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A familiar icon to the users of an iPhone or iPod Touch

Apple has come under fire lately from some members of the community development base for its Application Store policies. The issues being raised are complaints about inconsistent quality standards, as well as Apple’s firm stance against applications that attempt to compete with, upgrade or replace any of Apple’s native applications, such as e-mail clients or java plug-ins to facilitate internet browsing. The boundaries being placed on the App Store are limiting innovation and development within the community, and ultimately the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms are suffering for it.

Recently, two applications which would benefit the device greatly were denied from the Application Store. The first was a podcast downloading application, which would automatically retrieve recent updates and replace podcast subscriptions on a phone whenever the user established a wireless connection. Though an alternative has not been presented by Apple and podcasts are all free, community generated and submitted content, this development was declined because its offerings were too similar (in Apple’s eyes) to the iTunes program already installed on the platform. Also a strong submission to the usefulness of the iPhone/iPod Touch was a feature-added e-mail client. The native Mail client on the platform provides basic functionality; at present e-mails can be retrieved, read, deleted, forwarded and replied to. Additional applications hoped to add the ability to sign in to two separate accounts at once and fetch mail from each, instead of having to log in to one account, check mail, log out and log in to the other account.

These applications are admittedly a luxury on an already capable platform very rich in content. At a glance, the Application Store offers over 1000 games, 260 productivity applications and over 500 utilities. These figures, however, are deceptive in terms of innovation and functionality. Of those productivity applications, almost one hundred are to-do list applications. Of those games, many are different versions of familiar favorites, such as pong, crossword puzzles and Sudoku. So though the store itself is swelling with content, much of it firmly adheres to convention and imitation. However, the competition in these areas forces creativity and ensures that the cream rises to the top. It’s for exactly this reason that by denying applications that have the potential of duplicating and improving upon Apple’s built-in applications that Apple is crippling its own development.

Eventually, this will discourage the development community, who may take their talents to other platforms, specifically Google’s new mobile phone operating system, Android. Android offers an application store similar to Apple’s. Google has established a strong development community with its easy-to-use software and welcomes all third party developers with open arms. If Android mimics this recipe for success, then it may find its way into more hands than the iPhone.