Apple’s App Store Antics are Barriers to Innovation

Photo by Bozhin Karaivanov on Unsplash

It’s the time of year that sees “normal” people buying the latest iPhone. As contracts come up the less-tech-enabled stroll into a T-Mobile store and ask for “the new one”.

Yet the chatter this week is about a very different side of Apple. The US government is generating a landmark lawsuit accusing the tech behemoth of monopolizing the smartphone market through their dodgy App Store practices.

Apple has been playing gatekeeper and — you guessed it- devs are paying to most of all.

What’s Happened

Apple has worked to lock in both customers and developers.

For those poor souls who decide to develop Apple products, they need to give Apple $100 for no good reason. They’ll also need to work on an overpriced machine and buy an overpriced device to test with. Then devs need to hope the App Store gods allow their app onto the store.

It’s allegedly stifling the very innovation that’s supposed to be the lifeblood of Silicon Valley. I mean what other company tries to lock out developers from releasing great software on their platform? Oh yeah. Sony.

Apple’s take

True to form, Apple’s not taking these accusations lying down. There again, as far as developers are concerned Apple also doesn’t care about them (just look at Apple’s documentation).

Apple (of course) doesn’t believe they are using “a series of shapeshifting rules” for the App Store. They’re just securing Apple devices — like that makes sense.

It’s been said that the case will hinge on Apple’s motivation, in which case The Secret Developer believes it’s an open and shut case. Apple cares about Apple, nothing more and nothing less.

The impact on motivation

If the allegations hold, the implications for tech innovation are significant. By setting stringent rules on what apps can and can’t do, Apple might be inadvertently (or not) putting the brakes on technological progress — and have made it worse by failing to be transparent to their developers. 

I do appreciate they are simply acting as any dominant player in the tech market, but the effect this has on developers is simply unfair.

We should be free as developers to make software for whatever platform is available. I’m not against us following some basic rules, but the guards Apple has put on us as developers are just too onerous and stop things from getting better for iPhone users.

Conclusion

While Apple defends its fortress of solitude (and profitability) the tech community is left wondering: When are things going to get better? When can we be left to code and make things better for the customers of our software?