A few days ago we posted on Apple’s latest App Store nonsense. To refresh your memory… Apple kept the folks at Ilium Software waiting for approval on an update for eWallet only to then turn around and reject it because one icon looked too much like their trademarked iPhone image. Thing was, that very same icon had been there since the app was first released.

The post received a respectable number of responses, the majority of which thoughtful and well-considered. Mack from Ilium software posted a great piece entitled “The Myth of Not My Problem” over on the Ilium Blog. He also left a thoughtful comment to add to our discussion here on Gear Diary. Very often some of the most interesting aspects of a post are the comments that follow but, unfortunately, they can easily be lost is the awesome flow of content here on the site. For that reason I am posting Marc’s comment below…

Thanks for posting this, Dan. This is a really interesting discussion and I wanted to add my 2 cents. I want to give you a developer perspective on why this matters and why posting about it matters.

To start with, I made my initial post for one main reason. It was a chance to let your eWallet users know what was up with the update. They knew it was coming and we needed to fill them in.

There is a second motivation. We’ve discovered that if enough people talk about something Apple acts on it. Direct emails, phone calls, and other methods just don’t work. A bunch of sites all posting about the same basic issue – that works. I firmly believe Apple uses some sort of information aggregator to track issues that are getting discussed online and uses that information to help direct change. So, posting like I did is our way of communicating with Apple.

Now, as for why you should care – let me tick off some reasons:

1. Apple is preventing you, as a consumer, from getting upgrades and features you deserve. Right now, users of eWallet can’t use Copy & Paste because Apple delayed our update over an icon.

2. This sort of stuff eats up developer time which in turn cheats you out of better products. Instead of focusing on things that will actually benefit our customers, we’re messing around playing AppStore acceptance games.

3. No matter how good a platform or outlet is, developers will only take so much. At some point the system become onerous enough that it makes more sense to focus on other markets. This is the long term cost of this sort of thing – and at some point there WILL be a powerful competitor.

4. Illogical, petty, and ever changing acceptance requirements will cause developers to think twice before making a major investment in an iPhone application. If you don’t know whether your app will even get in, you reduce your initial investment to protect yourself. That means you, as a consumer, end up with apps that don’t hold a candle to what a developer might have risked in a more stable environment.

None of these are speculation – in every case I’ve seen it happen in the AppStore already, or in the case of #3, I’ve seen it happen on other platforms. And remember, the problem they are talking about isn’t just about us – this is affecting numerous developers.

So yes, these little and seemingly silly issues have a VERY REAL COST to the consumer. It’s easy to think “Meh, not my problem.” but in the end (as always) the consumer is the one who pays the price.