If you had asked me at this time last year how I felt about the AppStore and developing for the iPhone platform I would have told you about what a great experience it is. Apple has developed a wonderful software development platform that makes it easy for developers to build great looking, functional applications. […]
Archive for the ‘AppStore’ Category
- Innocent Until Proven Guilty ✶
Joe Hewitt on why Apple should eliminate the AppStore review process:
The fact is this: Apple does not have the means to perform thorough quality assurance on any app. This is up to the developer. We have our own product managers and quality assurance testers, and we are liable to our users and the courts if we do anything evil or stupid.
I agree with most everything Joe says, but I am not as against the review process as a policy as he is. My problem with the process is the turnaround time. 14 days to publish any update to our users is ludicrous. Apple needs to ramp up the team behind the review process and cut that time down to 48-72 hours at most.
The extended review time is detrimental to users and developers as it prevents them from getting smaller point releases that may contain useful bug fixes because the lead time just isn’t worth it when a point release is nearby. I have a finalized copy of FitnessTrack 1.5 sitting on my desktop waiting to be submitted. I can’t submit it until Apple accepts 1.1.2 because I will be pushed to the back of the queue if I update the binary and because iTunes Connect does not allow you to modify the build number if you do reject and replace a binary.
By comparison, there was an issue in the Check Off 4.0 binary yesterday. I found it, resolved it and pushed the update to my users within 3 hours. That is how software updates in the Internet age are supposed to work.
Done Point Oh
Congratulations to Jamie Montgomerie for finally getting his beautiful book reader Eucalyptus finally accepted on the AppStore. The rejections from Apple based on searchable content were laughable at best and I’m glad to see that (once again) after a bit of bad PR, Apple relents on a bad practice.
Early reviews of the […]
Embrace the Constraints
It is impressive that in under a year Apple has built an ecosystem of software that is so popular that there has already been over a billion downloads. With thousands of application choices, it seems like every niche (no matter how miniscule) is being filled by someone.
Many people keep dozens of applications on their […]
AppStore: Stake your claim
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 […]
Hi. I'm Justin Williams and this is my weblog. I am the crew chief of Second Gear, a purveyor of fine Macintosh and iPhone software.
You can learn more about me or view my résumé
In addition to this site I am frequently posting thoughts on Twitter, photos on Flickr and everything else to Tumblr.
