A few weeks ago, we wrote about Steven Frank, a well-known Mac developer who was giving up his iPhone about his disgust together with the methods Apple is managing the App Store. (This was appropriate ahead of Mike also gave up his iPhone). Properly, Frank is by now thinking about coming back. Why? Due to the fact once again Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller has prolonged an olive branch to try out and relaxed the waters.
This follows Schiller emailing Daring Fireball’s John Gruber last week, also about issues using the App Retailer. But unlike Schiller’s email to Gruber,
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Basically, it sounds like Schiller and others at Apple read this post by Frank, laying out what would have to change in the App Keep in order for him to go back again to using an iPhone. Frank says that Schiller took exception to the rumor that Apple had begun widely banning e-books, saying there was only one specific example where that was the case about a copyright issue. But Schiller did apparently acknowledge many of the other problems that Frank had together with the retailer. As Frank summarized it, Schiller said, “we’re listening to your feedback.”
Of course, the proof will be in the pudding, but it’s hard to take these two emails by Schiller as anything but a good sign. It’s still perplexing to me that one of Apple’s Senior VPs, basically the second or third best identified guy at the company (it’s the same Phil Schiller than has run the past handful of keynotes in Jobs’ absence), is the one reaching out here after months of basically no communication from anyone else at Apple. Certainly, they have a PR team, I’m just not sure why Apple was forcing them to be silent, only to have an executive speak on the matter.
It’s great that Schiller is saying these things, so that he’ll be held accountable for them, but it’s kind of crazy that it has come to that. Clearly, Apple knows there are some very real problems with all the App Retailer process. But the issue is now: How do they fix them?
Communication is the first step,
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To summarize what I wrote this weekend (so you don’t have to read all 3,500+ words — though,
Office 2007 Keygen, feel free to!), I think it’s foolish to think that Apple will just let these problems go on forever without fixing them. Some use the argument that they believe Apple has malicious intentions in trying to control the App Retailer. I have always believed that its screw-ups were simply a result of two things: 1) Its desire above all else to make a great product, which has lead to what many (including myself in a number of situations) consider to be perverse levels of controls. And 2) The fact that it had no idea the App Keep would explode in popularity the way that it has. It wasn’t ready for it,
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It’s time for Apple to step up and fix the App Shop. And Schiller’s recent efforts seem to suggest that they’re ready to do just that. It’s when they’re not saying anything, that you really have to worry. Which they weren’t — for months.
[via Marco]
[photo: flickr/blazamos -- yes, also a TechCrunch intern]
Microsoft Office 2007 Product Key Schiller Reaches
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