When Apple unveiled the iPhone SDK, they announced that developers need to be accepted into their iPhone developer program in order to release software for the device. Prior to acceptance, software can't be tested on the iPhone itself, nor can it be sold through the forthcoming App Store. So on the very first day possible, I submitted our application in Rogue Amoeba's name and provided all the relevant details, then sat back to wait.
A little over a week after the SDK was introduced, Apple sent out an email that many read as a rejection letter. This letter actually said little more than "Hang on, we're still working on our system", but it was quite poorly worded and led to much confusion at the time. Eventually however, developers began to be accepted, two weeks after the iPhone developer program was officially launched.
We heard nothing from Apple at that time, so we continued to wait and work within the iPhone Simulator. However, while the Simulator is nice, it's no substitute for working on the actual device. In some cases, the Simulator does more than the actual phone and in others, it fails to do things that the phone does. There's no promise that a program will work identically on both the Simulator and the device itself, meaning it's crucial to test on the actual hardware.
After a month of waiting, with no contact from Apple save form letters that went out to all developers, we'd grown quite frustrated. We don't know if we should invest our time in a platform for which we may not even be allowed to release software. Finally on April 8th, one of our developers decided to apply to the program as an individual, to see what would happen. Shockingly, in under 24 hours he had a certificate which enabled him to work on actual hardware.
So what's going on here? This experience is not uncommon, as we've talked to a number of other respected Mac software companies who've experienced long waits or have not yet been accepted to the developer program at all. It seems as though Apple's program has two paths, one for individuals and one for companies, with the company track being processed much more slowly. As the program affords the developer nothing but the ability to work on the actual iPhone hardware, however, having two tracks seems pointless. There is no promise that your application will be sold in the iTunes Store, nor of anything else. So why service a tiny individual developer faster than some of the biggest names in Mac development?
Ultimately, the problem here is with communications, or lack thereof, from Apple. When Apple first announced the SDK, thousands of developers rushed to apply for the development program, a flood for which Apple may not have been prepared. However, since then, Apple has bungled the processing these requests. Confusing emails and a lack of useful correspondence have left us waiting to hear the status of our application for a full three months and counting. Will we eventually be accepted to the program, or will we ultimately be rejected, and barred from providing software for the platform at all? At the moment, we simply have no way of knowing.
This is an interesting story. So, then, what approach will Rogue Amoeba take? Will you have to work through that individual developer's account? Possibly will more of you sign up as individuals?
that's a dang shame. I didn't realize this was as common as the stories here and there, a real problem.
What gets me is how late Apple was in getting their ducks in a row for this year. They could've given us an SDK last summer, as we all know, because the framework was already in place (minus the security)
I'm still optimistic that Apple will get everyone involved (they still want your money) developing for their platform. The beta program seems like a bad joke, in all honesty. I would wager that Apple is still 'on-track' with their original plans for the device, despite some best efforts from the open-toolchain community and the jailbreaking experiments.
Thanks for the informative post on this historic day.
Derrick: For now, we're doing our development through that individual account, yes. However, while that allows us to test, selling through it would be problematic, if not impossible. So beyond that, we're waiting for full approval, perhaps shortly after today.
Optimo: I don't necessarily fault Apple for not providing an SDK last year. I certainly did dislike their choices to 1) Not be forthright (they could have said something like "Hey, we want third party apps, but we need more time") and 2) Attempt to pass off web-apps as a real solution.
I'm optimistic that this will work out too, but thus far, it's been a frustrating experience, from a developer perspective.
This is a reminder that the iPhone is all about Apple, not about developers. iPhone developers exist to serve Apple in its goal to please people and therefore sell more iPhones.
The iPhone is not a computer, because if it was, we wouldn't be treated like little children and required to sign all the applications that run on it. Mere mortal developers who have not been vetted obviously can't be trusted with managing the delicate resource that is cellular internet bandwidth.
Pay no attention to the fact that the iPod Touch has all of the limitations on development that the iPhone has, but none of the excuses for the limitations on it hold any water compared to the iPhone...
The system is stupid from the get-go. Your discovery of this should come as no surprise. It's unfortunate that the development environment isn't as progressive as the iPhone itself.
I signed up on the first day it was available as an individual developer and still have not been accepted. Its become very frustrating for me.
I didn't hear any specific annoucement about the situation today either, although I missed most of the keynote.
My experience was odd, although in the end I got in (under my company name).
On day one I wanted to sign up, but I had a question first and sent it by email. Apple took two weeks to reply. Then there was all the talk of rejections, so I did nothing. Mid-April I finally signed up. A week or so later I got an email asking me to fax my incorporation papers to Apple, to prove I was actually a company. I emailed them a scan, and asked if that was ok (fax? What's a fax?). They didn't reply. Eventually I emailed again. Didn't get a reply, but then got an email that my application had been approved and I should go and pay. So I did. Then I was sent an activation link, which didn't seem to actually perform the activation, but I did what they said and just I just waited.
Last Monday I got an unprompted phone call from Apple. They apparently noticed I'd paid, but hadn't activated. I suspect they had others in this boat, and my impression was they wanted to get as many people/companies signed up as possible before WWDC (maybe to reach the 4000 goal?). They had me click the same link from the earlier email and this time it clearly worked. Within an hour or so I had my certificate. It's definitely under my company name (per the provisioning profiles).
They chose an exceedingly complex system, and obviously didn't implement it well. If you're at WWDC I suggest asking the question at an iPhone development session, and I suspect they'll be embarrassed into clearing it up right quick.
Someone made the comment on how this security shouldn't be necessary for the iPod Touch. Good point. They should at least allow personal development for that without the certificate.
Michael: While I might not put things as acridly as you have, I'd have to say I agree with much of what you've said. Unfortunately, Apple is looking to maintain far more control on the iPhone than they ever have with the Mac OS. While most users won't notice the difference, as a developer, it's certainly less appealing because of this.
Ed: As far as I've seen, no new announcements have been made, but clearly Apple realizes not everyone is in. They announced that 25,000 had applied and 4,000 had been admitted into the "beta program" (whatever that really means). So, we're in the majority, with 84% of the applicants who've yet to be approved. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks.
Mitch: Glad to hear you eventually got in. I can't imagine they had a goal of 4000 though - that'd be easy to hit. Anyhow, as far as bugging people at WWDC, the biggest problem is that it's not clear who's in charge of this system. But we'll see what happens.
Excellent post. I have been developing iPhone apps full time since the SDK was announced and applied for the developer program on day 1. However, it is now less than 1 month until the App Store opens and I wonder if I have wasted all this time developing apps that I won't be able to market. I am beginning to think I should cut my losses and switch to the Android platform. Very frustrating.
Wow. I didn't know that it was this bad. I am an individual programmer and I haven't applied yet, but this makes me worry about even applying. I am hoping that once they actually open the store, they will let it be much easier then it is now.
that's so sad. we've got 2 apps - ready for start. but no one of our team (neither our company) was accepted for the beta - looks like we'll be watching the other guys making money when the app store goes live.
if that is going to happen, we'll kick the iphone and solely focus on android.
@Kirk: the Android platform? You mean the vaporware "paper platform" without a single shipping piece of hardware?
I'm sure that will be much more financially rewarding for you.
Just a thought, Paul... do you think Apple is screening developers for the type of apps they might bring to the platform? Since your products would have something to do with recording audio, maybe they are dragging their feet because there are contractual issues with AT&T about saving voicemail recordings off of the network? Long shot, but you never know? Of course, I realize that the other 84% of developers yet to be accepted are unlikely to all be writing audio software, so maybe I'm way off-base.
Apple's QA is broken across the company. That's a really hugely broad statement for me to make, but Paul, your examples show that there's a lack of attention to process that I'm finding replicated everywhere. It's either because of meeting delivery dates, overwork, or a change in their quality procedures. It's not going well.
* Leopard. 10.5.0 wasn't unusable, but it wasn't ready. Apple should have waited three or more months to ship a mature and stable OS. Instead, they shipped .0, and then it wasn't until .2 that things got good, and .3 (which was unbelievably huge) that things got better for a lot of edge cases.
* Time Capsule. I had a unit as soon as they came out for review. It was full of problems. Three weeks later, a massive Leopard, Time Machine, Time Capsule, and AirPort Extreme Base Station update came out that fixed most of those problems. Did it ship 3 weeks too early? Yes.
And so on. It just seems like they're underwater over there.
These stories match my experience and that of other developers I've talked to.
I applied as a company and haven't been accepted, but know a few individual developers who got in right away.
Of course, the alternative viewpoint is that Apple is giving individual developers equal opportunity to partake in the beta programme without corporation eating up all the slots available....
The program is still beta, and the point of holding a limited beta is that the volume of feedback can be throttled to manageable levels. I'm sure that things will open up soon enough. Patience, patience.
Maybe you're a special case. I could see Apple being afraid of what their iTunes partners might think of the Audio Hijack people being sanctioned iPhone developers.
I would fight to the pain to defend my claim of being the biggest Audio Hijack fan, BTW. And I say that as a musician who makes money from my music.
Kirk, Leon: Android is certainly appealing from a development perspective. As far as a business perspective though, only time will tell.
Hailey: I think you'll be fine - it seems likely that they'll open this more widely shortly. However, for those of us running business, we need to have some assurance that we'll eventually get in, that we're not wasting our time. Sadly, we don't have that right now.
Matt Killmon: Well, not being able to ship software for the iPhone because Apple won't let you in vs. not being able to ship for Android because it doesn't exist yet works out to a wash in the present tense anyway 8).
iPhone User: It's possible, but the application itself contains no questions on what developers plan to make. Heck, we have no interest in making an audio recorder for the device - our first product is a radio player, and AOL Radio will clearly beat us to market (and have an ADA behind it already).
For that matter, if that is the case, it seems like yet another argument for why Apple shouldn't be the gatekeeper for all software on the iPhone.
Glenn: Tough words. Tough, but fair.
Growing pains are inevitable, I suppose, but in this particular case, Apple is hurting other businesses (including, admittedly, our own) with their actions. They decided to be the gatekeepers here, and they don't seem to be up to the task.
Geoffrey Grosenbach: I actually spoke to an individual developer recently who had applied on day one, but was only accepted in the past week or two. So the process just really seems to be completely random.
Andy: I'm not sure how that's the case - it's not (by all appearances) that Apple is allowing the same number of individuals as companies in (and even if they were, would that make sense?). Their system seems to be a complete mystery - it's not first come, first serve, it's not companies first, it's not individuals first.
As far as "patience, patience", that's all well and good, but this system is messing with our business and our ability to plan. As I noted, will we ever be approved? We have no way of knowing - sure, we probably will be. But if it's 1 month, 6 months, a year from now, how much time will we have wasted, and lost, by getting to market so late? If this was a hobby project, sure, "patience" might be fine, but this is business, and Apple's system is really wreaking havoc on it.
Mark Eagleton: It's possible, but if so, I'd like to hear it from Apple's mouth. And as noted above, we want to make a radio app, which Apple clearly approves of (see AOL Radio). For that matter, just being accepted to the program doesn't mean you can sell your software, or even get it on any devices besides your own - accepting us would allow us to better test, and guarantee us nothing else.
And thanks for the praise 8).
I know everybody would rather imagine something more sinister, but I think the reason individuals are having an easier time being approved is because there is no question, when I apply as an individual, that I have authority to enter myself in a contract.
On the other hand, when you apply as a company, Apple has extra work to do to verify that it is making an agreement with a valid legal entity and that the person signing up has authority to make such an agreement on the entity's behalf.
I'm sure if they wouldn't bother with the two tracks if they didn't have to. I agree their process and communication could be clearer, but I don't think they are intentionally trying to keep people out.
Glenn,
Frankly, these types of "ship the beta" decisions have been driven by the market. Windows software (both from Microsoft and not) often has lengthy, sometimes paid, "beta periods". Google has software that never exits "beta", and the kiddies on linux are at the other end in a "release-a-day" mode.
When you add-in the "bonus on the line" mentality of many product managers and upper management, the urge to ship is.. strong.
I've noticed a pattern in my conversations with various engineers at WWDC this week. Most would love to be able to do better work, but they have large 'filters' applied to what they do. Marketing doesn't want *that* feature, for whatever reason, they can't open various private frameworks, etc. ("The guy responsible for that decision left, so now we're opening X".)
QA only works when management is honest about what they want from the department. QA has to be able to hold up their hand and shout, "stop the train". If not, they're just monkeys behind keyboards, trying to write a variation of "Romeo and Juliet" where Romeo hooks up with Mercutio, and the tragedy is avoided once the Nurse discovers Romeo's 'till now tendencies ("master-mistress of my passion", indeed), and advises her charge of same. Result? Juliet avoids joining the sodomites at the theatre.
BTW, I got my "fax in your corporate docs" a couple weeks ago, and managed to get my app onto my iPhone this week while at WWDC. The simulator has been effective enough for me to make progress even without the credentials. Yes, there are loose ends to tie up, but I can only see bitterness in Kafasis' commentary, especially when he throws down with, "why service a tiny individual developer faster than some of the biggest names in Mac development?"
Arrogance will get you nowhere with Apple.
Jobs is a sneaky liar so developers be prepared to be [censored] if you want a little slice from the iPhone business.
I downloaded the beta SDK on day of release all eager but other than a brief fiddle have largely decided not to bother. While I don't have a particular objecton to paying to obtain a certificate I'm not investing any significant time in developing for a platform on which there is no guarantee I can share my work - even for free - due to a single controlled, and doubtless contrary, channel of distribution.
Shame really as it's a beautiful device.
Benjamin Ragheb: That seems unlikely, particularly as noted in my comment above, where one individual took months and another didn't. No, the entire process seems utterly random, to our eyes. But even if it's not, the lack of transparency is what's preventing us from understanding what's going on.
Jim Thompson: I'm not sure how it's arrogant to want to be treated the same as others (not better, just not worse).
Further, if you have a look at that line again, you can see that WE (or rather, one of our developers) are the "tiny individual developer", in addition to being one of the bigger names in Mac development, among others with whom I spoke prior to writing this post. I think that's a pretty well-grounded statement. Rogue Amoeba is certainly a bigger name than the random Windows developer (or even company) who's never developed for the Mac. But I don't believe we should be accepted before those companies or individuals, just at the same time.
As far as what will or won't get you somewhere with Apple, no one has any idea what will work. That's the problem here.
James: That's spot on - paying for access isn't an issue, but I think it is a definite problem that Apple has made themselves the gatekeeper.
I love my Macs; but all this monopolistic bullshit is really getting too much. :-(
maybe you could use the time while you're waiting to fix RadioShift so it actually works as you advertise.
You at least managed to sign up. My attempts to sign up fail every time, from different OSes, computers and networks:
http://aplus.co.yu/apple/iphone-developer-program-enrollment-doesnt-work/
I emailed Apple, got rather quick confirmation that they are looking into the issue and then nothing for over weeks and no further responses to emails. :(
I have no idea what is the problem. Maybe my country of origin (Serbia)...
Consider your free app, "MakeiPhoneRingtone" -- maybe this was your undoing in Apple's eyes. You, along with AmbrosiaSW's iToner was/is definitely cutting into revenue that AT&T certainly believes belongs to them. Apple, I'm not sure at all (especially since they now allow Mac users a workaround of their own in Garageband)... that being said, whether they intended to or not (and my money's on INTENDED), everytime they would update their iPhone firmware, they had to knock you guys out of business to appease the suits at AT&T.
Perhaps they felt since you caused them due stress over the ringtones, they'd put the screws to you, too.
Food for thought.
I agree the lack of visibility into how or why people are chosen for the beta program is annoying. But I think far too many people are reading any kind of intent (ill or otherwise) into something that is easily explained by "Holy cow we have 10x or 100x more developers than we had anticipated and have a total of four people processing them".
Don't forget Apple has to do some due diligence on the people who apply, as one goal is to make sure malicious apps do not get on the phone. That takes a little time. Then when people have applied, they have to field questions from them - so Apple probably has to let in people in batches and see how much extra handholding is required to get them started, or to see how many bug reports or API requests come in.
I'm sure eventually there will be no queue to become a developer, or at least the queue will be ordered more rationally (as in ordered by time which nothing seems to indicate it is right now). So if I were thinking to do free software for the phone I wouldn't let that put me off, and after all if you're doing free software what's the rush? It's the people who plan to make some income off the apps that are sweating entry, and in some ways as another person mentioned it's kind of nice to know the initial apps will come from a wide cross-section of people instead of just the largest companies.
It's not just the iPhone. Apple are incredibly controlling in many other ways, too. If you've ever used their bug reporter you'll know what I mean.
For example, unlike, say, Mozilla's bug reporter, you can't see bugs submitted by others - you don't know if the bug you've found has been reported before. You waste your time carefully crafting your bug submission and then Apple come back to you and say it's a duplicate and that's that!
If you're lucky you'll get a terse response, which you won't be able to share with anyone because it's all under NDA.
It's such an unwelcoming controlled environment, I don't even bother submitting bugs anymore. I know a few others who feel the same way.
What about those iphone design awards? If only a few selected by Apple got their keys in time, doesn't this slant the field of those that got recognized unfairly?
I would bet that they are going alphabetically, maybe you should change your company to "Amoeba Rogue."
I joined on the first day, and after getting the letter that looked like a rejection I sent a note to "sjobs@apple.com" (March 15) saying:
I received a reply about 20 minutes after sending the note, which said:
Something about all of this smacks of censorship.
A little late to the discussion, but I wonder if having been a Select or Premier developer prior to iPhone application has anything to do with it.
I have been a paid member for a number of years and have been admitted to the club but I live in a country where I cannot obtain an iPhone upon which to test.
So they will let me have a "real" go at it but don't legally allow me to get at the actual hardware to test.
Different situation than others but rather frustrating nevertheless.
We are in a beta period now. Only a limited number of developers will get certificates now (we just can't support all of the requests we've received). Almost every developer will get a certificate when we ship in June.
This doesn't make sense, if they can't support it now what exactly changes in June that would cause them to be able to support everyone?
And will we hear the same excuse when it comes to getting onto the App Store?
And if you have a limited number of slots, why not hand them to people who are actively writing apps instead of people who we hear over and over again have no real intention of writing apps, or are in a country where they can't even get an iPhone, or are full time students and don't have time to write applications, or have no knowledge of Objective-C or other Cocoa technologies at all?
Simple economics says that if you have a limited resource you focus delivery on it where you can maximize results.
The situation is even worse if you're outside the U.S. For a long time the developer program was only open to U.S. residents. Now it's been opened up, but very few people down here in Australia have been given access.
Those who get into the developer program have a big head start on everyone else. I know that other developers are working on similar things to me, and I'm now a long way behind them.
It's time to open it up, Apple. The arbitrariness of acceptance into the program is affecting peoples' businesses.
. . . um, did the Cat have the iToner Mouse on a blacklist?
I can't agree more. I'm another individual who signed up on Day One and hasn't heard squat. The things I want to do with the iPhone involve multitouch and the accelerometer, so the simulator's too limited for me to get far.
Unfortunately this is yet another case of Apple doing something wrongheaded and counterproductive, and categorically refusing to acknowledge any problem or even to communicate more than minimally about it. Then of course usually you have the final step in the cycle where Apple resolves the problem and manages to crow about their brilliance while still denying there was ever a problem; but we're not there yet.
(And yes, I am an Apple fanboy and former long-time employee; I'm just being realistic.)
The irony of the "they couldn't provide support to all the developers who signed up" argument is that it's self-inflicted: by rigidly refusing anyone to discuss the iPhone SDK on any of Apple's mailing lists (or any other public place), they're eliminating a huge source of free support in the form of developers helping each other out. All due to somebody's insistence on preserving the "confidentiality" of an SDK that anyone on earth can already download for free. Sigh.
Jacob,
Sometimes bug reports have proprietary information in them, and, in fact the proprietary information may be the existence of the bug, or perhaps the work-around.
I'm not kidding. Motorola had this going on all the time inside their 68K projects. At AMD, the projects couldn't talk to each other, due to lawyer fears of contamination.
The behavior could be a vestige from an earlier time.
cb: alphabetical? Unlikely, given that MIMVista, Omni Group and Pangea all won Apple Design awards last night.
I could believe that they're processing in random order though, so, Paul, it could be that you are, indeed, being treated the same as all other companies who've applied.
Remember folks, its not "first to market", its "first to volume" that creates a barrier to entry.
A previous commenter wrote: "The arbitrariness of acceptance into the program is affecting peoples' businesses."
Total B.S. The administration of the program might be affecting a business plan, but it's not affecting anyone's actual business. Nobody has an actual business selling iPhone apps. If your plans aren't panning out, it's nobody's fault but your own, you built your plan on a false assumption.
I asked one of the Apple Reps about this at WWDC. I'm a non-US developer.
I applied as soon as the program opened, when it was US only, in case there was some kind of queue, but obviously heard nothing back.
I re-applied when they opened it up to non-US developers, and got in within 48 hours.
I discussed this, and the process with my country's developer relations rep at WWDC. Paranoia prevents me from sharing what I heard with you here, but what I think I can safely say is, if you are a serious developer (e.g. with pre-existing Mac desktop apps), get in touch with your Apple developer relations rep, and ask if they can help you ...
Applied as an individual on day 1. Finally got my cert the thursday before WWDC, something like 3 months later. Hearing the stories of folks applying as individuals and getting their cert 24 hours later make me agree with you that the whole thing is pretty broken.
I just send Steve Jobs a link to here, and he replied. Here it is (shortened):
We let 4000 developers into the beta program - the most we could handle. As of July 11, it will be open to all who qualify.
Cheers,
Ben
Just adding my company to the list of non-acceptees. I applied the day after the announcement and have not been accepted. My colleague in France applied two weeks ago and was immediately accepted :-/
completely random or else some sort of weird quota situation...
Ben: "We let 4000 developers into the beta program - the most we could handle. As of July 11, it will be open to all who qualify."
In other words, the list of "all we could handle" will be renamed "all who qualify". What's the problem with letting everyone in right now? How can Apple verify what I'm going to do with the certificate - sell 5 million copies of my app or try to push malware or just do nothing? Heck, they cannot even verify my name before I pay for the membership.
"The most we could handle" doesn't make sense either. As Paul already asked, what will change on July 11? I don't actually need any kind of individual support until AppStore launches. All I need right now is the ability to test my apps on a device. Of course, any information on the criteria by which developers will qualify is also welcome.
Jens Alfke said:
If you do a Google search for "apple developer forums" the top hit is the developer discussion at "discussions.apple.com". Most of the discussion there at the moment is about iPhone development. This discussion is in no way private. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to be advertised much either---I would expect the number of people in such a discussion to be much much larger than it is. Google doesn't find any link to there from "developer.apple.com".
I have been an ADC member for a long period of time. I signed up as quick as I could. Months past no access to Iphone program.
So on a lark I decided to sign up using a completely new account. Low and behold that virgin account with no ADC history was admitted and I already paid - with access now. Within a week maybe less. I'm still so shocked I cannot remember. Now what was I talking about? errrr you see what I mean?!?!
My experience with Apple is that at the Retail level they kick ass in customer service if you approach it right. ADC and the developer stuff sucks (bleep) because they just don't know what customer service is or means. Don't seem to care and never respond in a reasonable amount of time.
If I could get something to replace ADC and it was better I'd join ASAP.
And I thought Microsoft Technet was bad. This is worse. Oh and I've only been coding since 1978. So I guess maybe I know what I'm talking about eh?
it seems to me that there is a common thread of early submissions going into a black hole and newer submissions going right through.
Maybe early submissions got lost. I suggest that everyone reapply and see what happens.
That's it. We should all renew under totally new accounts!!!
See what happens. That'll teach'em. wooo hooo.
Or just make it worse.
I also applied right away and waited, got frustrated, sent emails and got automated responses, and by surprise I got enrolled just days before attending WWDC. But I know two people who were enrolled and are unable to utilize it because they don't yet have a testing device.
Apple certainly heard an earful at WWDC as to how the enrollment system seems to defy logic and common sense. In addition, WWDC gives unfair access to those who were lucky enough to attend and who can later see all the videos of all the sessions, having just been at the right place at the right time. What if you determine this coming August that you want to join the game? -- it's a broken system.
But I think we all agree about something -- Apple's Developer Relations should be and could be updated to the 21st century.
For instance, Apple caught us all by surprise and wowed us with the inspired Push Notification Service as a way to eliminate the need for most iPhone multitasking. What if brilliant ideas like that were applied to how they handle developers?
Well, what is it that developers want? INFORMATION.
Look at what we have now... Mailing lists (and none for the iPhone) -- that's super primitive. No online forum, besides the fact that forum technology is also unbelievably primitive. As an admin on iPhoneDevForums.com and using "advanced" forum software, we can't even combine text and graphics in a message. That's totally stupid (and disabled because of hackers, btw) and it's hard to organize information and combine it with other formats (video, files, etc).
Even if Apple did have a developer forum, would it be like the consumer forum on Apple.com? Just search on "battery" and see the melee of emotions and bad information as posters at this very minute continue to thrash endlessly because Apple employees don't seem to be allowed to come in and put a stop to the discussion with the facts and final word. FAQ's are also primitive.
Look at where we should be... Really, our informational space is three dimensional. There needs to be 3D documentation. We are currently using scores of PDF/HTML documents using words to describe a 3D world of objects and information. These document all overlap and are hard to read on the screen. The pictures in the docs describe, say, layers and relationships of view controllers and nav controllers in 2-D and it makes it an unnecessary brain-twister. What about motion? Let's see a message travel between objects.
What about using color to let you know what was updated in a revision? Now we just get a note at the bottom saying the doc was revised, but where? You can also visually represent many types of information with visual cues, as no-doubt described in papers presented on the topic as far back as the 80's. What about using multi-touch gestures to navigate the 3D informational space? Need 3D technology? See Pixar. My Playstation3 has 3D molecular modeling software that comes with it for free. Hmmmm.
iPhone developers alone need access to massive amounts of information that is changing rapidly. ELIMINATE THE NEED TO TALK TO APPLE IN THE FIRST PLACE by sharing a 3D informational space with levels/layers of access that can change as often as it needs to.
Apple needs a bit of a sense of humor, too. Has anyone flown Virgin America? Like that.
I realize that the iPhone is Apple's product and they can do whatever they please. But they depend on musicians and developers to sell their iPods and iPhones. Work should begin now on a new way of accelerating the productivity of developers to enable amazing things to happen far more quickly with higher quality and stop people from throwing in the towel for all the wrong reasons. When I think about how much time I've spent printing and reading through docs multiple times just to start to "get" what's going on, well, we've all been there. Totally unnecessary.
There IS a better way, it's up to us developers to go "hey wait a minute, you're right" and then start pushing and helping to make it happen.
This is all true for any other company out there. But we want Apple to lead the way, eh? Think outside the box here!
Thanks for reading my super long post. :)
Mark
Interesting post. I understand the frustration, and certainly Apple should take care of such fundamental thing.
I wish you the best luck and I hope to see your apps in iPhone.
It's a really terrible predicament. But let's face the truth: you'll all wait patiently. Those of you with reputations will have nothing to fear. And empty threats about not knowing whether to invest time on the iPhone won't get you anywhere anyway. You're hooked, and you know it. Just sit tight. Stay right where you are. And if you need to use the restroom, please check with a certified Apple escort first.
Sieg Heil!
Thanks for kicking my comment to the curb. I suppose you only allow posts that don't bring up information that might be contrary to your point of view. My post was carefully constructed and my thoughts were concise/to-the-point. Oh.. and no cussin' either. Yet, ... not allowed to see the light of day.
In case you forgot what I said (probably because you drop-kicked a lot of comments lately, I spoke about how your MakeRingTones app (along with iToner) might've have given you a black-eye from Apple.
@James,
Paul let me know that your comment had disappeared, so we investigated and found that your missing comment, and another non-spam comment, had been trapped by our comment spam filter. There was no intentional censoring by the author or the site editors. I've posted the comment, as it should have been originally. Our apologies for this problem.
-Rachel
Adrian Bool: Fortunately, it's not affecting the Mac, not yet anyway. I don't think Apple could get away with locking down the Mac in this way, though it's certainly a concern.
Bon Bon: If you're having an issue with Radioshift, please contact our support directly. A random comment here really isn't going to help.
Aleksandar: I'd certainly bet on the issue being Serbia - is the program even available there? Originally, it was US-only, then I believe it expanded to Europe, but I'm not certain where all it's available.
JGowan: At this point, MakeiPhoneRingtone does nothing more than what Apple's own GarageBand does, as you noted http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1358
Kendall: Ah, but that's just it - they don't need to do any due diligence at all, nor are they, as far as I can see. Individual developers are being accepted with little or no information being known about them, and an acceptance is not a guarantee that your software will be in the store.
Jacob: Bug Reporter can be frustrating, but at least that's not something that directly impacts business. And as Jim noted, the issue here can be with secrecy.
Ben: It does, but while ADAs are nice, they don't hold a candle to paying customers.
NormM: That's interesting on many levels - I wonder what "almost every developer" means.
Mike Manzano: Absolutely. The real problem is that so many people seem happy to go along with it, for illusory security as well as "avoiding all the crap that's seen on other platforms". I don't know when freedom of choice became a bad thing, but it saddens me.
David: ADC status seems to have no effect, as we've been Select members for years.
Karl Kraft: Good points all around.
Pete Yandell: I'm certainly in agreement that opening up would be good.
Jens: You're cycle is correct, but missing an important portion - where the apologists stomp all over anyone who makes a peep 8)
And the "confidentiality" bit really is insane.
Jim Thompson: Randomly might be possible, but it seems unlikely, given the high number of developers I know who've gotten in, and the low number who haven't - it's certainly not 16% of devs I know, it's much higher.
As for "first to volume", sure, but being first to market is certainly helpful in getting there.
Jerry Gerryman: I'm not sure how that's BS. It's not affecting sales of iPhone apps yet, no, but it's certainly affecting how we ( a business) are planning for the future. We'd like to know if we should spend time on dev'ing, or not, and right now, Apple isn't helping us at all there.
Martin Redington: Interestingly, we've been down that route too, with no luck thus far.
Ben: Interesting. I really have to wonder, what exactly does "the most we could handle" mean, and what's going to change in a few weeks?
NormM: I believe Jens is referring to comments on various Apple mailing lists forbidding the discussion of the iPhone SDK.
MarkyMark: Information is exactly right.
Joe Cassara: Where exactly do you read a "threat"? That's a statement - we don't know what we should do, and so we're playing it safe, devoting only one developer, to one iPhone app. We have ideas for multiple applications which we could make, but are currently holding off on.
James Gowan: As Rachel noted, your comment was held up by O'Reilly's spam filter, I haven't edited anything on here save an entirely unnecessary swear.
So when I read this post after it was linked to from daringfireball.net I decided to try joining the program myself. Well, I received my acceptance today, less than two weeks later. I have no idea what type of algorithm they are using for this selection process but it is strange.