A lot has been said about Apple’s AppStore. There are mixed opinions, and I’m sort of in both camps, if that’s possible. While I think it’s probably the best part about the new iPhone (just like Bill de hÓra), building and distributing your application doesn’t come without sacrifices.
I bought an iPod Touch just to use the AppStore, I’m pretty excited about it, and I don’t really care about the iPhone itself. I might get me one once it’s available without locking myself into a specific carrier (for a decent price, that is), but until then the iTouch will do. I just wanted to have the applications. Though there’s lots of repetitive applications in the store, and a lot of the applications just don’t have any use (for me anyway), there’s still lots of good stuff. The first application I bought was OmniFocus, in my opinion even better than the desktop version.
But on the other hand, there’s good reason to be concerned about Apple’s model. No beta testing, no trial runs, no open source (hopefully, that’ll change, the WordPress team sure doesn’t seem to care), Apple’s approval process and so on. I’d highly recommend reading through Steven Frank’s (of Panic fame) opinion on the issue. As a long-time Mac developer he has some rather mixed feelings on the issue.
The AppStore is still young, and hopefully Apple will listen to its users. The first step will hopefully be removing the NDA clauses from the SDK license agreement. I want to see Macistrano on the iPhone and on GitHub.
Via Stefan Tilkov.