It looks like our timing sucks. After months and months of development and UI work, we finally submit Mashboard, our dashboard widget app for the iPhone, to the app store… just in time to run afoul of Apple’s new policy that dashboard/ widget/ desktop type apps are no longer allowed.
Disaster.
We’re not the only ones who’ve been affected here. My Frame, a photo frame app with some widget-like features, was removed from sale today, much to the distress of the company that built it.
It’s not clear what Apple’s issue is with these sorts of apps; in my conversation with a member of the app review team, I was told that my app should “only show one thing at a time” but I wasn’t provided with a rationale for this - it was just policy. Steve Jobs’ e-mail exchange with the developer of My Frame wasn’t any more enlightening; the policy was clear - “we are not allowing apps that create their own desktops” - but not the reasoning behind it.
What is clear is that we got screwed. We put a huge amount of time, effort and money into building an app that played by the app store rules, only to find the rules changed, with no warning or explanation.
So how do we proceed from here? As angry as we are, Appwolf is not going to suddenly stop iPhone app development and focus on Android; despite its rapid growth, the Android market has a long way to go before it matches the revenue prospects of the iPhone market. What we will do is limit our risk; we’ll probably take more contract jobs and the products we build will be smaller and less ambitious - by limiting the time we spend on a given product, we limit the potential loss if the product is again on the wrong side of a new Apple policy.
It’s a far from ideal situation but at the moment, we see no better way to proceed. We can only hope that in time, Apple will start to take better care of its developers. Not because alienating a few developers is going to hurt Apple much (for every iPhone developer who walks away, I’m sure there are ten new ones who sign up), but because it’s the decent thing to do.
[As an aside, if you are is interested in seeing the Mashboard app in action, there is a demo video here - do have a look]
