In the wake of Apple’s sudden decision to remove nearly all “sexy” applications from the App Store, we’ve been hearing that the company is also clamping down on so-called “cookie-cutter” applications — iPhone apps that are built from templates using one of the many app-building services available. This would be yet another major change for the App Store, as it already features thousands of such applications. And, perhaps more important, quite a few companies have sprung up to facilitate building iPhone applications. I’ve reached out to Apple to ask if they’d like to clarify their stance, but given their lack of transparency in the past, I’m not betting on getting anything definitive. To try to get to the bottom of the current situation, I spoke with multiple developers (some of whom wished to remain anonymous) to find out what Apple was telling them.
Between the developers I spoke to, the consensus was this: Apple doesn’t appear to be opposed to ‘app generators’ and templates per se, but in the last month or so it has started cracking down on basic applications that are little more than RSS feeds or glorified business cards. In short, Apple doesn’t want people using native applications for things that a basic web app could accomplish. For some of these services that’s bad news, because that’s exactly the sort of application they produce; any new applications they submit are going to get rejected. But all hope isn’t lost for them, provided they can make their apps more useful.
Unlike the ‘sexy’ app ban that took place a few weeks ago, when Apple gave developers no options to keep their apps on the store, over the last month the company has been reaching out to at least a few app building services to suggest what they should be doing.
The founders of Appmakr, which has been used by publications like The Atlantic to build iPhone applications, say that the process has been quite positive (though they are quick to clarify that applications built with their tools are more full-featured than the basic RSS apps described above). After some suggestions from Apple, the service is integrating new features like in-app purchases, instant notifications, offline access, and landscape viewing modes to their app templates. Another developer mentioned that they might include a tip calculator for restaurant apps. Appmakr’s hope (and one that I’m sure is shared by other developers) is that applications generated using their tools will eventually be given an accelerated path through the App Store’s approval process, because Apple is familiar and happy with the kind of apps they produce.
However, from what I’ve gathered not everyone is having as much luck as the Appmakr team. Multiple developers mentioned that they’d heard of some app vendors that Apple wasn’t being nearly as accommodating towards — I suspect services offering the most basic templates are getting hit hardest. That said, the developers I spoke to said that they’d only heard about Apple blocking newly submitted applications, and that there wasn’t an indication that Apple is going back and removing all of the overly-basic apps they can find.
So why is Apple doing this? Here’s what Medialets CEO Eric Litman had to say, which I think perfectly summarizes the situation.
This is the ongoing balance point between encouraging innovation and growth on one side and wanting to tightly control user experience on the other. Apple wants iPhone apps to be superior to Web experiences because they are extremely sticky and drive people specifically to buy the iPhone over competing smartphone platforms. Apps that are too simple or largely indistinguishable from the Web, other apps or particularly other apps on other platforms send the message to end users that the iPhone app ecosystem might not be particularly special.
Now the challenge for Apple is that the app building platforms are extremely attractive to a wide swath of the market that would otherwise be reluctant to bear the cost and complexity of developing an app from scratch. We have already seen apps from personal bloggers up to major media brands using some of these platforms, and many of the folks in that spectrum have content Apple would certainly want in the App Store. Interestingly, some of those same developers also have fully custom-built apps in the App Store, too.
So what are the platforms to do about the recent crackdown from Apple? There’s really only one choice if they want to continue to exist on the iPhone: invest in building out considerably more flexibility into their platforms to allow each app to differ from the others they build. Integrate more features and take the time to nail the design and UI elements to be representative of what Apple wants to see in every app.
For better or worse, Apple will be looking more closely at apps from the platforms than from individual developers. AppLoop, the first startup to announce and iPhone-specific app builder, is already gone. Others will almost certainly follow.
Overall, this will almost certainly result in a better experience for users as they have to deal with fewer spammy apps. But, as I wrote when Apple launched its war on sex apps last month, the policy change may also scare developers. After effectively sending a message to developers that basic applications were okay, Apple is again changing its mind. Some developers may be hesitant to build their businesses around the iPhone, knowing that at any moment Apple could have a change of heart and cut off their only mode of distribution.
Thanks to Robert Strojan for the tip
Photo by Goosmurf
Silly people, apps aren’t just for smart phones http://smi.sh/04db9
http://SeattleClouds.com has a WYSIWYG html page editor which helps build iPhone apps from building blocks and customize each page using CSS, custom images, backgrounds, etc
Besides a different browsing experience with animations like slide, curl, flip, http://SeattleClouds.com provides Push Notifications system and an entire review system integrated on each page. Each item featured on a page can be rated on a 5-start rating system.
After logging in with Facebook Connect users can write a comment or review.
It is a totally different type of app builder, allowing to build rich content apps with attractive interactive features.
This sounds evil, but what can we do? I guess this applies to all developers who doesn’t have the guts to file a lawsuit against them… oh, wait “Don’t be evil” right? I say its quite the opposite.
On the contrary, if you want your app to be approved you may want to follow the footsteps of this person. Let this story be a sample: http://bit.ly/mr-ifart-didnt-fart-but-plead-to-iphone
that is the real market need?
the correct solution to mediocre apps is for apple to create a “web app” section in the AppStore -
This approach retains the focusing advantage of the AppStore but clearly let’s users know that they are getting the capabilities of HTML not of full-on cocoa.
apple can add value to tge generic web apps on other webkit platforms by:
a) offering enhanced cocoa-inspired jscript & ruby frameworks that are integrated into Dashcode/Xcode (apple already is using these in a limited number of it’s own web apps)
b) offering some hooks into the hardware (notice that it’s competitors offer I/O abstractions preponderantly at the o/s level, not up in the web part of the application stack).
Apple has every incentive to enrich the web experience on its i*star platforms – and brand accordingly: namely to suffocate Flash as a viable alternative to Ajax on other non-apple web platforms.
However, a word of caution about culling on the AppStore is obviously in order given apple’s egrigiously arbitrary & appallinglly censorial conduct in the last year: the pursuit of quality shouid not come at the expence of the core values of the apple brand – freedom, independence, non-conformity.
No PG rating (or stamp of approval by the Chinese communists trying to coverup their campaign of ethnic cleansing in tibet) is worth insultng the intelligence or the integrity of its loyal customers.
Apple already does this: http://www.apple.com/webapps/
Yes… but I’m willing to bet 99.9% of iPhone and iPod Touch users have never heard of “web apps” and wouldn’t know where, why or how to get one.
I think putting them into the store somehow is a good idea.
I would avoid a web app section if I were Apple. Nothing to gain and everything to lose. It would be one more thing to manage and one more thing to get torn apart in the press for (for either promoting or failing to promote content X). Web apps should promote themselves like any normal website might. A site that offers a web app need only say so, and users would become aware of web apps in very short order.
isn't ,
http://SeattleClouds.com has a WYSIWYG html page editor which helps build iPhone apps from building blocks and customize each page using CSS, custom images, backgrounds, etc
Besides a different browsing experience with animations like slide, curl, flip, http://SeattleClouds.com provides Push Notifications system and an entire review system integrated on each page. Each item featured on a page can be rated on a 5-start rating system.
After logging in with Facebook Connect users can write a comment or review.
An easy way to build rich content apps with attractive interactive features.
Like this high-quality app?
http://seattleclouds.com/myapplicationview.aspx?id=pd&ownerun=tonyelahi&appname=pd
Or this:
http://seattleclouds.com/myapplicationview.aspx?id=businessjets&ownerun=inflightelite&appname=businessjets
Your comments seem a bit spammy too.
This is a good step by Apple to improve quality of the apps.
It has happenned to me a few times in the past, that I paid $0.99 for an app — which turned out to be really really really basic and underwhelming. In fact, some of them just display a web page (using embedded safari in their app), pretending that the app is constructing the info!
Its difficult to check every app, and many basic apps will sneak through, but my experience with app store will be better if I dont see these rudimentary useless apps (and crappy sexy apps) in my search results..
Completely agree!!
Apple is God and I will agree to whatever it says. There is no point saying Apple is rotten from Inside. Seriously, there is no point. Oh boy! I love Glenn Beck.
absolutely… there is so much spam app it is nuts. simple apps that have like 20 versions and the only difference is the artwork (minimal). each selling for $1.
These apps are designed to sucker people into buying them.
Good move Apple!
yea like all of epictilt (jirbo in disguise) ‘s apps/games.
they make one shitty game and then have it reskinned as 20 other versions and spam the store with it, what makes it worse is updating each of them just to put different ads in on a weekly, sometimes daily basis.
this is what delays the good apps from entering the store.
There should be a usage meter. If it shows usage below a agreed upon number, the app is removed and money is refunded. The number can be displayed along with other specs. Users can be allowed to search on the basis of this number. On the other hand, if the usage is exceeded, the deal gets locked in and the provider is notified.
“Overall, this will almost certainly result in a better experience for users as they have to deal with fewer spammy apps.”
This is the important part, and the good news.
I’d guess the only developers affected by this are those building app generators–not the far greater majority of developers building their apps by hand.
Agree this is good news. Less crap makes things more interesting.
In this way, Apple can go to the china market, not like the google, don’t following the china’s law. aha, this is I guess, after all, china market is so big…
We had the same experience with Apple. We are group of developers from Seattle developing iPhone apps. Apple contacted us asking to raise the quality bar and provide more interactive features for the apps we have been building using our online tool http://seattleclouds.com
For the last 3 weeks we raised the quality of the apps considerably, adding features like GPS location, interactive Maps, feedback/review systems, 5-star rating system.
Overall this is a good thing as we all will end up with higher quality apps, rich content and nice interactive features.
Apple reviewed our work and gave us feedback, which we used to improve and develop new features.
Why does this post sound like there’s a gun to your head.. (perhaps one with a minimalist design and elegantly placed Apple(r) Logo) ? lol
Because it’s crappily written and reeks of spam. Yes, everyone should visit http://seattleclouds.com so they too can be a part of the next failure startup! Can’t you read, Seattle Clouds? Apple just killed your whole niche market in a series of seconds. Guess you’ll have to go back to domain hijacking and AdSense landing pages again…
I know the SeattleClouds people personally and I know they’re doing the right thing on the technical side, and will continue going in the direction of more interactivity. They start out with the assumption that you don’t have to be a developer to build a feature-rich mobile app – and I think that this kind of democratization is a good thing – the vision is to let people create things that are much more than glorified business cards.
And yes, the comments do seem spammy – but please don’t confuse the quality of their “social marketing” (which I’m sure will improve after this thread :) with the quality of the product.
By the way, note that Diana’s comment is not just self-promotion – I think it’s interesting to have the “cookie-cutter app makers” themselves comment on the story – the fact that this process prompted them to add features to their app builder, and the fact that there was a conversation with Apple in this process, were both interesting facts at least to me.
I agree-as long as Apple continues to make its requirements clear, this is a good step for both developers and consumers.
“as long as Apple continues to make its requirements clear”
Are you joking?
The article indicates Apple refuses to give any specific requirements. The only quotes are from developers who are apparently so scared of Apple that they had to remain anonymous.
A commitment to a quality user experience is commendable, but let’s not pretend they are not dictatorial.
Stop spamming techcrunch with your stupid seattleclouds posts.
provide the joomla development service
Open source is where its at. period.
I don’t want some company telling me what apps are useful and not. Also im getting sick of hearing about the iphone and its apps.
This is not good. Apple should be trying to look more open than this. It doesn’t look good to developers at all. With my own concerns developing on their platform existing, adding this to the mix sure doesn’t help things.
How much more obscure do their requirements need to be? Impossible to please it sounds.
I’m not against building quality applications. But being a developer I create things of quality, I don’t build quality in as a feature. Polish a turd? Makes a cookie cutter turd really.
Gotta love the Ampelmännchen cookie mold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampelm%C3%A4nnchen
Hi, this is a good article. At my company, BigForge.com, we’ve worked to build a platform that gives the non-coder access to specific phone features that you wouldn’t get from a web application. We’ve also built an engine and process so that not everyone has to submit an app to the app store to get the full “iphone app experience”. Our approach is a good middle ground for the masses, but for the truly customized solutions, we offer reduced development time and a well tested infrastructure to maintain and support the app. That’s really the added value of many of the app builders, and those features will determine which app builder companies become viable businesses, and which just churn out business card applications.
Everyone knows spam wont sell. What is the purpose of this article, Apple routinely rejects dumb apps. Looks like this article was done for medialets CEO.
This is actually a good thing. Previously, I never understood why Apple spouted the number of apps in the App Store as a good thing. Most of them were utter crap. You’d spend hours just wading through garbage.
I’d much rather have a smaller App Store with quality apps than what we have today. They’re correct in that a large number of these apps are things that could better exist as web pages and offer no real value.
What’s actually shocking is that so many people spent money on what was basically garbage, but you can’t get that same audience to fork over cash for much better online services.
I agree with what Apple is trying to do, there are so many pointless apps out there it makes it difficult for developers like me to get discovered, thats why companies like Appboy http://appboy.com are really taking off.
This is a good thing. There are devs who do nothing but crank out as many rss feeds on a webpage applications as possible. The store is flooded with this stuff to the point it drowns out devs who create unique and useful applications.
When you go to a highly rated restaurant you don’t want the menu to 50 flavors of microwave burritos, which is exactly what all these web pages as apps are.
Quality over Quantity!
We have fond memories of the heady days when we launched in early August 2008 and were within the first 1500 apps on the apps store. We were fortunate enough to be one of the six featured apps on iTunes when the app store section launched there.
By February 2009 I suspected we would hit 100k apps before year end (which it did) and pondered the upper limit to a managed app store. Even 500k or a million apps could turn the store into a mess of crap (crapp?) where users would have to sieve through dozens or 100s of apps (crapps?) to find something they like, let alone Apple having to deal with the torrent of submissions and their upgrades. Apps can have several upgrades, we are on v1.4.2 and each of our revisions went through a 2 – 7 day approval process.
Managing their ecosystem at current growth rates may ultimately prove unwieldy and I suspect Apple will have to further raise the bar in other ways to limit the number of submissions.
Increasing the cost of the developer license of $100/year maybe another one coming down the pike soon rather than later, as distasteful as that would be to developers.
It will be interesting to see Apple continue to evolve the app store management process and balance this against how it retains and attracts developers. The current status quo is unsustainable.
Apple is better off simply putting down an app development policy in English so everyone understands what they really want and not waste their time.
I’m usually against Apple on a lot of stances they take but I am actually for this. This isn’t censorship. This is a crap filter.
Apple is getting ready for CS5…
This is long term consistency. Once Apple provided the “computer for the rest of us” and an App Maker, HyperCard came with the computer.
One of the first things SJ did on his return to Apple was drop HyperCard- because he didn’t want the rest of us doing it for ourselves.
It seems to me Apple should engineer an Apple Iphone Apps.policy which focuses primarily on enhancing the user’s experience of the device.These Applications need to reflect a market vibe which requires improved utility from its use.
As part of a team of developers who work with rather rich apps I might be somewhat biased, but still – I have to say this is good news, not only for the devs, but also for the people looking for apps to buy.
BUT the problem would not be there if Apple took half as much time developing the App Store as it now does trying to exclude apps.
The App Store could be much better in all cases, both in the iPhone and on the computer software.
I often find myself wading through tons of homepages, ranking systems, iTunes comments and other stuff just to find that app that I needed.
Why not try to integrate userbased comments and ranking with professional comments, more walkthroughs, trial periods and so on – right into the App Store?
The whole system with top lists sorted per countries feels old. Give us something new!
Does this mean Apple will be removing 99,500 out of the 100,000 apps from their store? That seens to be how many of them that are junk, cookie cutter apps.
Great to see Apple doing something here. The article below describes the problem pretty well (with stats and all…)
http://www.appmanifesto.com/insights/2010/01/app-store-tsunami-of-crap-apps-will-get-worse-opportunity-presents-itself-to-android/
its the big improff from apple i think
This could be to the long term benefit of the app store. I really wish apple would develop a more open relationship with app developers though. I guess it’s a balancing act on their part but it needs to be more transparent.
Apple is getting annoying! Bes thing you can do is jail break your phone so you can put anything you want on it.
Wee
http://www.total-anonymity.us.tc
Apple also objects to web-clips as native apps.
If the intent is to clean up Apple’s image
- why not clear the “fart” apps?
- why clear the apps with girls in swimsuits (made my joe developer), but allow SI to maintain their swimsuit application? Or playboy to keep there application, but purge everyone else’s? (does $$ sound familiar)
The app approval process has always been opaque (at the best of times) and draconian (at the worst). This makes Apple look worse than having a jiggling boob app.