iOS iPhone Developer’s Guild, who’s in?

[jrtb]

“Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” - Winston Churchill

“The AppStore is the worst mobile software storefront, except all those other mobile software storefronts that have been tried from time to time.” - Chris Garrett, ZWorkbench

Assertion 1: The App Store for iPhone and iPod touch is the best publishing medium for independent developers that has ever existed. It is now truly possible to compete with the giants on today’s preeminent mobile gaming platform (with an estimated 40 million units shipped).

Assertion 2: The Crapp Store really has problems. Review system. Metadata searching. Try before you buy. Piracy. Quality of apps. Great apps never get seen (or downloaded).

What can we do?

Connie and I, co-founders of Fairlady Media and developers of Whack ‘em All for iPhone / iPod touch, would like to propose that like-minded developers form an iPhone Developer’s Guild. We’ll call ourselves the iDG. Here’s what we’ll do:

1) Organize ourselves into a unified voice and get responses from Apple on issues of concern. Engage Apple in a meaningful dialogue to address these issues.

2) Agree to give accurate reviews to each member’s apps on the app store.

3) Collaborate with each other about issues like development, QA, marketing, pricing strategy, revenue and maybe even share some code.

We’re willing to help coordinate and will kick things off by giving an honest, thoughtful and high quality review to any developer’s app that is willing to do the same for ours. Leave comments below. Email me (jrbosser@gmail.com). Follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/jrtb).

Who’s in?

 

[jnic]

Seems a sensible idea. #1 would certainly be valuable for meaningful dialogue, and #3 (in particular "pricing strategy", which I take to mean fixing prices somewhat higher than $0.99) would obviously be valuable financially.

I'm sceptical of #2, as doing so offers little economic incentive for developers (and the review process is in many ways broken, as you mention).

Piracy isn't solvable, and I wouldn't waste much time worrying about it. Perhaps if Apple's platform were more open to start with there would be less need for jailbreaking, making the barrier to piracy higher.

What solutions are you proposing to Assertion #2?

 

[wizard]

While there might be possibilities I think you are on the wrong track.

What can we do?

Don't make things worst!

Connie and I, co-founders of Fairlady Media and developers of Whack ‘em All for iPhone / iPod touch, would like to propose that like-minded developers form an iPhone Developer’s Guild. We’ll call ourselves the iDG. Here’s what we’ll do:

OK. To the best of my knowledge there isn't any Mac Developer Guilds which may hint at the utility of such an organization. don't get me wrong there are a number of things I'd like to get across to Apple management even if that meet wrapping hands around necks. The problem is they don't seem to be real open to even todays larger organizations so would they have much interest in an organization made up of developers with very diverse needs and wants.

1) Organize ourselves into a unified voice and get responses from Apple on issues of concern. Engage Apple in a meaningful dialogue to address these issues.

I'm not at all against this if Apple is open to such. The things that really have me going right now with iPhone is the way Apple is dragging its feet with Bluetooth, multitasking, OS stability and communications about the SDK. There are a bunch of lesser things too but those are big ones.

2) Agree to give accurate reviews to each member’s apps on the app store.

This is a total waste of time in my opinion. Reviews mean nothing taken individually as they represent opinions, a distillation of a large number of opinions might mean something but is this really the domain of a lobbying group. Like it or not that is what the organization would be come it it got Apples ear. I just don't see the two interests really living well together in the same organization.

3) Collaborate with each other about issues like development, QA, marketing, pricing strategy, revenue and maybe even share some code.

There are good iPhone forums out there and I do believe there is room for one more. This is a lot of work though to maintain everything and I'm wondering who would pay.

As to code sharing that is something of interest in and of itself. Maybe not so much sharing but publicly developing certain capabilities. In essence open source projects for iPhone.

We’re willing to help coordinate and will kick things off by giving an honest, thoughtful and high quality review to any developer’s app that is willing to do the same for ours. Leave comments below. Email me (jrbosser@gmail.com). Follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/jrtb).

Who’s in?

You seem to be focused on reviews which I don't think is really worth the time of any young organization. Even an established group would have issues doing so in a disciplined manner. In a way I'm saying it isn't worth your time, or mine, if reviews are all that you are interested in.

The second issue is that I'd be extremely surprised that such an organization could cultivate a useful relationship with Apple. Frankly I wish I was wrong here but does anybody or any corporation, have that much input with respect to Apple product developments?

Ohh no E-Mails from me as this is a forum that you opened a discussion on. It would leave the rest of the forum members out of the loop.


Dave

 

[johnnybluejeans]

You know you play too much World of Warcraft when you only associate the word "guild" with the game.

 

[jrtb]

Google group setup for the iPhone Developer's Guild, join today!

Head over to: http://groups.google.com/group/iphonedevguild/subscribe?note=1

We're currently getting feedback from members and talking about what we'd like to accomplish.

Help form this new group and make a difference!

 

[forcesteeler]

Worried about Piracy? Its a losing battle.

Besides you have Company's like Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk that are worth Billions of dollars and they cannot stop people from cracking your software. What makes you think you can stop a hacker

from cracking your $.99 cent app?

 

[jrtb]

Worried about Piracy? Its a losing battle.

Besides you have Company's like Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk that are worth Billions of dollars and they cannot stop people from cracking your software. What makes you think you can stop a hacker

from cracking your $.99 cent app?

I'm not worried about someone cracking our .99 cent app

http://digg.com/apple/How_Piracy_Can_Boost_iPhone_App_Sales?OTC-em-sh2