Although most of the comments about Apple’s plans for enterprise support and third-party development for the iPhone and iPod touch strike me as essentially positive, there are certainly serious questions as to how it’ll all play out.
Obviously, we won’t know all the answers until the iPhone 2.0 firmware is available in June (assuming it ships on time), and software becomes available via the Apps Store. But I think I can make a few credible guesses right now, and the news looks really good for everyone, including the small and large developers who are even now working on iPhone software.
After paying $99 per year for admission into the developer program, or $299 for the enterprise program, Apple will exact a 30% take on every sale of an iPhone application. If your application is free, no problem. Apple will distribute it free of charge.
However, whether or not shareware will be allowed isn’t exactly clear, since payment often isn’t made until you’ve had a chance to give the software a try. Even then, you may decide not to pay and stop using it.
Now on the surface, it would seem that a 30% commission might be a tad expensive, but it’s actually an outstanding bargain, and I don’t think Apple’s going to profit very much as a result. Consider that the average retailer will grab 50% from a software company for selling their product, and the company will still have to pay for distribution and promotion. With the Apps Store, Apple will take care of anything, and then send you a check for the balance. That means they’ll host your content, run the promotional blurbs, pictures, everything. I also suspect they’ll feature hot-selling or specially selected products at the top of the list, if iTunes is an example.
Now when you add up the cost of doing all this yourself, particularly if you are a one-person company, you can see where just building and supporting your product and collecting payments for sales is a far more economical proposition. To be sure, I can’t see where Apple would stop you from promoting your killer iPhone application independently with banner ads, print ads, radio spots, whatever. You’d simply point to Apple as the distributor of your stuff. Makes sense to me.
However, the second part of the equation might not seem so compelling. You see, Apple isn’t just going to sell whatever you give them, contrary to the way things work with the entertainment companies on iTunes. They will reserve the right to reject your product for whatever reasons suit them. In practice, this will mean that dancing nudes might not see the light of day, nor would software that appears to encourage illegal activity. This might mean that you won’t get, say, a Bit Torrent sort of program, because that could be used to promote digital piracy.
There may, of course, be gray areas where a product would seem to be essentially legal in scope, but might be readily abused, but I can see where you can do that with most anything, so that would mean Apple The Gatekeeper wouldn’t approve anything, which is simply absurd.
Again, Apple’s level of censorship won’t be known until the products are available, and those who found their products on the reject list have a chance to complain publicly.
On another front, I can see where Apple might do one good thing, which is that they will, at the very least, certify that a product functions as advertised and doesn’t present a serious compatibility and/or security problem. Right now, there are thousands and thousands of applications available for your Mac. But, aside from user ratings, which may not come for a while with a newly-released program, you really have no way of knowing in advance whether it’ll perform properly, or will just send your Mac crashing away.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the folks who run the existing download sites should be more focused on certifying products before they are posted. On the other hand, assuming that such things aren’t done in an arbitrary fashion, or because a developer handed them a check for special display in big, bold type, it might be a good idea. Of course an active user community that reports frequently on how products work in the real world might just be enough.
When it comes to Apple, however, they will be putting their good name on the line in distributing iPhone and iPod touch software. They are going to be extremely careful, especially at the beginning as the roll-out progresses. This also means that not everyone who applies will be automatically approved for admission to the developer or enterprise programs.
However, it would be nice if the folks who were able to jailbreak iPhones in a friendly fashion, which means to run useful utility software and not unlock the things, get early opportunities to develop street legal applications. I expect they can leverage their experience with the platform to create great products that will greatly enhance your enjoyment of your iPhone and iPod touch.
But as I said, this is all preliminary. Ask me again in June.