Apple needs a healthy developer ecosystem now, more than ever, as customers clamor for their new platforms to have more and better software — but now they’re paying for their own neglect of healthy App Store economics and tense developer relations for so long.
I hope Apple sees that as a problem. With the recent consolidation of the entire App Store under new leadership (Phil Schiller), maybe they do.
Apple’s developer ecosystem is healthy, with two exceptions:
- Backend services: iCloud and CloudKit are to platform dependent and iOS developers aren’t (in general) competent in backend development;
- App review: compared to web development, taking up to 3 weeks to ship an app because of a review process is a huge burden.
These are no insurmountable challenges for the developer ecosystem, but it does pose some challenges for Apple. In order to provide an integrated backend solution that would really be an option for indie developers, they would have to risk ending the thermonuclear war and allowing Android and web to access the service. It’s apt that this discussion should arise on the shuttering of Parse, a Facebook-bought company, because this wouldn’t be a problem for Apple if they have bought Parse. But had they bought Parse, just like when they bought TestFlight and Siri, Apple would have immediately shut down the the Android component. The sad and ironic fact of the matter is that Apple are actually in a great position to run a service like Parse at a loss, because all of Apple’s software (in a sense) is the cost required to make the stupendous profit on the iPhone. Perhaps a reasonable compromise position for Apple to enter into the *aaS space would be to subsidize development by making iOS use of CloudKit free, and provide other platforms at cost.
On the second challenge, I’m not sure what challenges there are in scaling Apple app review process, but anecdotally, the last time I heard of someone going through the process recently, it took 5 days from submission to store. If this proves to be consistent this year, it still isn’t fast enough to submit hot-fixes like the web can, but it would definitely be a welcome improvement. But the pain of the submission process goes further than just the review process, it’s also the incredibly clunky iTunes Connect and the inconsistent enforcement of the guidelines. These complaints just cover the iOS App Store, however, Apple have a lot more (a less profitable) work to do on there other three App Stores.