More App Developers Quit the App Store. Rogue Amoeba Stops Making Apps for the iPhone

Friday, November 13, 2009

It seems Facebook app developer, Joe Hewitt, has sparked a chain reaction of iPhone developers’ boycott of the App Store. It was just days ago that Joe announced his decision to quit developing for the Facebook iPhone app. Today, another prominent developer, Rogue Amoeba, has also announced that it will not develop apps for the iPhone any longer.

Rogue Amoeba too, is extremely upset about the app approval process. Rogue Amoeba released Airfoil, an app that streams music from the computer to the iPhone over Wi-Fi 3 months ago. Naturally, after the launch, they noticed some system slowdowns that were not detected before the launch. They quickly submitted an update to fix the problem. However, the update took 3 and half months to get approved.

According to company CEO Paul Kafasis, the update was repeatedly rejected because it contained Apple-owned trademarks and symbols such as the Safari icon. After a few attempts to resubmit the updates without any changes, hoping other reviewers will be less punishing, Rogue Amoeba finally had to remove images and features the update supported to gain approval.

From Rogue Amoeba

Airfoil Speakers Touch displays an image of the sending Mac, with a screenshot showing the source application. If you’re sending from an iMac with Safari as your source (as pictured), it shows your iMac running Safari. If you’re sending from a MacBook Pro, it shows a MacBook Pro, and so on. These computer images are provided by Mac OS X itself, using a public function expressly for this purpose.

We also show the source application’s icon – Safari in the above example. This icon also comes from a public function provided by Apple as part of Mac OS X. These functions are expressly made to enable developers to get this artwork, and use it just as we are.

We’ve done this before, in Airfoil on the Mac and Windows, when we talk to the Apple TV. It’s a nice little bit of polish, but it’s also functional – it lets the user verify what machine they’re receiving from, what source application, and what that source application is doing. Nonetheless, it seemed from this rejection that Apple wanted it out. Naively, we simply re-submitted the application without changes, in the hopes of getting a more sensible reviewer. A full four weeks later, on August 31st, we were rejected again.

As a result from their experiences with the approval process, Rogue Amoeba has decided that they will not be making any more iPhone apps.

In the future, we hope that developers will be allowed to ship software without needing Apple’s approval at all, the same way we do on Mac OS X. We hope the App Store will get better, review times will be shorter, reviews will be more intelligent, and that we can all focus on making great software. Right now, however, the platform is a mess.

The chorus of disenchanted developers is growing and we’re adding our voices as well. Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare. The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we’re focusing on the Mac.

At least one app developer disagrees with Rogue Amoeba’s argument that Rogue Amoeba’s app approval process was unfair. Developer Lamarche said on his blog that “It is common knowledge among iPhone developers that if you use Apple images, icons, or logos, you run a strong risk of rejection.”

Regardless of Rogue Amoeba’s decision to use Apple icons in their app, it underscores app approval process’s biggest complaint, consistency. If the original version made it through with Apple symbols in place, why would the update be rejected for including the same icons?

Will we see more iPhone developer boycotts? You bet we will, but will developer boycotts influence Apple’s app approval process? Joe Hewitt doesn’t believe so.