iPhone App Censorship: Overreaction?

The only place users can buy applications for their iPhones is the Apple App Store. Or put another way, if you’re a software developer, the only way you can get your iPhone application out to your customers is via Apple. So if Apple decides not to host your application, you’re effectively cut off from your market.

The frustrating thing for developers is that Apple don’t refuse applications until they’ve been submitted for sale at the App Store. Developers can find themselves in a situation where they’ve put time and resources into what they feel is a commercially viable product, only to find Apple quashing any hope of making a return on their investment.

Why do Apple refuse applications? The explanations seem to vary, but one that has agitated Mac and iPhone commentators is Apple’s decision not to host third party applications that replicate existing Apple applications. One example that has been widely discussed is an application called Podcaster, which Apple have decided not to offer for sale because it replicates (in Apple’s opinion at least) the podcast functionality of iTunes.

Commentators have made the point that competition is a good thing. The more applications there are that do the same thing, the better the best applications end up becoming. We’ve seen that with Internet browsers for example, so the basic argument they’re making is fine. But is their anger with Apple justifiable?

Here’s the thing: the iPhone isn’t a computer platform. While unquestionably platform-like in having an operating system and hardware, Apple doesn’t sell iPhones as a way to access the iPhone OS. They sell iPhones as combination cellphone and iPod units that happen to have a whole slew of advanced technologies thrown in. That’s very different to when Apple or Dell or IBM sell personal computers as tools to access a particular operating system and its compatible software.

Apple aren’t obliged to make the iPhone available to developers. It’s nice that they do, albeit only up to a point. But there’s no obligation on Apple to do so, and that’s the thing many of these commentators are missing.

Asking whether Apple’s approach is sensible is a different question entirely.

As other iPhone-like devices appear, consumers may well end up switching to more open, flexible cellphone/handheld computer devices. It doesn’t require a huge leap of imagination to envisage a situation where the iPhone isn’t the dominant device of its type, with other cellphone/computer hybrids being used more widely because of the richer selection of third party, job-specific software.

To secure the success of the iPhone, Apple need to work carefully to ensure that they make the maximum variety of software tools available, while keeping the device rock-solid and easy to use. It’s probably fair to say that the vast majority of current iPhone owners and prospective purchasers couldn’t care less about what third party applications. But that’s going to change as people adjust their professional lives around constant access to Internet resources as they’ve spent the last twenty years switching from landline to mobile telecommunications. Apple would do well not to alienate too many iPhone developers.