How Apple’s Approval Process Actually Helps Users

Paul Graham wrote an article on how Apple alienates its iPhone developers. He has a good discussion about developers iterating and needing to get a new product in the hands of their users. In fact, he mentions a developer who says the approved app feels crappy next to the daily builds and betas he hands out.

It’s time for these folks to try my G1. Not because it’s better but because Android will annoy the crap out of you. Every day, I get a notification telling me “N number of apps updated.” And every day, I roll my eyes and clear the notification. Users don’t want to go through this process; it’s annoying when it happens on a desktop every few weeks, so it’s even worse on a daily basis on a phone trying to download over a 3G EDGE connection.

Deciding what constitutes a critical bug is difficult – if you’re a lone developer you think everything is important. Should Apple trust you to self-regulate and update only on critical fixes or major new releases?

Apple has an iron fist when it comes to the iPhone and its ecosystem because its advantage is a tightly knit experience. Getting a daily notification while you sync asking you to update or an in-app pop-up with details lessens the polish.

Ultimately, I think this App Store stuff is a way of throttling developers to ensure the experience is not too painful. More updates make users think, and you want to minimize that.