Is Apple prepping a heavy hand to combat lookalike applications on its App Store? That’s the rumor being put forth by sharp-eyed readers who took note of a rather interesting blog post by Mobile Roadie founder Michael Schneider.
Mobile Roadie is a service based on one simple tagline, “The simple and inexpensive way for anyone to build and manage their own iPhone and Android apps.” In short, wannabe developers can use the service to create template-driven applications.
While there’s a little bit of customizability involved in selecting the various categories, or tabs, that you want the app to deliver, the created apps are all relatively similar for the most part. And if you don’t believe me, just check out Mobile Roadie’s offerings yourself–the proof is in the digital pudding.
This isn’t a critique of Mobile Roadie’s services–not by me, at least. Schneider’s post about Apple’s alleged new quality standard has been pulled off of Mobile Roadie’s Web site for some strange reason, but here’s what it said, so claims the blog Tap Swipe Pinch:
According to the post, an Apple representative contacted Mobile Roadie and informed them that ‘cookie cutter’ apps which do little more than pull feeds from web sites or reproduce websites with webviews will no longer be accepted in The App Store. The Mobile Roadie post also mentioned that Apple will be imposing further guidelines on certain industries, but offered no specifics only stating that “we’re [Mobile Roadie] already working on the features requested,” implying that the details of the guidelines were given to Mobile Roadie.
It’s no secret that Apple’s been on an app-targeting binge lately: It first went after applications featuring “overtly sexual content,” which included more than 5,000 different, “babes, boobs, and bikini” applications, reports ZDNet. Next up came a batch of WiFi discovery applications, which were recently removed from the App Store because their core feature was based on private APIs.
If cookie-cutter applications are next, what will ultimately define this concept? Could a developer be punished for using a similar template throughout a series of applications? Would Apple dare risk drawing the ire of record companies that have made similar, template-based applications for a number of today’s popular artists?
If anything, Apple’s push toward making its App Store apps feel more “special” than a typical Web app could very well turn off interested—but not committed—developers.
“Now the challenge for Apple is that the app building platforms are extremely attractive to a wide swath of the market that would otherwise be reluctant to bear the cost and complexity of developing an app from scratch,” said Medialets CEO Eric Litman in an interview with Techcrunch.
“We have already seen apps from personal bloggers up to major media brands using some of these platforms, and many of the folks in that spectrum have content Apple would certainly want in the App Store. Interestingly, some of those same developers also have fully custom-built apps in the App Store, too.”
Resource : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361040,00.asp
