Ever since the iPhone SDK was announced back in March of 2008, the predominant term I have seen to describe AppStore and iPhone software development in general is the term gold rush. The prospects of building the next Trism or Classics has led these new age prospectors (the 08 and 09ers if you will) to stake their claim in every known software niche on the store.
The gold rush mentality of AppStore has always left me with an uncomfortable feeling because while I do have a desire to make money off my software project, it is by no means my primary goal. My primary goal has always been to have fun doing what I’m doing and to pursue interesting projects. The fact that I get paid for doing what I love without having to rely on a traditional employer is a bonus.
As the iPhone Gold Rush of 2008 settled, I decided to start working on my first iPhone application. It was a project I’ve had in my head for a while and had actually started to do a bit of work with on Mac OS X. As I worked on the desktop version I began to realize that the first requests I would get from customers out of the gate was the desire for an iPhone version, so I decided to pursue that first.
Fast forward 93 days and a few thousand dollars later and I have a 1.0 ready to ship to Apple for approval. I login to iTunes Connect, enter all of the relevant application name description information as required on the first page of the Manage Your Applications screen and press Continue. After a bit of churning I am greeted with:
The Application Name that you provided has already been used. Please provide a unique Application Name.
At this point I should let you know that throughout the development process I have done countless searches of AppStore, MacUpdate as well as the US Patent Trademark Office to see if there were any matches for the name I had chosen: there weren’t. Even as of this writing there is nothing that references any piece of software on any platform with the name I had chosen.
I contacted Apple to plead my case and after a silent 2.5 day period, they get back to me with a more friendly way of stating tough shit. I can’t say I was surprised given what I’ve seen as an interested bystander on the whole AppStore process.
What I’ve learned from this ordeal is that iTunes Connect allows you to partially register your application name at any time during the development process. As long as you enter the name and fill in all the relevant fields with any sort of data, you can stake your claim on any given name. The key is the “Upload binary later” field.
This in essence allows for the AppStore equivalent of domain squatting and hijacking.
If you are an iPhone or Mac developer with products in the pipeline, it would be in your best interest to partially complete the iTunes Connect application registration process as soon as you think of a name for your application, or just to stake the claim on your Mac OS X application titles.
It is possible that there is something out there submitting an application of the same exact name as mine at the exact same time as me, but that seems like quite the coincidence.
In the end, the name I had chosen for my application wasn’t the most clever or innovative title ever created, but it is frustrating that after over 3 months of referring to the project by the name that it has to be changed because someone is squatting on the name in iTunes Connect.
Stake your claim.
