Red tape

The Macalope is sure that many of the kinks in the iPhone App Store as it exists now will get worked out over time, but one of the purported selling points was that customers would know that they're getting applications that have been vetted by Apple.

That's great and all, but if the "vetting process" means that bug fixes are slow to make it to users, it kind of tends to increase the exposure, rather than decrease it.

[ripragged]

Y'know, this is kind of funny in its way.

Apple didn't really say why it was vetting apps before allowing them to be distributed on the App Store.

My guess is Apple wanted to be reasonable sure only that third-party applications didn't hose up the core functionality Apple had already designed in. In other words, Apple doesn't give a damn what the Apps do, or how well they do it.

The notion that Apple intended to guarantee a bug-free application store was based on an assumption. Probably a wrong one.

It occurs to me Apple was vetting to ensure a broad number of application types and no interference with the iPhone experience as they planned it. Applications that don't work well don't need vetting. They'll die from their own inadequacies.

[abramcove]

The notion that Apple intended to guarantee bug-free applications is not only a wrong assumption, but an impossible one. A level of bureaucracy between users and developers only makes bugs worse.

A less charitable commenter might suggest that Apple is more concerned that some types of applications will upset their business plan than they are of bugs.

[ripragged]

Are you insinuating, sir, that a multibillion dollar global corporation is more concerned about remaining in business -- increasing value for stockholders, creating jobs, advancing the state of technology -- than they are about glitches in third-party Tetris clones?

That's ludicrous. I'll have none of it.