Vetting the App Store approval process
The App Store has been with us for a month now, and, by many measures, it's a roaring success. Apple told the Wall Street Journal that it averages around US$1 million a day in iPhone application sales, for a grand total of around $30 million in the App Store's first month of existence. (Apple keeps only 30 percent of that under its revenue-sharing agreement with app developers, but that's still a nice chunk of change.)
Shoppers have plenty of choices--the App Store launched with more than 500 programs and the number has only swelled since then. And, on a personal note, we find our phones are that much more useful than they were just a couple of months ago, bolstered by software that is generally well-written and offers more capabilities than most of what we got from hacked, third-party programs.
Still, that's not to say there that the App Store has achieved perfection in just 33 days of operation. There are plenty of areas for improvement, with the most pressing issues centering around the process in which iPhone applications win approval from Apple and wind up for sale at the App Store.
Back in March, when Apple announced the iPhone 2.0 software beta, the company gave a rough idea of how that approval process would work. Developers would write the programs, submit them to the App Store, and, once vetted by Apple, the apps would then be available to all iPhone and iPod touch users via either iTunes or on the device itself.
It seems fairly obvious why Apple would want to approve all programs released for the iPhone--not only would this give the company a say in the quality of the programs, but it also gives the company the ability to veto programs (such as a Skype client) that might upset its wireless partners. But there have been some notable hiccups with the process. Here are five issues that have gotten attention in recent weeks, along with our proposed solutions.
Issue One: What's happening?
NetShare, a tethering app from Nullriver, disappeared from the App Store. So did Box Office, a movie look-up program. The common denominator in these and other cases of disappearing iPhone apps? The developers say they have no idea why their programs were pulled. These iPhone software makers feel that Apple needs to communicate more clearly about why previously-approved apps are no longer up to snuff.
Our solution: The developers have a point. Apple could be doing a better job at explaining what the standards are for programs in the App Store--and why particular apps don't meet those standards. And there are signs the company may be starting: after dropping the knife-wielding Slasher diversion from the App Store, Apple apparently told the developer that his program was yanked because its content could be considered objectionable. It may not
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