A few days ago, Jenna Wortham of the New York Times wrote a great story on the iPhone App Store. The article includes interviews with iPhone developers, compares developing apps for the iPhone to developing apps for other smartphones, and includes some interesting quotes from Apple executives such as Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Marketing, who explained to the Times that Apple is trying to do the right thing:
“I think, by and large, we do a very good job there,” Mr. Schiller said. “Sometimes we make a judgment call both ways, that people give us feedback on, either rejecting something that perhaps on second consideration shouldn’t be, or accepting something that on second consideration shouldn’t be.”
For Apple, the review process is a necessary evil. The company places high value on what it describes as “customer trust,” or the idea that users have faith that an application distributed on the iPhone won’t crash the platform, steal personal information or contain illegal content.
Mr. Schiller says the majority of applications sail through the review with no difficulty, and those that do require greater scrutiny are largely those that are slowed down by bugs or glitches in the coding.
“We care deeply about the feedback, both good and bad,” he says. “While there are some complaints, they are just a small fraction of what happens in the process.”
This article reminds me of statements Apple made this past August which I discussed here. If you enjoy using third party apps on your iPhone, I think you will enjoy reading this New York Times article. And there is also a good related article in which Schiller lists some of his favorite apps.
