Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, says Apple’s new rules for developers may be backfiring. Via his blog:
How many good apps will be pulled from the App Store before Apple cares?
The problem with sandboxing isn’t that any particular app is incompatible with the current entitlements. It’s a deeper problem than that: Apple is significantly reducing the number of apps that can be sold in the Store after people have already bought them.
Apple’s stance seems to be pretty typical of them: comply with the new rules or leave. This usually works for them, but this time, they’ve made a critical strategic error: leaving is often a better option, or the only option, for the affected developers. Many of them have already left, and many more will.
It’s tragic to see great apps leave the Mac App Store, as it’s a great platform for discovering new apps. But I’d rather have fully functional apps instead of ones that have to make compromises to conform to Apple’s new rules.
