In Praise of Apple's App Store

It seems that everyone loves to bash Apple's App Store. The latest salvo comes from Joe Hewitt who until recently was the developer behind Facebook's iPhone application. Hewitt announced yesterday that another engineer is taking over development of Facebook's iPhone application so he can move on to a new project. Later in the day, TechCrunch posted that they had contacted Hewitt to learn more about his decision and that he indicated his decision to move away from the iPhone platform "had everything to do with Apple's policies" and he is "philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process." All of this follows Hewitt's blog post in August calling for the complete elimination of this very same review process.

Needless to say the Twitterverse went crazy spreading the news that yet another high-profile developer is abandoning Apple's platform. To adapt a line from Casey at the Bat: There is no joy in iPhone Developerville!

But I have to disagree. Let me make it very clear that the App Store is far from perfect. The review process certainly has to be improved, preferably eliminated, or at the very least made more transparent to developers. Given the large number of applications in the App Store, it's still really hard for customers to find the application they really want. Furthermore, the "rate-it-when-you-hate-it" rating process still absolutely has to be fixed.

All of that being said, I'll go on to say something it seems you don't hear from iPhone developers nowadays:

I love the App Store.

Why? The App Store is a wonderful ecosystem for developers to get their creations in the hands of customers. Developers are completely isolated from the overhead of managing a software distribution system, serving updates and running an eCommerce site which requires doling out server fees, bandwidth fees, credit card fees. While I would rather see more than 70% of the proceds from the sales of my application go in to my pocket, I would not be developing applications for a living if it weren't for the App Store. With the App Store, I can get my own applications in the hands of customers and work with clients to do the same for their apps. It's truly wonderful.

And I know I'm not the only developer who feels this way, but that won't get the attention of the technology press. Neither will stories about developers who make it through the App Store review process without a problem (yes, there are some who do!). That's not news that will sell ad space.

But the good news about all this bad news is that the problems are hopefully getting Apple's attention. I'm waiting for Apple to address all of these problems, but, until they do, there are still many things to love about being a resident in iPhone Developerville.

Tags: iphone, app store