I was looking through my RSS feeds this morning and stumbled across a Slashdot article that talks about the current situation regarding the iPhone Developer program through Apple.
The article mentions that the current waiting line to join the developer program has stretched from waiting weeks to waiting for a few months. Having recently joined the developer program in December, I can say that it definitely has started taking longer to join the program. I purchased the $99 developer access on December 7, 2009, and had my first applications in the waiting line a week later; however, it wasn’t until the third week in January that my contract was approved and my apps went into the store. I think this is a real problem.
Also mentioned in the Slashdot article is the Android phone. While I believe Apple has beaten the Android OS in almost every regard, the iPhone falls short when comparing it to Google’s open development standards. I would love nothing more than to see Apple fully open the device up to the developers who are wanting to create applications. Sure, require the digital signing in order for the apps to run, but don’t limit the developer’s creativity with the SDK restrictions! There are tons of good applications that will probably never see the light of day on the App Store because of Apple’s choking standards.
I believe that if Apple would lighten up a little bit with their SDK restrictions that developers could really make this device shine (even more than it already does). Google really has a good thing going for them. Yes, they have a marketplace, but they also allow developers the ability to give downloads from their own site that can be installed (legally) on the device. I think this is a far better system than what Apple has proposed, and just might “win” in the end. After all, why should Apple limit their users? It’s 2009, not 1999.
