Not Raising the Gates

In response to my article App Store allows developers to spam the submission and review process, MacStories published an article Raising the Gates Is Not the Way to Improve the App Store. I highly respect MacStories, and of course subscribe to their RSS feed, but I disagree with their article’s framing of my article. I did not raise the gates or erect the barriers, Apple did. Apple is the one gatekeeping its own platforms. From the beginning of iPhone in 2007, I’ve disagreed with Apple lockdown of the device. If I pay the money and walk out of the store, the device should be mine to own and do with as I please. If I had the power, I would eliminate the App Store exclusivity on iOS. Both I and MacStories speak only for ourselves, not for new developers, students, or hobbyists. We weren’t elected spokespeople for those groups. And as I wrote the other day, I was a new App Store developer myself ten years ago. My previous article didn’t propose any new barriers for those groups. To be…