Neil Mix

Joe Hewitt garnered some remarkable press (for a developer) today by going on record saying he quit developing Facebook for iPhone because of Apple’s App Store review process. I am unimpressed. (With the article, that is — not with Joe and his paparazzi. Damn Joe, how’d you get TC in your pocket?) And I’m qualified to weigh in on this topic because…I wrote Pandora Radio for iPhone? Weak, but I’ll take the podium now, thank you very much.

Now, I understand that dealing with app review is a pain. No one likes it, it’s an imperfect process, it’s often arbitrary, blatant mistakes are made, etc etc. While some prognosticate a review-free ecosystem that is far superior to the status quo, let’s remember that such predictions are speculative, because no such mobile app ecosystem exists.

Read that last sentence again, because there’s a subtle trap in there. See it? Here’s a hint: name the platforms for which indy developers were writing apps prior to the App Store’s existence.

The moral of the story: the only reason indy developers are writing mobile apps today is because Apple let them when no one else would. So yeah, that review process is awful. But compared to the alternatives, the iPhone was unbridled freedom. Despite this, from day one we’ve heard endless harping about the evil review process and how bad it is for Apple and customers. Call it The Developer’s Thank You. And yet 100k apps later I’m still awaiting the flood of developers leaving the iPhone for greener pastures, and the flood of customers leaving the iPhone for other devices. Well, OK, there’s Joe Hewitt and Mike Arrington.

Apple is all about taste. The App Store is too. And there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of working for people with exceptional taste: to those without taste, tasteful decisions seem arbitrary and capricious. If you think the App Store would be better without a review process, ask yourself which criteria you’re judging. Can you honestly claim that the iPhone would be more tasteful if there was no review process?

Apple serves its customers, not its developers. And given Apple’s success with the iPhone product, it’s pretty hard to argue that they’ve been somehow missing the point. Quite the opposite. It’s always amusing to watch people question the sanity of product decisions for an insanely successful product. Are you crazy? This thing went off like a rocket ship! It’s hard for me to point to any iPhone product decision as an abject failure. It’s not about developer convenience. To misquote James Carville: it’s the product, stupid.

There may come a day when Apple’s review process causes it to lose customers. And if/when that day comes, I’m sure we’ll see Apple change its ways. Until then, can we give it a rest with the whole App-Store-review-process-sucks meme? The horse is dead. Hell, the whole farm is dead. Clearly, Apple and its detractors do not see eye-to-eye. The review process is a fact for now, there are alternative platforms for those who object, so let’s move along.

(p.s. Lest anyone take this post as criticism of Joe’s decision, it is not. To be clear, Joe was very respectful in his comments and he did what he needed to do: he voted with his feet. When I talk about “whining,” it’s not the Joe Hewitts of the world that I’m referring to.)

Apple says: we haven’t rejected it. AT&T says: we had no say in it. Google says: [redacted].

What? Are you kidding me? This, my friends, is what the old folks call smoke and mirrors. Google needs to speak up quickly and explain that redaction.

Here’s the problem: let’s say, hypothetically, that the FCC takes action based on these letters. We the public wouldn’t know all pertinent facts that resulted in such action. We would have no way to critique their judgement. But it’s our FCC. We own it, we have a right to know.

This whole thing stinks, badly. Big companies fighting big games over consumer territory. That’s bad enough, but now one of the parties would have the federal government as leverage in their favor. And they want to do it behind a veil of secrecy. Not good.

The FCC needs to stay away and let this sort itself out in the marketplace. And Google needs to speak up.

UPDATE: Google has since un-redacted the missing pages. Props to them for doing the right thing.

I’ve been published! A while back I wrote a chapter for the Apress book iPhone Cool Projects, and it’s “on the shelves” NOW. The chapter is about, of course, streaming audio on the iPhone. It’s a pretty neat book that consists of a chapter each for seven notable iPhone apps. The authors are a wicked smart crew, I’m not really sure how I got included. Check out the book!

The authoring process was interesting and fun, a great learning process, and more work than I expected. Every day I gain more respect for people who do a lot of writing, blogging or booking. Where do they find the time? And how the heck do they generate well-structured prose so quickly? It ain’t easy, believe me.

Anyway, if you’ve bought the book already, thanks! And if you buy it in the future, thanks! Hope it’s a good read for you.

Last year’s WWDC was a pretty quiet but busy affair for me — I was learning as much as possible while also heads-down trying to get Pandora for iPhone ready in time for the App Store launch. This year I’m hoping to be a bit more sane, breathing between sessions and socializing here and there. Except for when I’m not busy going to and from Pandora HQ. And visiting coworkers and friends after work. Oh hell, this year’s WWDC is going to be *way* busier for me than last year.

Oh well. If you’re also in town for the event and want to hook up, drop me a line.

Some lackey recently wrote a quick post for Mobile Orchard discussing the combination of retain/release and protocol inheritance in Objective-C. If such things float your boat, check it out.