App Store Roundtable: Transparency and the Approval System

Gavin Bowman — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:00:24 +0000

For our next installment of the App Store Roundtable, we talked with developers about an issue that comes up time and again: the application approval system and the overall transparency of the inner workings of the App Store. When developers submit their products to Apple, we have to cross our fingers and hope they’ll be allowed into the App Store, as there’s very little consistency or feedback.

My biggest gripe about selling in the App Store is Apple’s lack of status updates during the review process. Even a “we received your app and are reviewing it” would be a big help.

– Doug Davies, developer of JiggleBalls

I guess the single most burning issue with the App Store is the intransparent review process. One submits an app, then after an indeterminate time it is approved or not; there are no clean cut rules; there is no public timeline; there is no ETA; there is no feedback (even a page in the dev center with “Status: Waiting for review,” “reviewing” or something equally vague would help).

– Martin J. Laubach, developer of Moonlight

The whole process needs a lot more transparency because developers are the lifeblood of the appstore and they need to plan their future development and marketing initiatives based on some general time line. If Apple subjectively rejects an app for “being too simple” when there are literally hundreds of simpler apps already in the store, they are hurting the development process. There currently aren’t any guidelines for what is “too simple.”

– Dan of Rareapps

I also feel that apple is not giving the approval process enough attention, we should not have to put up with scandals such as the port of the famous Nintendo Duck Hunt (exact graphics ) in there. Apple should develop a quality assurance process within its approval process so completely ridiculous games wont get through.

– Brynjar Gigja of On The Rocks, developer of Tiltafun

The biggest issue for us is the lack of information on how the App Store really works. So much of what we do hinges on how the store operates- how and when applications are approved, which apps are featured, exactly how the top 100 list is computed, and how release dates work. Knowing how these details work is key, but in depth information has never been provided.

– Andy Korth of Howling Moon Software, developer of Crayon Ball

Featured Slots

If you gather two or more iPhone developers together at any time the conversation will inevitably touch on the featured lists. These are the suggested apps you see in the various App Store lists (What’s New, What’s Hot etc.), and most apps that are lucky enough to get one of these slots find themselves with many thousands of dollars worth of extra sales. This is another area where developers would welcome more transparency.

I’d really like Apple to be clear how they choose to feature apps. Is there anything that can be done to help, or anything which definitely blocks you from being featured?

– Tim Haines, developer of BurnBall

I would like to know more about how Apple chooses it’s featured products, I would like Apple to give us developers more heads up to changes in the market place, what they have in mind for the future so we can adjust.

– Brynjar Gigja

There’s this feeling that the app review and featuring department is completely isolated from the world. There seems to be nothing, or very little you can do as an independent to get their attention.

– Mike Kasprzak

It would be nice if you could pitch your app to Apple (or even a monetary model) so that you could be displayed at the top level (other than by release date) for a few days. As an “indie” it’s frustrating trying to get exposure.

– Doug Davies

Join us next time?

If you are an iPhone developer with experience of the App Store and would like to participate by sharing some opinions in future App Store Roundtables, please get in touch via our contact form.

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Window Management With Afloat

David Appleyard — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:00:30 +0000

One of my ‘pet peeves’ about OS X is the inability to force a window to remain on top of all the others. Several years ago, when using Windows, this was a functionality that I found invaluable for watching videos and keeping certain web pages or applications at the forefront of my display. Certain Mac applications offer this functionality built in (VLC for instance) but most don’t.

I was thrilled to find Afloat, a simple piece of software which adds the above collection of menu bar items to an application. It allows you to perform a whole new set of operations on a window such as keeping it on top, increasing transparency, and creating ‘overlays’.

Features

The various functions available include:

Keep Afloat: puts a window always on top of all others.
Transparency: lets you see through a window.
Drag Anywhere: lets you move a window by “grabbing” it from anywhere (not necessarily the title bar).
On All Spaces: makes a window remain on the screen even if you switch Spaces.
Overlay: makes a window floating and transparent and makes it ignore your mouse clicks (they “fall through” to the windows below it instead).
Show Window’s File in Finder: if a window represents an open file, it will show the file in Finder.

Keyboard shortcuts are built in for all the different functions, which saves you clicking around to find them each time you need to perform an operation. It is as simple as holding two keys and scrolling the mouse wheel to adjust the transparency of a window – it’s possible to make your desktop look very futuristic, but it is debatable how user friendly transparency really is.

The hidden drawback

The software is far from perfect, however. The main problem is that it only works with Cocoa applications — so Carbon apps such as Finder and iTunes don’t offer the Float functionality. This is a real shame, as watching videos through my media player of choice still can’t be achieved. As mentioned previously, it is possible to use VLC, but I’m still waiting and hoping that they’ll find a way to enable Afloat with iTunes.

The fact that Safari is supported is great for websites such as BBC iPlayer and similar, as their video can be floated. Equally, stock ticker sites and even chat applications such as Adium can be made much more user friendly when allowed to float above other windows.

It’s a great piece of software, and definitely worth giving a go, considering it’s free. Let us know if you find any other inventive ways it can help your window arrangement!