14 DAY TRIAL // While the App Store has been enjoying a tremendous dose of popularity ever since its launch, some iPhone developers have become so frustrated with the service that they just can't keep quiet anymore.
First off, as Macworld's iPhone Central notes, the lack of communication from Apple is making it extremely difficult for iPhone devs to track the progress of their apps. Most of the disappointed developers, though, have one grievance in common: updates are made available incredibly slowly. Here's the deal.
When Apple introduced the App Store at its iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6, the company revealed to the ecstatic public that not only would developers be able to throw in their apps for free, or as paid downloads, but that they would also be able to issue bug fixes and various kinds of updates on a regular basis, enabling the user to simply tap on the new update and install. The problem with this service, however, is that Apple is seemingly taking way too long to send out the updates to some applications, while other app makers are getting their updates on devices just fine.
"We submitted an update a week ago, and it still isn't updated," said one iPhone developer. "Some apps seem to get updated quickly, so some type of favoritism is evident. I've seen one day, and then I've seen two weeks - no one knows why the disparity, either. I'm not happy with delays involved, and the seemingly arbitrary favoritism that's evident," he added. "It's either favoritism or just general chaos."
"It seems like Apple has its hand full here, as we've submitted a couple of updates for Where To? and Tipulator, but the initial 1.0 versions are still on the App Store," said John Casasanta, co-founder of tap tap tap. "The Tipulator update has been in the queue for about a week now, so hopefully it makes its way to the Store soon."
It is also possible that Apple isn't favoring anyone, and is simply having trouble keeping up with the flood of apps and the folks downloading them like crazy (after all, some 200 of them are free). Hence developers' claim that certain devices did not receive an update, while others did. Device issues are, of course, not excluded either.
Fraser Speirs, owner of Connected Flow (makers of the Exposure Flickr application for the iPhone), believes that delays like these can potentially affect customer support as well as sales, saying "I don't have a problem with updates being reviewed [by Apple prior to posting], but it has to go a lot faster. Given the no-demos rule, an app lives or dies by App Store reviews. It's incredibly frustrating to watch review after review complain about a bug that you fixed and 'shipped' two weeks ago," he said.
To top it all off, other developers have reported getting their apps rejected by Apple for featuring icons that weren't big enough or "confusingly worded messages." "It seems pretty haphazard and human-powered rather than automated," another disappointed developer said.
Do you think Apple is capable of drawing hundreds of iPhone developers in and accepting their $100 program subscription only to deceive them afterwards?