Tablet and touch devices are challenging the way we think about games, see games, and interact with them, and for one, I am definitely afraid of this eventuating.
The iDevice model which has become very successful for Apple is an extremely closed marketplace, which means that a select few will gain priority over others, regardless of merit.
The closed marketplace I am referring to here, of course, is the App Store. A store that you must pay $100 each year to submit apps, a store that imposes draconian infringements
on other companies who dare to 'think outside the box' and the permanent lockout if you don't comply with their rules. Hardly a fair and positive place for the future of our lives,
and you can bet that these technologies will be at the pinnacle of our future - they already are.
Good examples of Apple's harsh, tough and biased rejections can be found everywhere across the internet, from Apple hate sites, to even sites like Cult of Mac, who's blogs are
dedicated to this stuff. A few below:
- Google's radical Google Voice app, which redirects phone calls to your internet connection, posed a threat to Apple's cosy relationship with telcos and
AT&T. This raised the ire of the FCCC, who questioned the favouritised practises of Apple towards these companies.
- Charity apps that don't allow Apple to take a 30% cut from every donation that is made using them are automatically kicked out of the developer program
- All apps that don't comply with any new Apple App Store rules, regardless of whether they were created before the new rules, are banned and kicked out of the program.
This is definitely Apple at its greediest. Any publishing-based company or app must offer any product they provide or sell THROUGH the app, as well as their own online ecosystem
for the same price or less as they would going through their own ecosystem. This is a clear cut case of an unscrupulous business practise, and barely possible, since again Apple
takes their 30% cut from that product through the App Store in store purchase.
And once you've been kicked out and banned from the App Store dev program, that's it. There is no recourse, you will never write for an iOS product again regardless.
So next time you look at a new shiny tablet or iPad that uses a closed market ecosystem, take a step back and think: Is closed really superior?