it seems that Apple has started to listen to customer complaints and is taking measures to fix some concerns about the way it manages the app store.
Ever since Apple opened up the iTunes app store a few months ago, it has frequently found itself the target of critics who lambast its seemingly inconsistent policies when it comes to deciding which apps make it into the iTunes Store and which ones do not. Originally, Apple banned programs that it deemed to be of questionable utility (i.e iFart) and programs that were labeled as duplicating the functionality of Apple’s own programs (i.e Podcaster and a variety of other web browsers). To Apple’s credit, however, it eventually became more lenient and comfortable in its role as the ‘gatekeeper’, and it wasn’t long before programs such as ‘iFart’ and ‘Podcaster’ were eventually allowed in. Despite these positive moves by Apple, there are still a plethora of complaints regarding Apple’s extremely slow response time not only to developers who already have active apps in iTunes, but also to developers who are complaining of an extremely long wait between the time they submit an app and the time it goes ‘live’. Nevertheless, two recent stories this past week tend to suggest that Apple is in fact listening to customer complaints, and is taking measures to fix some concerns about the way it manages the app store. As I mentioned earlier, there are reports that the backlog of program applications for iTunes is so long that some developers have been left waiting without any word from Apple as to what’s going on, and without any sort of idea as to when their application will actually go ‘live.’ The typically long wait eventually prompted the developer of an “Amber Alert” application to pen an open letter to Steve Jobs where he urged Apple to push through the review process for his iPhone app. The “Amber Alert” application, as you might have guessed, is an application that was developed to help spread the word about missing children as quickly as possible. In the open letter, developer Jonathan Zdziarski wrote,
“The need to send this email represents everything that is wrong with your App Store review process. I’ve been working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to build an App Store application that revolutionizes how missing children are reported to law enforcement… Yet nearly a month has passed since my February 14th submission, and the application continues to sit “In Review”. NCMEC has adapted their infrastructure to handle these submissions and has a call center trained to respond to them, as well as their CIO, regional directors, and many others ready to devote time to making this application successful – yet this entire team continues to wait on Apple to approve this application.”
Well, just two days after the Zdiarski sent his letter to Apple, the “Amber Alert” application became available as a free download on iTunes. Two days ago, Apple rejected an update for the popular iPhone Twitter client “Tweetie” on account of the fact that one of the words in the “trending topics” at the time contained an offensive word. There’s clearly no way to rationalize the rejection of an application like Tweetie based upon what Twitter users happen to be writing about at the moment, and with that logic, Apple might as well have banned apps like Pandora as it might stream a song with offensive content. The rejection of the Tweetie update created quite a stir on the web on Tuesday, but late that same evening, the developer of Tweetie noted that Apple finally accepted his proposed update, offensive words be damned. Apple is still figuring out its way around the app store, and it’s unrealistic to expect it to never make any mistakes regarding what it lets in and what it lets out. What should be expected, however, is that Apple pay close attention to the developer community and that it acts reasonably quickly to fix any possible mistakes they might have made. Luckily, and if this week was any indication, Apple is on the right path towards fixing its historic routine of seemingly ignoring developer concerns. Like this post? Check out these others from iOnApple
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