Update: Facebook's App Developer Quits Over The Approval Process
We've told you yesterday about Joe Hewitt, the App Store's Facebook app developer, quitting the project. Well, Joe Hewitt explained his reasons today, apparently his:
decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies
and he's:
philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process
He'll be nonetheless still working on web development for mobile devices.
Joe Hewitt definitely took a strong stand here, there are more and more complaints about the approval process and even if Apple is trying to be more transparent, there will eventually have to be some changes.
I understand that Apple wants to keep a protected ecosphere for its users but we could very well imagine keeping the App Store just the way it is, with maybe an even stronger approval process. But let people download apps outside of the App Store directly from the web.
Then you would just drag and drop those unofficial apps on iTunes and voilà! It would create some more competition and keep the App Store as a "premium" distribution channel.
What they are doing now is just like if you couldn't buy Apple computers outside of an Apple Store, we should be free to chose where we want to get our apps, just like we can get Apple computers anywhere, even if the buying atmosphere or the sales team are not as good outside of Apple's Stores in my opinion.
[via TUAW]
