very, very small number of uncool rejections and otherwise operated at a somewhat startlingly impressive pace given the volume of apps and updates Apple’s been pushing.

In the meantime, developers are cutting back development on other mobile platforms due to lack of sales or not bothering at all because the development platform is a fractured, bloated nightmare.

So, I wonder, is the multiple millions of dollars of heretofore unseen revenue for Apple developers really eclipsed by Apple’s management of the application approval process? (You know, other than the bullshit exclusionary policy.)

2 Notes/ Hide

  1. markpavlidis reblogged this from smack416 and added:
    Aside from trying to compete with Apple on the platform it build (I’m not defending but it can be justified) with many...
  2. travelhighlights answered: Oh god, if never have to hear another thing from Dave Winer again, it would be a good year…
  3. smack416 posted this