App Store Engineers Unwilling to Face Q&A at WWDC 2009?
Marco.org (via Daring Fireball) shares as much as he can:
The last session of WWDC ‘09 yesterday was about publishing on the App Store. The content of sessions is under NDA, so I can’t tell you what it was about. So I’ll tell you what wasn’t in it: the audience Q&A session that succeeded nearly every other WWDC session and usually provided invaluable access to Apple employees and useful additional knowledge to attendees. The session itself blew through its lightweight examples quickly, ending 45 minutes early. The majority of the audience was clearly there for the Q&A. As people lined up at the microphones around the room, the presenter abruptly showed a simple slide with only “WWDC” in plain lettering, thanked us for coming, and bolted off the stage. The Apple engineers, usually staying around the stage for one-on-one questions, were gone. The lights came up instantly, and it was the only session that didn’t end in music. The audience was stunned.
So are the rest of us.
Apple?
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Yeah wow. That’s crazy. I wonder if it has anything to do with that keynote being their last WWDC ?
You know what I think this is some sort of case where the engineers KNOW in the back of their minds they are in the wrong.. yet they won’t admit to it. Maybe it’s pride? who knows… they obviously did not want to be questioned.
I don’t like the road Apple is taking. They are projecting too much Microsoft evil while filling their pockets with our hard earned money.
@AJ:
Ah, if you have EVER been to a Microsoft event, you would NEVER have made that statement. Microsoft, at its events are a study in Openness.
If there is a legal reason they can’t answer a question, they will just say so, politely, and go on to the next question.
They will always go out of their way to get you the answers to any legitimate question, including taking email addresses for follow-up.
And their MSDN, while highly technical, is the best documentation and how-to for any OS on the planet.
You can accuse Microsoft of a lot of nasty stuff, but snubbing their own developers is not one of them.
I’m sure they were afraid that they would be lynched by the developers present. Still, it would have been better if they appeared and stated that they would not answer questions about any specific pending application approvals, just the process in general.
@icebike is totally right re: Microsoft.
@AJ I have actually been to an event for Visual Studio, and they allowed a bunch of questions from the audience. I was bored by the whole thing in general, but they didn’t shy away like the Apple guys did.
So… had they stayed… what was it the developers would’ve asked that it’s assumed they were avoiding?
@Benji
See Ramon Paster’s response.
@ Benji
Just to give you an idea without having to do any of the legwork myself…
http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/06/12/apples-latest-app-store-rejection-policy/
@AJ: They are projecting too much Microsoft evil
No, this is good old fashioned Apple evil.
Microsoft may be evil, but they have always treated Windows “developers, developers, developers” as their bestest buddies. Apple’s unwillingness or inability to provide support or cooperation in the same league as Microsoft killed Apple in the 80s/90s. The Mac had a technical lead at one point, but applications drive platforms. Better developer support == more developers == more and better apps for your platform. Microsoft saw this, and shifted that advantage completely to Windows, and the Mac withered as a result.
It boggles my mind that not only has Apple not learned this lesson from their own history, but that they have gone one worse, adding opaque app store processes to already poor levels of technical support. Sure, the iPhone seems unassailably on top now — but the Mac’s advantages seemed almost as great in 1985. Apple is creating a developer community eager to go to Android, or to WebOS, or even to WinMo, should any of them rise to “good enough” status. Eventually, some challenger will, and Apple had better wake up to their developers needs before then.
@dev: Apple’s unwillingness or inability to provide support or cooperation in the same league as Microsoft killed Apple in the 80s/90s.
On which planet? On planet Earth Apple withered as it would not license its OS for industry use. Simple as that. It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with providing support or any lack thereof. Microsoft flourished only because their OS was licensed and installed on all non Apple products. If you think Microsoft support in the 80s and 90s drew plaudits and industry cooperation, you are either very young and uninformed or have a very vivid imagination.
i have mixed feelings about apples shady guidelines when accepting an app to the appstore. on the one hand the “no because i said so”, and apparently now “and don’t even talk to me about it” seems pompous and turns off developers. on the other hand i used to have a blackberry storm and could get what ever app i wanted off what ever site i visited. there was so much poorly written code that the phone quickly became useless as did my girlfriends blackberry curve. this doesn;t happen with the iphone
@dev
I am one of those developers eager to leave the iPhone. Every time I deal with Apple I get upset and their lack of communication is appalling. I wish they could be as “evil” as Microsoft. As the actual developers here have noted, Microsoft is wonderful to work with. Apple is the very worst company I have dealt with in my 15 years in the business, and it’s not even close.
As it stands now, I have an existing popular application with a minor update for OS3.0 compatibility that has been sitting in review for two and a half weeks. Tomorrow when people upgrade to 3.0 the application will cease to function for them and they will bomb the review score. Thanks, Apple.
@Ken Dawson
A company can be both hated and loved. MS was hated by much of the industry, but MS absolutely drew plaudits from MSDN developers, and always has. As I stare at my dusty PowerComputing PowerTower Pro150 in the corner, I recall well the impact Apple’s licensing (or lack thereof) had — but I also recall getting any answer I needed on DirectX from Microsoft or its developer community, and a cold shoulder from Apple when I had similar questions developing for Classic MacOS. I also recall Microsoft asking us for feedback, and regularly updating their APIs and tools specifically in response to our answers. Guess which one I, and thousands like me, continued to develop for?
(Hint: check 15 years of USENET posts on how Macs could do anything Windows could do “except games” or “the only thing to still use Windows for is games” — then understand that Apple could have kept at least some presence, had they made any effort to respond to developers who really, really wanted to keep making cross-platform titles. Even as an unlicensed single source hardware provider, Apple could have remained competitive had they kept third party developers in the fold — but they chose not to, and paid the price.)
Face it. I’m sure they just didn’t want the same song-and-dance questions of “BooHoo, my app was rejected. Why?” when every single developer knows (that is, if they read license agreements) that Apple can do what they want. It’s they’re product, and they’re OS, and if they don’t think the App is worthy, then the App needs to find a new idol to worship because the Apple gods aren’t listening anymore.
For the rejected developer, try again. Or on another OS, i.e. Microsoft’s App store (whenever they decide to open the doors) or even for the Android. gasp