Facebook app developer rejects App Store, irony ensues
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted November 12th 2009 11:01AM
posted November 12th 2009 11:01AM
We always said that if Apple's arbitrary, inconsistent, and quite frankly baffling approval process didn't get straightened out soon, the defections were going to pick up pace -- and what do we have here? Joe Hewitt, the developer of the well-loved and highly regarded Facebook iPhone app, has flipped the script and rejected the App Store. And, as you'd expect, our man is not mincing his words, stating that his "decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies," and that he's "philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process." While Hewitt can't comment on specific future projects (he's still at Facebook, but the app itself has been handed off to another developer) he has mentioned that he'll be devoting his time to web development for mobile devices. As you know, there is no approval process for the World Wide Web (which is apparent if you've spent any time on Geocities back in the day). Way to give 'em hell, Joe!
What I like about this is you have the developer of the most liked application on the iPhone saying he doesn't like the processes Apple has put in place. I have an iPhone and have 2 Macs at home, but as a developer I really despise the way the App Store review process works as well as the way developer's pay for the right to develop applications (even for their own phone).
Sometimes it takes a few high profile people to say "WTF" to affect change.
Am I really the only one SUPPORTING the app approval process? I seriously DO NOT want some crap ass program placing it's mitts upon my cell phone's innards. Look at what just happened with the worm released for jailbroken iPhones!
For the everyday user (soccer mom, wall street exec, pub owner) they don't want to have to dick around with installing stuff. The iTunes app store is cumbersome as it is and regarded as one of the hallmarks of the iPhone and iPod's success. You feel it's in their best interest to allow ANY idiot toying around with his first program to potentially crash your phone, deplete it's battery in 5 minutes or kill the rf signal?
The process itself MUST exist. It also MUST be refined to allow apps like Google Voice and, in my opinion, limit the amount of fart apps there are. I totally agree with it appearing arbitrary and inconstant and that must change.
I'm just saying that someone needs to keep an eye on the apps being released regardless of what manufacturer's phone you're using. I can't imagine what the specifics were with a Facebook app that made this douche jump ship.
Exactly. It's not that the app store doesn't need improvements - it does - it's that the suggestion to remove the review process is a monumentally stupid one.
Why can't we have the best of both worlds? I can install any application on my computer, why should my phone be any different? I'd be OK with having a review process where Apple put a stamp on an application saying they have reviewed it for issues like you described, but if I want to install other applications I can - at my risk.
That seems to solve the issue, doesn't it?
Besides, it isn't like Fart applications aren't making it through. It's that applications Apple doesn't want me to have (like Google Voice, or a Podcasting application) aren't getting through.
Ok, assuming you own and use a computer. How do you judge what applications to download and what not ? How does this differ wildly from the phone scenario ?
Use your judgment. Apple does not need to be my mother. Just give me the choice, good or bad. I am intelligent enough to download whats good and refuse what is harmful. And if you are not wise enough to keep crap out of your way you deserve to get pwned anyway.
If I make a purchase from Best Buy and have a problem with it, I'm going back to Best Buy to get it fixed. It sounds as though Google is claiming no responsibility for the application that you just purchased from their store (okay, Best Buy was a bad example, but you know what I mean).
I choose to install applications on my computer based upon the amount of money they cost, the history of the company developing them, the quality of tech support provided by the developer, etc. Most, if not all, developers for the App store are unknown to mom and dad so they have no way to judge if an app is good or not. With Apple in the background, you're guaranteed that the application will not harm your phone and still provide a quality experience. How is Google going to do this with Droid? How is Google going to police their store if there are reports of a tweaky app? How long will it take and how many user complaints is it going to take to get the dev to pull or replace the app? I suppose they just AREN'T going to do that.
The solution you're proposing is to NOT have an app store. To compare the iPhone to a computer, you would then need to search the internet for programs to install, on your phone. The internet's a pretty big place last time I checked. As Pogue pointed out, these phones are sometimes only as good as the apps you install on them. Apple wants their phone to be a success so they're providing (for the first time ever) a complete store to walk in to and purchase applications that are going to add value to your "app phone" experience and hopefully make you tell all your friends and family to go buy one right away because it's awesome. Thanks to Apple, you don't have to scour the interwebs for the next cool app AND you don't have to worry about what's going to happen once that "installing" progress bar is all done.
[sorry if this got double or triple posted, ADD COMMENT isn't working]
Don't you understand what this is all about, Apple? Developers developers developers developers!!!
The fact is this: Apple does not have the means to perform thorough quality assurance on any app. This is up to the developer. We have our own product managers and quality assurance testers, and we are liable to our users and the courts if we do anything evil or stupid. Apple may catch a few shallow bugs in the review process, but let's face it, the real things they are looking for are not bugs, but violations of the terms of service. This is all about lawyers, not quality, and it shows that the model of Apple's justice system is guilty until proven innocent. They don't trust us, and I resent that, because the vast majority of us are trustworthy.
As others have pointed out, the guy's a hypocrite, working for Facebook, the world's largest walled garden since the demise of AOL.
I don't think you understand what the term "walled garden" means. Facebook and AOL are in no way comparable to each other.
Thank God he is going !!
His iPhone app is the ugliest app i have ever seen.
I bet it looked good back on a commodore 64, "maybe"
Really the welcome screen is a joke
Hope the new guy can do more than just write code
Would be nice to search for friends with more choices
than just a name.
any other ideas for them?
Huh, to each their own. I think the Facebook app is the best implemented iPhone app there is. Far nicer and easier to use than the real website IMO.
Joe Hewitt is an attention seeking whiner. Nothing productive is accomplished by this. If anything, Facebook should fire his ass for not doing his job. Oh gee, I think I'll stop working on Project XYZ because the end user has high expectations and I don't want to have to live up to them. I live in fear of rejection because it reminds me of the time I got the s**t kicked out of me in 5th grade and when I couldn't get a date for the Junior Prom and when I was accepted by Worchester Polytech but not MIT. But oh, a few other people think the process is broken and I'll get lots of attention if I make a big deal out of it. Sniveling idiot.
Go ahead. Vote me down, fanboys, but this needed saying.
How did he not do his job?
He obviously had a choice in this matter and chose to stand up for what he believed in.
Funny you talk about attention seeking when you post a nonsensical rant. Don't be jealous because he actually has enough skill he can make decisions about his own career and life :)
Why is apple not being sued the way MS was with Windows and IE?
Or are they too insignificant in comparision?
Because IE was tied into the operating system meaning you couldn't remove it and install Firefox instead without destroying the OS. That's what's known as anti-competitive behavior. Apple isn't doing that. See the difference? If you'd like to test that theory, go ahead and remove Safari from OS X. See if it breaks the OS.
Good man. Hope he goes and writes apps for distribution in Cydia now.
All the big developers of Iphone apps, need to reject the iphone. A trend needs to start
Why is Engadget full of so much hate? Hating on Apple for changing the mobile phone game, before stepped in it was all about 10m pixel, manufacturers forgot about UI and as much as you may hate the iphone UI, it changed the game and we now have companies focusing on UI rather than upping camera specs. I thought Gadget sites were meant to be a place where people who appreciate technology hang. But it seems it is a place where Anti Apple folks hang. Hate on Apple all you like but don't hate them for making smartphones the buzzword. I remember when the G1 was coming out and everyone here was latching onto that then the Palm Pre, Now its the Droid. Apple is only what 3 years old in this mobile phones game, give them a break.
you kidding me? you actually think Engadget hates apple? Are you reading the same blog the rest of us are reading?
This was something brought up in the TUAW comments for the same story and quite possibly could be the cause of Joe's feelings on the App Store and I think something worth investigating.
http://github.com/joehewitt/three20/issues/closed/#issue/99
Of course had the Tech Crunch article actually done some journalism and reported on what has caused him to be philosophically opposed to the policies of the App Store maybe we'd know his exact reasons. But in the mean time to me he comes off whiney.
Are the policies perfect or have some issues? Of course, time will tell how it plays out.
Personally, I think it's cause he can't have boobs for the Facebook app icon.
There's always WinMo...
Because WinMo doesn't have a review process either?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsmobile/dd569132.aspx
Having a review process is all well and good. I think the issue is that Apple's review process is seen by most developers a mystery black hole. You throw your app in there and it may or may not ever make it through the wormhole to the other side. If it doesn't you probably won't get any clear reasoning why not, while at the same time absolute junk is flowing through. The submission guidlines should be very clearly documented and if an app is declined a proper rationale should be provided so the developer knows what needs to be changed (or if they need to abandon the project). Now on things like apps that circumvent the carriers purpose you can't really blame Apple. Of course ATT doesn't want apps on the phone that let you make phone calls circumventing their calling network. That's a duh, and you are going to find carriers trying to implement those kind of restrictions on any smartphone.
First Rupert Murdoch pulls his content from Google, and now some whinny developer says he's not going to put his stuff on iPhone.
Not a bad week.
Highly ironic considering that Facebook is going to be implementing a review process for it's own facebook applications.
Geocities reference. Classy. geocities dot com slash arena slash sunset strip slash 2016. Man I loved those URL's when I was 14
Great, now if someone at Facebook can make a usable app for Android, that would be great.
Send him over to RIM to do BlackBerry development.
I wish someone would do something about the way Facebook runs on my Samsung Finesse...or maybe I should just get a new phone.
Well put sir.
Hey Joe Hewitt, start developing apps for the Zune HD. I'm sure Ballmer is willing to work with more developers, developers, developers, developters, developters, developters, developters, developters, developters, developters, developters...
Come on over to Android. We'll love you and not in that bend-over-and-take-our-"review-process" type of love either. Fuck Apple.
geekoid righteousness!
you guys are way off...
why shoudn't apple control their product and what goes into it?
they made it, they are a business not a divine benefactor and their business model seems to be working pretty well...
How many of you have 35 billion in the bank?
I marvel at the app store approval process! 100,000 apps approved?
How many people working how many hours have made this thing happen?
Hats off to you apps store workers!
Some of you whingers need a real job!
I think it all sounds great but it seems more like self promotion. Which I guess he has the right to do.
Is he going to develop an Android 2.0 version? Perhaps.
Point is, the Facebook app will continue to remain and as a CONSTANT user of the Facebook app I will honestly say that it is FAR from perfect. In every version there have been glitches galore. Not iPhone glitches either but app specific.
You can't view certain pictures sometimes, you can't comment and can't go back. You can't view groups, you receive notifications about items in groups that you uploaded but you can't see them or can't even see the images. You sometimes can't upload images to other people's pages even though the options are there, etc. etc.
That said it is STILL the best interface of all the other mobile Facebook apps out there.
Perhaps all it needs is a fresh brain to feed it and it appears that is exactly what is happening now.
So long Joe, and thanks for all the fapps.
Despite my possibly scathing remarks below, I also agree that the facebook app is a fantastic app. Well implemented and does what you'd expect a mobile fb app to do. Up there with tweetie 2 in terms of usability.
Good job so far, looking forward to seeing what the next developer has in store for us, including crashing the push notification servers :-p
And the facebook app is all the better for it. iPhone users need developers who embrace the app store, stupid rules or not. Especially for free services like facebook - we don't want stupid politics getting in the way, we want developers who want advancement and innovation in their field. If they can't keep to the restrictive brief the app store gives them then they're not good enough to work on it.
Obviously this opinion only really applies to free apps for large, global services like facebook, and I understand the 'stupid rules', i.e. the approvals process and API Ts & Cs will affect developers working on paid-for apps differently.
If you're providing a free service, keep it safe and deliver what you can, when you can. Push for innovation through discussion and talk to apple directly. Surely someone will listen to facebook? It might take a LOT of time and a LOT of patience, but it's worth it, I think.
Considering how bad this guy was at actually adding features such as a useful search interface to the app, I say good riddance, and hope Facebook fires him for his misplaced outrage.
he should come on over to the android market, water is great and there is plenty of room to swim :)
Wow. Joe Hewitt is aweaome.
Finally someone on the other side of the fence who sees the underhandedness that is Apple and the iPhone.
Not only is iPhone failing as a device compared to a slew of others ont he market and with a poor carrier but it's not even able to keep it's talent.
This sort of thing gives me hope for the world.
I am thinking the mobile web platform could still grow quite a bit. I think you could create some pretty neat apps with it. Ok it's not quite perfect yet, but with time, we do have some pretty nice things in the works out there (albeit not all of it has been discussed in the mobile sense yet):
HTML5 with it's canvas of possibilities
Javascript engines are getting to be pretty blazing fast
Video tag (kind of in limbo but still could be interesting)
WebGL (could make it to the mobile platform too maybe?)
Who knows what else. I do think what the Android does with it allowing background apps could become kind of important. Although there are many additional adjustments that seem important going forward.
I guess what I am saying is, I believe mobile web could (and in some ways IS) actually a fun platform to develop for. You do have access to some of the phone specific features such as geo-location and such. As stated above, it also doesn't require approval.
If you take it from the angle of developing a page for the iPhone and really take advantage of the thing. Again, I am not saying you can do everything a regular app can, but I bet you could pull off alot more than what people are using it for right at the moment.
iPhone is now driven by sheep. No more innovation, just overpriced hardware driven by bullshit Apple lockdown mode.
The article didn't mention the other irony: that a *Facebook* employee is complaining about inconsistent rules in an app platform..
Facebook has become known for constantly changing the rules and APIs that govern how an app can use their app platform. (The latest changes pretty much eliminate the utility of profile boxes and notifications.) This makes it challlenging to base any sort of business on the Facebook platform; most developers who care about Facebook are going with Facebook Connect if anything.
Joe Hewitt is an ass. he did a crappy job developing the app & now he bails out & blames Apple. the face book app is horrible. I've always been frustrated with it. Maybe the new developer will do it better. way to go Joe, now we know who you are. I will not purchase apps you develop because you suck.
Maybe he can help develop a better Android app. The current one sucks.
Good. The blackberry version of the facebook app is leaps and bounds better than the iPhone version. Between actually having push notifications to syncing contact data automatically including pictures from facebook, the Blackberry app is awesome.