Apple Bans Developer with 800+ Apps from App Store

certainly does show where his priorities were. Profit.

Oh my God! It's one of "them", Hon! It's a CAPITALIST!!!!!!!

What in the hell is wrong with making a profit and when, exactly, did Americans finally start drinking the socialism Kool-Aid?

Look people, if his apps were crap, they wouldn't be purchased and he would lose money and stop making them. If he was making money, then people were finding them useful. If Apple wants to pull the apps for terms of use violations then fine, those are their rules and everyone knew them going in, but I don't begrudge a small business owner who has committed no crime and whose sole motivation is making money. To anyone who does begrudge him of this I issue the following challenge: march straight into your boss' office and demand that they pay you less money. You know, since it's not about "profit".

I didn't think so.

I don't begrudge a small business owner who has committed no crime and whose sole motivation is making money.

And I don't begrudge a retailer (Apple) for wanting to clear their shelves of inferior products that decrease public trust in their marketplace. This is one of the reasons why you choose a managed app store over the anarchy of the internet -- there's somebody out there to protect the curious consumer from applications that offer no real value.

Arguments to pure Capitalism fail when you realize this isn't a case of somebody offering an inferior product to a well informed populace with the ability to make cautious decisions. Since you can't evaluate apps before purchasing, every app purchase is an exercise in trust. It's like buying a car based solely on the dealer's description and the sticker price -- only while that is a stupid way to buy cars and there are laws to protect you even if you did, there is no other way to buy apps and your only protection is Apple.

In short: I support Khalid's right to make terrible applications. But even more, I support Apple's right to remove them. The threat of summary removal should be a cue to all developers: write good software, fix your bugs, define your space, service your market and charge a fair price if you want to do business on the iPhone. If you aren't comfortable doing good work for fair pay, this isn't a monopoly: there are many other cell phones you can write terrible software for.

To anyone who does begrudge him of this I issue the following challenge: march straight into your boss' office and demand that they pay you less money.

Lots of people leave high paying jobs that are no longer intellectually or morally rewarding. I myself have done this twice.

I wonder how long it took for him to develop all those applications.:confused:

iSponge: Developing for smartphones is only as practical as your software concept. THAT is the real problem in almost every case I see where a developer whines and moans about not being able to make a decent profit on the platform! A whole LOT of people went crazy when the hype was at its peak for the iPhone and said, "I gotta get me a piece of THAT action!"

Fact is though, there's not really all THAT much you can create for a given smartphone that isn't just a rehash of stuff that's been done before, or is just plain useless junk for cheap laughs or thrills.

I'm a LONG time computer user and got on board with "smartphones" back when the best you had was a PalmOS based Kyocera phone with a greyscale screen and a stylus that crashed daily, requiring pulling the battery out to reset it.

The single BIGGEST reason the iPhone was successful in the first place was the fact it was finally a STABLE smartphone with a nice multitouch interface that even grandma could manipulate after a little practice. When it first came out, Apple wasn't even really interested in other people writing apps to run on the thing. They were emphasizing "web apps" where you just made an icon on the phone and sent it to some web site that served everything up!

Obviously, they gave in on that idea and slowly came around to an entire app ecosystem, and IMO, it's a pretty good one. Unlike Android, people don't have to worry that much about malware and other nonsense, and Apple rather wisely restricted some of the things you were allowed to access on the phones in your code. (Again, devs whine and moan -- but the iPhone remains the most stable of the smartphones on the market, and this is one reason why!)

If you don't have something that will really "wow" people on a smartphone and make them say, "I can use THAT app every day!", you don't have anything you should count on profiting from. That's just the way it is. The phone already comes with a good email app, a calendar/scheduler, and most importantly, a pretty good web browser. That covers a BIG chunk of what people demand out of a smartphone to begin with. So much other stuff people write is, honestly, useless "fluff". Tons of apps that are just pretty front-ends to the SAME services you can access over the web browser directly. (All fine and good, but not worth PAYING for 99% of the time.)

And if you honestly think what you wrote is "Pretty cool, but not something I might sell a lot of if I don't price it under $5."? Yeah, it's not really that cool after all, ok? It's just ok, and again, you shouldn't expect to make a living off the thing.

Developing for smart phones is as practical as relying on Vegas as a retirement plan. In my free time over the last year, I have submitted plenty of apps. I was not able to even break even after paying the tax penalty. In effect, I paid out of pocket to submit these apps. And I'm reminded weekly with customer concerns.

I address every concern. But why? I had prescribed to the vanity of smart phones. After the glamour wore off, I still feel an ethical obligation to take care of the people that I paid to provide apps for. This IS more the norm than the exception.


Here's what it boils down to:
A) When Apple comes up with a profitable model for developers you will see an increase in the quality of applications. This will not happen until Apple releases a product beyond the realm of shiny gadgets that fill the void. In the mean time, you will find me working on innovative technology that will actually solve real world problems.

B) After seeing how most posts indicate iOS users feel they've been taken advantage of, I refuse to continue to support you. If you really need to cast stones, start at the Apple-defined business model that programmers have to work within.

C) I applaud this guy for defining a sustainable business model where he didn't have to win the lottery to be successful.


Enjoy your void.

Oh my God! It's one of "them", Hon! It's a CAPITALIST!!!!!!!

What in the hell is wrong with making a profit and when, exactly, did Americans finally start drinking the socialism Kool-Aid?

Look people, if his apps were crap, they wouldn't be purchased and he would lose money and stop making them. If he was making money, then people were finding them useful. If Apple wants to pull the apps for terms of use violations then fine, those are their rules and everyone knew them going in, but I don't begrudge a small business owner who has committed no crime and whose sole motivation is making money. To anyone who does begrudge him of this I issue the following challenge: march straight into your boss' office and demand that they pay you less money. You know, since it's not about "profit".

I didn't think so.

The damn point is that he was spamming the app store with 5 new apps a DAY. PER DAY. Thats an insanely high number of apps, with has a negative influence on the app store. In these extreme situations, Apple has every right to boot these kinds of developers, and I think its one of those cases where having this kind of control over the app store is actually a good things for users. This doesnt necessitate your OH NOES SOCIALISM!! spiel. Everything can be abused, and this is one of those cases of extreme abuse of the system. Everything has its limits and needs to have some level of control, including your precious capitalism.

Well, I'd say by all means make a profit... I like money, it gives people choices. Just don't make money at the expense of someone else.

eg.

Apps that syphon off others sites.

Products that mislead as to their intentions and usefulness.

Giving credit to people who have no option but to eventually default.

BTW. What the hell is the stock market good for anyway?!:confused:

Tying this to Socialism.... amazing........

Anyway. I think the point is that people who will churn out crap in order to make a profit should be called to the carpet. When your way of making a profit INFRINGES ON COPYRIGHTS then you are TAKING AWAY from the profit of the person who actually did the work.

That's not socialism to blast a guy for "making a profit". It is capitalism at its finest. People get up in arms when people have the "profit at any cost" mentality, more specifically when that mindset is based on STEALING from other people in order to line your own pockets.

See how profit can be bad? See how it isn't an anti-capitalism rant to say that this joker was just seeing the dollar signs and looking to get rich because he was interested in "monetization"? Get a grip and stop using this board as a place to twist people's comments into some sort of proof that we are all worth of Joe McCarthy's wrath when we bring up a problem with "profit".

Making a profit? Good. Making a profit by stealing the work of others and misrepresenting products to consumers by overcharging and "marketing" the heck out of crap by oversaturation with stolen material in hopes to find a sucker? Bad. And that doesn't make people who blast it Socialists/Communists/Anarchists/or the Anti-Christ. It makes us ethical.

Very sensible points you have here. It's not wrong to make a profit just as long as you don't rip off other people of their hard work.

Oh my God! It's one of "them", Hon! It's a CAPITALIST!!!!!!!

What in the hell is wrong with making a profit and when, exactly, did Americans finally start drinking the socialism Kool-Aid?

On the other hand, what is wrong with the suggestion that profit shouldn't ALWAYS be the number ONE priority? Why should we not praise a developer who focuses on quality first? We should we not criticize one who puts it last? That really IS a bad thing. Money isn't the ONLY good thing in the world.

Nobody said that he doesn't have the right to make money. The scary "socialism" buzzword just gets abused where it doesn't even apply these days :o

I also don't think you understand all the things this developer actually did. It's as though no matter what he did, it's OK as long as money was involved :o

Good move on Apple's part.

Oh my God! It's one of "them", Hon! It's a CAPITALIST!!!!!!!

Did you enjoy your little rant, there?

I'm all for making money, and being a capitalist, but the person to whom you replied was taking issue with the fact that this developer clearly has no interest in contributing worthwhile software to the App Store. His apps are just a money grab with no interest in backing them with quality. Your knee-jerk reaction is totally off-topic and and, well, makes you look like the radical yourself.

By your line of reasoning we should commend someone for scamming money out of the elderly. They're just trying to make a buck, right? There are plenty of other things to consider in deciding how a capitalist should go about making their buck. I'll take a mom and pop store any day over Walmart.