Some People Lie
Jesper and Steven Frank have posted their thoughts on the quote that I mentioned from Steve Jobs: “We don’t run to the press and say, this guy is a son-of-a-bitch liar!” That’s actually pretty much what he just did, except that he planted a vague enough seed of FUD that none of the accused can defend themselves. And tarred all developers with it.
The most distressing App Store stories I’ve run across have been open about their entire communication with Apple. No one would blame you for pointing out fabrications in those stories, and you have chosen not to, which leads me to believe that at least some of them are true—probably all of them. I have a hard time stomaching treating your developers in this backhand, “walled garden,” “curated” way in the first place. It’s getting tough when you reject perfectly fine apps because you don’t feel like it (so much for the “customer benefit”).
I think I draw the line when you call the developers you mistreated “liars”.
It’s making Jesper want to buy an Android phone, a strange lowering of standards:
…that kind of thinking is right now inventing vulnerabilities where they’d otherwise have precious little.
Perhaps the very problem is this whole Apple stoically “taking it on the chin” business. Apple’s near total silence on really incredibly important matters is indeed a huge part of why so many developers, myself included, just don’t trust the damn thing. It’s like a black hole from which no information escapes.
Apple probably sees the black hole as a feature. Trust is less important than control and deniability.
