Joe Hewitt › Comments

Like the Apple Store? :) - Ray Cromwell

Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery - Charles Ying

You've obviously never worked for a large company. - Glen Campbell

You would be amazed how many large corporations still do this. - dthree

First off, it doesn't matter what the developer wants; decisions are made by the product manager and reviewed by the higher product review board and the VP of product. Then the UED team gets involved and the design has to be done, redone, pitched, explained, and revised. The change also needs to make it onto the next quarter's roadmap, where it can be evaluated in light of other... more... - Glen Campbell

I'm not ignoring the fact that corporations go through a lengthy process to ensure the quality of their products. Of course Facebook does this too, and so do I personally. The point is, we are the ones who are qualified to determine when the app is ready. Apple is just a middleman, and they have a very limited ability to test the quality of our app. - Joe Hewitt

A couple times Apple has caught bugs in our app and notified me of it, but they have also missed huge bugs that went through. The app on the store right now is orders of magnitude more buggy than the one sitting in the review queue. - Joe Hewitt

I can only assume the review process is there for Apple to test compliance with their terms of service, and any bugs they find along the way are incidental. Thank goodness the web doesn't have a terms of service and a review queue. - Joe Hewitt

With 40 apps per day per reviewer, I'm surprised the approval process works as well as it does. - PXLated

Has any other company ever been faced with as many apps in such a short period as Apple - Just curious - PXLated

If we developers always programmed everything to be perfect before releasing it, nothing would ever get released. ; ) - John Wang

it would look like an MMO they release half broken stuff every two weeks like clockwork - Robert Higgins

Your question mentioned nothing of Apple and the App Store. I was merely responding to the question asked. Specifically, if, each time a developer wanted to change their site, it had to be approved by a committee with a 2-week delay, it would represent a vast improvement in the speed of delivery of site changes and probably a corresponding decline in the quality. Apple imposes their... more... - Glen Campbell

Sorry, Glen, the context in almost all of my tweets relates to iPhone development :) - Joe Hewitt

Of course, Apple can do whatever they want, and I can go elsewhere. I am making suggestions on how they can improve their flea market and prevent people from going elsewhere. I believe the web has set the precedent that big platforms like the iPhone can thrive even without a centralized quality control bottleneck. - Joe Hewitt

But Joe, the iPhone isn't like the web as a whole - it's more like gaming platforms and probably more open then they are. Will be interesting to see what happens on Android and if in fact it is more open, and if so what kind of chaos may ensue. - PXLated

Are you serious - "prevent people from going elsewhere" - Where? And pass up the iPhone audience/marketplace? Even if Android is a success, developers won't leave iPhone in spite of all the bitching. - PXLated

The iPhone is not a "gaming platform" until they tell me I can't develop anything but a game for it. A significant chunk of iPhone apps, mine included, are basically iPhone-optimized websites written in Objective-C. I admit that I don't see anyone, myself including, abandoning Apple over this issue, but I do believe that the quality of apps on the platform is being hurt by it. Just because other platforms are even more restrictive, like Playstation or some mobile platforms, is not an excuse. - Joe Hewitt

It's not an excuse but none is needed, Apple developed a platform and set the rules just as the gaming platforms did/do. I'm personally not sure the (overall) quality is being hurt either. - PXLated

In fact, maybe Apple should be a lot more restrictive - 65K apps probably confuses the hell out of many users. Maybe they need a rating system and then start eliminating the poorly performing apps. Get it down to a reasonable (best of breed) 5K ;-) - PXLated

"Apple developed a platform and set the rules" - well there's a news flash. I don't think anyone needed to be informed of that. I think Joe's just trying to make the point that centralized control isn't necessary for the good apps to rise to the top. Would you consider the web to be a success if there were 65k sites (please don't get pedantic and point out that sites aren't apps; the argument holds for any reasonable multiplier)? - Joel Webber

"Get it down to a reasonable (best of breed) 5K" - And exactly from what larger pool would you take that best of breed? If the breed's too small, you can't *have* a best-of-breed. The web's an unholy mess, but its size and chaos are precisely what makes it successful. People still manage to find the good stuff. - Joel Webber

It would look like the website where I work.... - Don Schuetze

What would the web look like if a developer could be shut down for an alleged ToS violation? Like FaceBook? - Kevin Marks

That's a lot better than how web applications ship. Please allow a few months before we change it. - Burcu Dogan

Apple is famous to put limitations at the beginning and then drop them ( remember drm?) I am pretty confident that the approval process will be easier and quicker in the near future. - funkyboy from iPhone

You would have [insert any corporate review process here]. For significant changes, this is understandishable. However, it gets insidious when everything looks like a nail ... even if it isn't. - Joe D'Andrea