Podcaster: It's about the Store, stupid

Man alive, the MacWeb is going nuts about Apple's rejection of the Podcaster app from the iPhone's app store. Fraser Speirs is pulling out of developing new apps. Paul Kafasis is deeply chilled by the move. Steven Frank (aping last month's overheated Mike Ash) predicts an app store for the Mac. Dave Winer reckons this makes the iPhone an unreliable platform. Harry McCraken says, why, this could have killed Photoshop! Chuqui doesn't get it. Even Gruber says it's either a disaster or proof the process is broken.

It's chaos out there. I saw two SDKs hurled out of windows just walking to the shop. They haven't been as restless as this since ... well, never, actually, since no matter how baffling Apple gets there is always some apologist ready to explain what they're up to and why everyone else is wrong.

So, uh, hi.

First, background. The only legit way to get apps on to the iPhone is via the App Store. Apple vets the apps that can get on, and the only guidelines come from a slide in a Jobs speech (which included "unforeseen"). They've already rejected some, then recanted, then rejected them again. They binned a "pull my finger" app for "limited utility". Other decisions have been all over the map, and it doesn't inspire confidence. There really isn't a sense here that the Apple staff vetting these things are entirely sure what rules to judge them by, and they're unquestionably not speaking with one voice. (One Victor Wang especially seems the perfect jobsworth.)

In the rejection note for Podcaster, the reason given was:

Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.

Everyone above seems to think they're talking about the iTunes app. Which makes no sense. At all. There are apps already that "duplicate functionality". PCalc hands the Apple calculator its ass on a plate, and is still on the store. There are notes apps, stocks apps, weather apps. Pandora does streaming radio, just like iTunes. It doesn't "seem strange", it's nonsense.

Because they're talking about the iTunes store. That's what you don't get to compete with. Hence "section". Since when did apps have sections? The store does, though, lots of them. I bet, somewhere in a briefing this Apple employee snoozed through was a desk-slapping warning not to allow a Store competitor go up. iTunes Store is a big strategic deal for Apple. Would they allow Amazon to make an Amazon Music Store app? Not likely.

In fact, this makes the vetting process way more plausible. "No bandwidth hogs" always seemed a little bit lame. Apple wouldn't care, right? "No threats to iTunes Store"? Riiight, gotcha.

So here is Joe Q Appler reviewing Podcaster, having conniptions and banning it for being an iTunes store clone (it isn't, but he's dumb). Not for competing with the desktop app -- Photoshop is safe, phew! -- but for aiming at the Store. Don't step on the money farm. You want to make a portable music store, you're not doing it on the iPhone and especially not on the fricken iPod. You'll need to build the web service, the desktop app, the phone, the phone OS and then the phone app, or cobble together something for Android. Capitalists, meet Mr Raised Barrier To Entry.

This leaves the other horn of Gruber's dilemma:

If this is truly Apple’s policy, it’s a disaster for the platform. And if it’s not Apple’s policy, then Podcaster’s exclusion is proof that the approval process is completely broken.

... and, yes, the approval process appears completely broken. The reasons given so far tell volumes about the low level of the people doing the vetting, and that speaks of the charade the process really is. (Which should already have been clear from looking at the store. Ye gods it's full of shite.)

Some of the calls for an Evangelist are right. Even a halfway decent explanation to developers of what isn't acceptable would help. But, it's doesn't seem like Apple employees are hiding this criteria from developers maliciously; it feels like they don't know.

They don't know because, again, this isn't really about any of the half-assed reasons they've got for only allowing apps to install via the App Store. It is about maintaining Apple's control so that they can stop people wheedling into the middle of their Greater Unified Jukebox. That's why the whole thing is such a shambles: they're winging it, app by app, trying to make up a coherent strategy as they go. With apparently little more to go on than "we are keeping control of what gets on the iPod. You make up some reasons why."

What happens next will be ... interesting.