Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Schiller defends App Store approval policy

‘Schiller claimed 90%of rejectionswere for technical reasons such as bugs or functions that didn’twork as intended’

Faced with the exodus of some high-profile developers of iPhone apps, Apple senior vice-president for worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller granted a rare interview to explain the company’s App Store approval process, which has been variously condemned as confusing, arbitrary and controlling. Schiller spoke to BusinessWeek days after Joe Hewitt, who created the Facebook iPhone app, announced he would no longer develop for the iPhone. Hewitt, who also helped develop the Firefox browser, said his decision ‘had everything to do with Apple’s policies’, which he alleged were ‘setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms’. Another Mac and iPhone developer, Rogue Amoeba, also announced it wouldn’t develop any more iPhone apps after its Airfoil Speakers Touch app was blocked by Apple over alleged trademark infringement.
While Schiller promised Apple would be more flexible, he dedicated most of his interview to defending the company’s approach, and pointed out that Apple approves the vast majority of apps submitted to it by developers. Schiller claimed 90% of rejections were for technical reasons such as bugs or functions that didn’t work as intended. He said that when these problems were fixed Apple approved the apps. Schiller said the remaining 10% of rejections were rejected as ‘inappropriate’. ‘There have been applications submitted for approval that will steal personal data, or which are intended to help the user break the law, or which contain inappropriate content,’ said Schiller. ‘We’ve built a store for the most part that people can trust. You and your family and friends can download applications from the store, and for the most part they do what you’d expect, and they get onto your phone, and you get billed appropriately, and it all just works.’ Schiller pointed out that developers send Apple around

Source of Information : MacUser.January 2010

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