IPhone Dev Spends $500k on Development, Still Not Approved by Apple(macblogz.com)
macblogz.com
IPhone Dev Spends $500k on Development, Still Not Approved by Apple
http://www.macblogz.com/2008/12/17/iphone-dev-spends-500k-on-development-still-not-approved-by-apple/
69 comments
It's absolutely retarded to spend that kind of money developing on a platform controlled by such a capricious and arbitrary master as Apple. As soon as Android has a userbase, you'll never hear this sort of story again.
First sentence: right on. Second: won't happen.
Time will tell. I'm pretty sure it will though. iPhone is 1 device on 1 network, Android will be dozens of devices across almost all networks. It's Mac vs. Windows all over again.
iPhone is 1 device on 1 network, Windows Mobile is hundreds of devices across all networks.
"Gartner Q3 2008 data shows iPhone passes Windows Mobile": http://blogs.zdnet.com/cell-phones/?p=354
"Gartner Q3 2008 data shows iPhone passes Windows Mobile": http://blogs.zdnet.com/cell-phones/?p=354
So is Blackberry.
That's current sales, not factoring in the devices that already exist which would give a large edge to WinMO.
Actually even there, Microsoft's claims for Win Mo devices shipped this year is >14 million. If that's true it's nudging out iPhone or at least real damn close.
1 network? It's incredibly easy to buy an unlocked iPhone in certain countries, and I mean... Unlocked by Apple, not cracked.
Whilst I understand that you're referring to North America you should consider that the iPhone is sold in a lot of other countries.
Whilst I understand that you're referring to North America you should consider that the iPhone is sold in a lot of other countries.
The iPhone is also locked to one carrier in the following countries: UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Japan, Venezuela and many more. Unlocked iPhones are offered in relatively few countries.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937
Which, by total GDP, is like 90% of its market.
Officially unlocked iPhone is so much over-priced ($1000) that nobody bothers to buy it. At least here in Russia.
You're assuming nobody learned their lesson.
Although, that's not necessarily a bad assumption, given Apple's attitude thus far. I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach on this one.
Although, that's not necessarily a bad assumption, given Apple's attitude thus far. I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach on this one.
Steve Jobs doesn't learn lessons.
I was in the T-mobile store yesterday and the salesman advised me not to buy a G1 until (list of problems) were resolved with a new version of the software. Right now there's the G1 on T-mobile, Storm on Vodafone and iPhone on O2. iPhone is the clear leader and I can't see that changing anytime soon.
JavaME is dozens of devices across almost all networks, and that never meant success for the platform (if compared to the 1 device 1 network that apple introduced)...
You're wrong. Android is already dead. When people talk about 'when' with a product for more than a year, the product is dead. And Google actually got a phone released with Android - what happened? Basically, they killed the excitement in their platform. The phone looked terrible.
The REAL death knoll was when I heard that all phones are not required to have all features. So if you develop a game, do you or do not use the camera feature when all the phones may not have a camera? Do you or do you not use the accelerometer?
Google may have made a good product technically, but they made mistakes, and because of those mistakes, Android is dead.
Android will become the OS of choice form phone manufacturers in Guangzhou because it's free. But the big companies will not jump on the bandwagon for quite a while. They already have their existing OSes, and the customers don't care about Android.
The REAL death knoll was when I heard that all phones are not required to have all features. So if you develop a game, do you or do not use the camera feature when all the phones may not have a camera? Do you or do you not use the accelerometer?
Google may have made a good product technically, but they made mistakes, and because of those mistakes, Android is dead.
Android will become the OS of choice form phone manufacturers in Guangzhou because it's free. But the big companies will not jump on the bandwagon for quite a while. They already have their existing OSes, and the customers don't care about Android.
Are you shitting me? I told my brother in law who drives trucks for a living (very non-geeky) about Android and 48 hours later he had hacked his HT Touch from Sprint to run a dev version of Android. He hates the baked in OS and absolutely loves Google's OS even with massive bugs (due to the hack) I told him in a year he's see dozens of phones with Android pre installed and he's already looking to ditch his months-old phone because of it.
That's not evidence, it's just a story. I could offer a better OS than most phones, and a good percentage of people would switch. What the people like is not 'android', it's multitouch, organisation and so on. If people really jump on the UI bandwagon, whoever wrote the OS in the phone will make their own OS look that way too. What does Android offer then?
Maybe I'm wrong - we'll see in a couple of years. But looking at things from the perspective of now, Google has bungled this big time. OS Platforms are a market with a lot of money behind it, and the mobile OS market has people with money that can rival googles and a lot more experience.
Google can win if the people want Android. And right now, the people don't care.
I can match your anecdote with one of my own - a geeky friend of mine wanted to get a new phone. He liked Android, since it would be like the iPhone but more open. He waited, and then that fugly phone came out. And a few weeks later, Nokia came up with a phone with just as nice an interface, but with well designed hardware. He went with Nokia.
Maybe I'm wrong - we'll see in a couple of years. But looking at things from the perspective of now, Google has bungled this big time. OS Platforms are a market with a lot of money behind it, and the mobile OS market has people with money that can rival googles and a lot more experience.
Google can win if the people want Android. And right now, the people don't care.
I can match your anecdote with one of my own - a geeky friend of mine wanted to get a new phone. He liked Android, since it would be like the iPhone but more open. He waited, and then that fugly phone came out. And a few weeks later, Nokia came up with a phone with just as nice an interface, but with well designed hardware. He went with Nokia.
That phone has gotten pretty good reviews. It's also the first effort from a small company. Large ones like Motorola begin enthusiastically shipping their first models very soon.
your 'very non-geeky' brother managed to hack a smartphone and uses a dev version of Android?
Ask him to send in his resume... we're hiring truck-driving hackers in here!
You're also wrong, how do you know what deals are coming out of big name mobile chip manufacturers like Motorola? Motorola is betting big on Android and they're releasing 20-30 devices based on Android, and most of them are not cell phones. This is according to a friend working there.
Motorola did the same bet on WindowsMobile in the past, and never actually came out with more than 2-3 devices...
Isn't that what they said about Unix when Windows was released?
Show me the Windows app that Microsoft said "You can't sell that" to the app developer.
I mean, sure, they've played games ("DOS ain't done 'till Lotus doesn't run"), but flat-out blocking something on Windows?
(If you want to cite Microsoft for something like this, you might be able to find an XBox Arcade related example.)
I mean, sure, they've played games ("DOS ain't done 'till Lotus doesn't run"), but flat-out blocking something on Windows?
(If you want to cite Microsoft for something like this, you might be able to find an XBox Arcade related example.)
Windows was not a closed environment like the app store. I was comparing the comment to how the developer community during the launch of Windows saying Unix would win in the long run.
They said Windows was too restrictive and your letting a for-profit business control the platform is too risky, so users would naturally move to the open platform. But the average, mainstream user, was content with Windows because they were satisfied as long they had their Lotus 1-2-3 or Excel.
They said Windows was too restrictive and your letting a for-profit business control the platform is too risky, so users would naturally move to the open platform. But the average, mainstream user, was content with Windows because they were satisfied as long they had their Lotus 1-2-3 or Excel.
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okay, how about netscape. microsoft went to them in the early days of the web, and said, effectively: "you can't sell netscape navigator on windows. you can put your browsers on all the other platforms, but windows is for us. otherwise, we'll crush you." everybody knows what happened after that.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=403320
EDIT: This is the first social bookmarking site where I feel like I should have the ability to link the same comment as a reply to multiple messages. I don't even remember wishing for this back in my USENET days. How can the userbase of this site be so clever and intelligent, but yet seem so redundant in the posted responses?
EDIT: This is the first social bookmarking site where I feel like I should have the ability to link the same comment as a reply to multiple messages. I don't even remember wishing for this back in my USENET days. How can the userbase of this site be so clever and intelligent, but yet seem so redundant in the posted responses?
Apple has drifted so far from the spirit Woz infused it with with the Apple II:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
From the article:Wozniak's open design and the Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of third-party devices to expand the capabilities of the machine.
The true engineer ethos. Let people add on, build, and convert the system to their needs.
Now it's just shove shiny expensive stuff at them and don't trust the user or developer to change anything. What a way to treat users, like children.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
From the article:Wozniak's open design and the Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of third-party devices to expand the capabilities of the machine.
The true engineer ethos. Let people add on, build, and convert the system to their needs.
Now it's just shove shiny expensive stuff at them and don't trust the user or developer to change anything. What a way to treat users, like children.
Yes, and it sucks, but it has been this way for a pretty long time. Jobs was never about expandability/hackability -- the original Macintosh required a special tool to open the case, wherein you could do nothing to it as it had no user serviceable parts. I had never looked before, but it doesn't appear that it even had any socketed ICs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macintosh-motherboard.jpg , but it did have a proper font silk screened on this board that nobody ever saw. Jobs has used engineering as a means to create the experience -- Woz used the experience as a means to create engineer{s, ing}, something that I owe my love of computers and even my nickname to. :)
That said, so long as Apple essentially has a monopoly on the smartphone experience, it behooves them to control the experience of the device (via third party applications) with an iron fist -- there's very little down side to arbitrary or even counterproductive behavior so long as the experience is maintained. Should ecosystem ever matter more than the device experience, Apple will be forced to sing a different tune, but given Nokia + MS's head start and performance since the release of the iPhone I wouldn't be hopeful.
That said, so long as Apple essentially has a monopoly on the smartphone experience, it behooves them to control the experience of the device (via third party applications) with an iron fist -- there's very little down side to arbitrary or even counterproductive behavior so long as the experience is maintained. Should ecosystem ever matter more than the device experience, Apple will be forced to sing a different tune, but given Nokia + MS's head start and performance since the release of the iPhone I wouldn't be hopeful.
looks like the ROMs are socketed. and that's the part that you'd be most likely to want changed.
You are absolutely correct. I would say that I'd rather have the RAM ICs socketed, though, especially considering that the first Mac had a meager 128k of it. :(
Could you piggyback RAM by soldering it on top of the existing chips, bending out a single chip-enable pin so it alone wasn't in parallel with the existing chips, and soldering it to a wire? I had an H89 with 64K of RAM; the last 16K was hacked in that way.
Not without switching around the address lines, at the very least.
Yep. The iPhone is a console.
This is horrible customer service from Apple.
It is indeed, but it's clear from the interview that they knew how opaque and unpredictable Apple's policies are. I'm baffled as to why they went and spent so much money before they knew they'd be accepted.
RTFA. In the interview, it's mentioned that most of the expense was in infrastructure on the company's end for handling the call switching technology. This part of the investment would probably work as is when they announce the BlackBerry and Android versions of the client app. They just chose to try and deploy on the iPhone first due to its buzz and early adopter momentum.
When they say 1/2 millie they count salaries, server costs, advertisement, VOIP costs, cost to register x thousands of phone numbers, PR (which can easily eat up 3/4 of that) and all that other stuff. I would not be surprised if two guys in a dorm room find a way to make it work for less than 1/10th.
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Call me crazy, but I think that a solid business plan doesn't depend on the whims of a single party.
All new business plans are risky. Dependencies on 3rd parties add risk, but if the potential rewards are big enough the risk is worth taking.
This is why there are more fart apps for the iPhone than working word processors. Who would spend big money on an uncertain future?
Where are the rules listed by the way? I just finished my first app but I'm not sure it will be accepted.
They aren't written anywhere. At least, many of them aren't.
You can find a list of reasons in the SDK agreement in your developer.apple.com account, but you won't find listed many of the reasons that apps have been rejected, like "limited utility" or "looks too much like our implementation of coverflow" or "using too much bandwidth."
You can find a list of reasons in the SDK agreement in your developer.apple.com account, but you won't find listed many of the reasons that apps have been rejected, like "limited utility" or "looks too much like our implementation of coverflow" or "using too much bandwidth."
Mine definitely has limited utility! But no less utility than ifart or whatever. I guess I'll give it a shot. It won't bias them against my future submissions, right?
This seems like it will suffer the same problem as Loopt and other location aware iPhone apps: you have to open the app to update your location.
Also, the way this works is Newber gives you a special phone number that people are supposed to call, and it routes it to whatever phone you want. You can then transfer the call between phones by hitting a button in Newber. This is fine for incoming calls, but what about outgoing calls? Do they have a way to intercept outgoing calls from yours phones or something?
I did like how the dude's business card said "Professional Silhouette" though.
Also, the way this works is Newber gives you a special phone number that people are supposed to call, and it routes it to whatever phone you want. You can then transfer the call between phones by hitting a button in Newber. This is fine for incoming calls, but what about outgoing calls? Do they have a way to intercept outgoing calls from yours phones or something?
I did like how the dude's business card said "Professional Silhouette" though.
Emm, Newber's logo looks similar to Ubuntu's
While this is a LONG time and definitely Apple needs to improve their support of developers with at least a status message of some kind, it could be that the app is complex enough that it's taking a long time due to that complexity. Apple does review all the code and test it out, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Either way, Apple needs to start communicating! It must be awful for these guys to wait like this not knowing one way or the other, and with that much riding on it. Wow.
Either way, Apple needs to start communicating! It must be awful for these guys to wait like this not knowing one way or the other, and with that much riding on it. Wow.
Thing is, Apple doesn't review code. They review applications (which isn't the same thing).
More importantly, the review process is arbitrary. There are no strict guidelines, and no strict technical analysis is performed. This is easily proven by looking at the number of apps on the store using private SDKs, and the number of cases where apps have been rejected for using private SDKs even when they do not.
More importantly, the review process is arbitrary. There are no strict guidelines, and no strict technical analysis is performed. This is easily proven by looking at the number of apps on the store using private SDKs, and the number of cases where apps have been rejected for using private SDKs even when they do not.
I didn't know that. I guess I got the impression from some peoples' comments on the web that they did... Thanks for the clarification :)
Interesting how they have a continuity program (monthly payments). It'll be interesting to see how they do this. Give away the app and then when you are in-app they ask for your credit card number?
That's how Truphone (iPhone VOIP in/out app) works - it's a free download, and when you have used up the initial credit you have to top up with a credit card.
It seems the process of getting approved by Apple is about as opaque as process of getting approved by DMOZ. At least the DMOZ had/have the excuse of being volunteer run.
500k on development, 70 days of panic, followed by 30k on PR to pressure Apple to accept it.
This title is annoying - who thinks the amount you spent on development should have any bearing at all on whether Apple approve your app?
Not me, anyway. $500k shouldn't guarantee you an approval.
Not me, anyway. $500k shouldn't guarantee you an approval.
I don't think that's the deal; I think the reason it's interesting is that Newber has $500k hanging in the balance, and Apple's commitment is zero. They can vaporize that $500k instantly by saying no, or slowly by never responding. This is not a good position to be in, and it dramatizes what a lot of people (investors more than hackers) have been feeling about iPhone development.
75 days?
Half of a million dollars?!
For marketing and development.
My guess is that a large majority of that must have been marketing.
My guess is that a large majority of that must have been marketing.
Check some of the marketing videos. Pretty impressive motion graphics.
I'm still not sure how that's such a ginormous amount of money.
Compared to the average iPhone app budget, I'd bet that it is a lot of money.
This isn't the average iPhone app. As the article mentions, this requires actual hardware infrastructure -- not something your average iPhone indie is worried about.
Did they overspend? Probably. But that doesn't excuse Apple.
Did they overspend? Probably. But that doesn't excuse Apple.
This isn't the average iPhone app. As the article mentions, this requires actual hardware infrastructure -- not something your average iPhone indie is worried about.
Even if the $500k wasn't overspending for what they wanted to do, the part that seems crazy to me was that they spent that money before getting the green light from Apple and with full knowledge that the approval process is opaque, often lengthy, and sometimes seemingly arbitrary.
Of course Apple's policy is wrong and unreasonable for developers. But these guys knew that this was the case, and they seem to have acted as if they had no idea.
Even if the $500k wasn't overspending for what they wanted to do, the part that seems crazy to me was that they spent that money before getting the green light from Apple and with full knowledge that the approval process is opaque, often lengthy, and sometimes seemingly arbitrary.
Of course Apple's policy is wrong and unreasonable for developers. But these guys knew that this was the case, and they seem to have acted as if they had no idea.
"before getting the green light from Apple"
There is no mechanism for preemptive approval of any kind. Either they could take no risk and not develop the product, or they develop the product with risks.
What's inexcusable isn't that the product might be denied, its that they do not yet know. They have to simultaneously act as if it will be in the store in the future, and as if it won't be. I don't know what practical implications that has, but I know its a ridiculous situation to be put in.
If Apple insists on the approval process, they have an obligation to do it in a timely manner. They ought to be embarrassed about the number of cases being reported of unreasonably long waits and flat out wrong assessments of SDK violations, but they aren't.
There is no mechanism for preemptive approval of any kind. Either they could take no risk and not develop the product, or they develop the product with risks.
What's inexcusable isn't that the product might be denied, its that they do not yet know. They have to simultaneously act as if it will be in the store in the future, and as if it won't be. I don't know what practical implications that has, but I know its a ridiculous situation to be put in.
If Apple insists on the approval process, they have an obligation to do it in a timely manner. They ought to be embarrassed about the number of cases being reported of unreasonably long waits and flat out wrong assessments of SDK violations, but they aren't.
I think it's prety inexcusable that this software, or any software, might be denied.
And I'm willing to bet that the risk of getting your app banned before you are even off the ground will keep those budgets lower that they would have been, except for perhaps games.
That said, even with a 50% chance of getting blocked from the get go it can be still quite profitable, on average, to spend this kind of money on an app. I just wouldn't suggest funding development with credit cards.
That said, even with a 50% chance of getting blocked from the get go it can be still quite profitable, on average, to spend this kind of money on an app. I just wouldn't suggest funding development with credit cards.
iNoob