Re:IPhone Dev Spends $500k on Development, Still Not Approve...
by boucher on Friday December 19, 2008 @12:26AM
(#403060)
"before getting the green light from Apple"
There is no mechanism for preemptive approval of any kind. Either they could take no risk and not develop the product, or they develop the product with risks.
What's inexcusable isn't that the product might be denied, its that they do not yet know. They have to simultaneously act as if it will be in the store in the future, and as if it won't be. I don't know what practical implications that has, but I know its a ridiculous situation to be put in.
If Apple insists on the approval process, they have an obligation to do it in a timely manner. They ought to be embarrassed about the number of cases being reported of unreasonably long waits and flat out wrong assessments of SDK violations, but they aren't.
Even if the $500k wasn't overspending for what they wanted to do, the part that seems crazy to me was that they spent that money before getting the green light from Apple and with full knowledge that the approval process is opaque, often lengthy, and sometimes seemingly arbitrary.
Of course Apple's policy is wrong and unreasonable for developers. But these guys knew that this was the case, and they seem to have acted as if they had no idea.