October 1, 2008

The iPhone's App Store--the simple, click/tap-to-install catalogue of add-on programs, available in both iTunes and on the iPhone and iPod touch--is one of that device's greatest advantages compared to other smartphones. But Apple's management of the App Store risks destroying the store's appeal among an important group of users: those who write iPhone software.

When Apple first announced the App Store, chief executive Steve Jobs described it as a marketplace that welcomes any third-party application that wasn't illegal, obscene or an outright bandwidth hog. But Apple's recent conduct suggests it's become a lot pickier about what it will consent to display in the Store, which happens to be the only easy way to add third-party software to an iPhone or iPod touch. The most high-profile casualty of Apple's newfound discrimination is a small program called Podcaster, which, as the name suggests, downloads podcasts over the air directly to the device. Apple rejected this application earlier this month, saying it "duplicates the functionality" of iTunes.

To compound the problem, some iPhone programmers have also begun reporting that Apple is trying to place its rejection letters under a non-disclosure agreement, a pushy move even given Apple's obsessive secrecy. (Whether this "NDA" gag order is for real is not settled; Mac developer and blogger John Gruber suggests it may not amount to anything in practice. The prospect of having their work rejected from the App Store--the equivalent of a death sentence in the iPhone software market--and then being ordered not to talk about it, has infuriated some of Apple's most creative developers.

Brent Simmons, developer of the NetNewsWire RSS reader, called this conduct "beneath Apple. Photo-software developer Fraser Speirs bluntly declared his own opposition in a blog post: I will never write another iPhone application for the App Store as currently constituted.