Just saw a bit of a rant by M.G. Siegler on TechCrunch about Apple’s review process for iPhone applications. Apple has banned a variety of applications from the iPhone Apps Store, sometimes while allowing very similar applications through. Even for applications that don’t trigger arguments over appropriateness of content, the review process itself is lengthy and unpredictable. I can think of few other industries where the final step of the production process – putting the product into the hands of users – is held up for an indefinite period of time by an organization who has final say on the matter, doesn’t post the rules, and provides no guidance during the development process.
Here’s Siegler’s piece:
Let’s Stop Picking On Those iPhone App Reviewers. Actually, Let’s Not..
I mention it on this blog because I had an idea for an iPhone healthcare application that we’ve decided not to pursue because we’d have to go through the App Store approval process. The content wouldn’t have been objectionable, but we would have had to develop quite a few variations on the application for different projects, and the 1-4 week (or more) delay on approvals before we could push the app to real users made the whole thing seem a little less than viable. And I don’t think I’m the only one – a tremendous amount of the value in mobile health tools would come from very customized apps, designed for a particular clinical trial, a particular hospital, a particular quality improvement program, etc. As of today, Apple doesn’t make that possible.
That’s worth re-iterating: the Mobile Health applications that will have a real impact are going to be the little ones customized to particular projects across the whole healthcare value chain. Small contributions individually, but huge in aggregate.
Windows Mobile supports this model a bit more cleanly, but the hardware and software platform just isn’t as good (and I carry a top-of-the-line HTC Windows Mobile Touch Pro from Sprint, which is about as good as it gets if you need a keyboard). I have things I want to deploy to patients and clinical investigators on iPhones and iPod Touches, and as of right now the logistics are making that impossible.
Maybe version 3.0 of the iPhone software will help out here. Come on, Apple.
Dumb question: Is the App Store the only way to distribute and install applications onto an iPhone?
Surely, there’s another way to get an app built in Objective C into the phone… or?
There must be a mechanism for development purposes (I can’t imagine they’d expect that everyone would test only in a sandbox), although to be fair I don’t know for sure. I do know that any alternative approach to cramming an app on is well beyond what could be expected of the average user.
I did hear that enterprise provisioning of apps will be part of the 3.0 release. If that’s true, I’m looking forward to seeing how it’s implemented.
Apple makes two programs available for non-App Store distribution: the “Enterprise Distribution” method (for ≥500 person companies/institutions) and the “Ad Hoc Distribution” method, which permits an individual developer to distribute to up to 100 devices. The latter was introduced a couple of months ago. Nevertheless there’s a lot of room for improvement; here’s hoping some if it comes in 3.0.