Mother Apple May I?

Apple’s been catching some heat lately over its onerous guidelines for iPhone apps and its inconsistent enforcement of its application standards. I’m actually surprised it’s taken this long. In the last few weeks, some well known applications have been denied renewal due to Apple’s perception of being in “poor taste” or the assertion that the app somehow competes directly with an Apple offering. Amazon's recent release of the "Kindle" app could not include a built-in version of the Kindle store, because Apple prohibits allowing purchases within it's apps. And Apple’s inconsistent enforcement of these rules is not helping it's credibility when it comes to policing its own ecosystem. Trust me, as the store grows, it’s only going to get worse.
Apple’s recent rejection of Twitter client “Tweetie” (later overturned) was done based on the mistaken impression that it used foul language (those darn chickens) - which actually turned out to be untrue. Other applications were rejected from the start, denied for being “in bad taste.” Yet despite Apple's high-fallutin' standards, the Unofficial Apple Weblog still found over 60 apps for sale in the Apple store that simulate “farting”. Apple's policy prohibits apps which contain profanity, yet Apple sells – literally – hundreds of songs with the “F” word in the title. (Technologizer’s Harry McCracken did a great piece on this here – as well as the great picture above.)
Of course, Apple seems to have no problem allowing apps to compete against one another – like the numerous flashlight or tip calculation applications out there. Just as long as nobody competes against Apple itself. And therein lies the crux of the trouble. Competition builds better software, people! Without it, customers suffer. Only an ego the size of Steve Jobs could assume that Apple can write every application it sets its mind to better than anybody else in the world.
Aspiring i-authors with better ideas can’t write turn-by-turn GPS applications – desperately needed on the iPhone – because it’s prohibited. Got a great idea on how to make a better mp3 organizer? prohibited. A better SMS messaging app or a clever voice over ip tool like Skype? Verboten. It just astounds me, (and clearly millions of others who’ve gone to the trouble of jailbreaking their phones to get around this), that the system would be so close-minded. Isn’t this thing actually MY phone anyway?

Perhaps most troubling is the fact that after spending months developing a piece of software for the iPhone, and then having it approved, Apple can still pull it from the store - even after it’s been deployed! Imagine your company is considering writing custom sales app on the iPhone. Do you risk Apple turning it off because they’re releasing a new CRM tool? Or Apple deciding that your app competes with their contacts tool? There’s no corporate software architect in his right mind that would accept those limitations for anything but the most trivial apps. When your choice is to spend money only on things you can afford to lose, you don’t take a serious bet on the platform. And that's a shame.

Either way, it’s probably agreed that the world really doesn't need more tasteless apps, and this isn't about preserving boobies or flatulence on the iPhone. Apple’s ability to pull any app it wants, at any time, for any reason, is simply trouble waiting to happen. It prevents folks from seriously considering the device as a platform.

The fact is, Apple should want as many apps as possible on it's devices! Proliferating inexpensive tools to build and deploy inexpensive software is the perfect way to entrench operating systems and sell hardware. In the early 90’s, IBM-dominated enterprises began dumping their IBM OS2 rollouts for Windows when it became clear that Microsoft’s $39 “Visual Basic” development tool was a viable platform for creating a new generation of desktop applications. Applications development shops exploded with new Windows developers, and IBM was left without a horse or rider in the budding PC race. They never recovered.

I'm confident the iPhone has tremendous potential as an enterprise app platform. But Apple’s controlling mentality is doing more than forcing them to miss out on much larger corporate revenue opportunities. It’s building distrust among it’s authorship – preventing folks from taking risks with it, and making Apple look puritanical and petty in the process.

Then again, I guess it could be worse. At least it's not running Windows mobile.