“Apple’s New Stance On ‘Cookie Cutter’ Apps: Add More Features Or Perish”

Between the developers I spoke to, the consensus was this: Apple doesn’t appear to be opposed to ‘app generators’ and templates per se, but in the last month or so it has started cracking down on basic applications that are little more than RSS feeds or glorified business cards. In short, Apple doesn’t want people using native applications for things that a basic web app could accomplish.

Nevermind the part about pulling the rug from yet another bunch of iPhone-based businesses, as it’s par for the course by now, but this particular rule is bullshit. Some sites have dedicated readers who want to have a shortcut or two on their Springboard — and most users don’t know, or want to know, about manually adding a shortcut from within Safari. They just want to click a link and download an app, because Apple has spent the last year emphasizing that “there’s an app for that.”

I understand, and support, the desire to remove those apps from App Store listings — but not banning them altogether.

If Apple wants to approve everything that can be installed on an iPhone (for security’s sake, let’s say) and doesn’t want to pollute the App Store, here’s a novel idea: just approve the apps in such a way that they don’t appear in listings and search but are only accessible by using the direct URL. Or are they also trying to cut down the in-house testers’ workload?