Apple fears the killer app
Ok, so were finally getting down to it. On at least two fronts, Apple has now essentially thrown out its draconian rules on what developers can and cannot do on its platform, and replaced them with essentially, no rules. The new “rules” appear to be …
Context & Ripple Effects
The relaxation is a sharp reversal within a year of Apple tightening the screws: last August the company was telling iPhone developers to make their apps less useful rather than approve them, and by February 2010 it had codified content policing into new App Store rules banning swimsuits, skin, and innuendo. That February piece framed a review regime that rejected apps on taste and capability grounds with little published criteria.
Now, days after WWDC drew thousands of developers to San Francisco and with the iPhone 4 confirmed to go on sale June 24, Apple has effectively discarded those restrictions on at least two fronts, replacing written rules with what amounts to no rules. The timing reads as clearing the deck so developers can ship whatever they want before the new hardware lands — the 'killer app' fear being that someone else's software will define the device.
First-order effects
- Developers who were rejected under the August 2009 usefulness standard or the February 2010 content rules can now resubmit and build apps that would previously have been barred, expanding the App Store catalog ahead of the June 24 iPhone 4 launch.
- Apple's review team loses its written playbook: enforcement shifts from published criteria to case-by-case discretion, which cuts approval friction now but leaves developers without clear boundaries.
Second-order effects
- Competing platforms lose their easiest talking point — Google and other smartphone vendors have leaned on App Store rejections to pitch openness, and rule removal blunts that pitch during the most-watched iPhone cycle yet.
- An influx of previously blocked app categories floods the storefront, forcing discovery and quality-control mechanisms (rankings, featuring) to do work the written rules used to do.
Third-order effects
- The episode exposes a structural gap in how Apple governs its SDK: rules written tightly enough to enforce are tight enough to repel developers, so the company oscillates between curation and laissez-faire depending on competitive pressure — a pattern likely to repeat each hardware cycle.
- If discretion replaces documented rules permanently, third-party developers' planning risk rises even as short-term freedom expands, pushing the ecosystem toward lobbying and leak-driven policy rather than formal governance.
The trend: Mobile platform owners are learning that app-store control is a dial, not a wall, and Apple is loosening it whenever a flagship launch makes developer goodwill worth more than curation.