Are all these developer complaints about the iPhone app store having any affect on Apple, or do they just irritate everyone?

Developers know by now what Apple is like. How about the developers stop whining and leave? That’s the only thing Apple will listen to. Geez, this app store fiasco has been going on since it’s conception.

Consumers don’t care about developer problems as long as they get their fix of apps. When the apps stop coming, users will leave. When users leave, profits go down, the carriers get pissed and Apple will say, “Huh, WTF? Why is this happening?” Yes, it will still take awhile for them to understand that they brought this upon themselves.

Until then, as long as developers keep whining and building apps (that’s called masochism), then they’ve developed a symbiotic relationship with Apple (the sadists).

Apple might care then when it hurts their bottom line. Until then, it’s just noise they’ve tuned out.

It’s just like this blog and my Twitter feed. I’m under no illusion that Apple gives a flying fig about anything I say, or the countless poor souls pouring their hearts out on the Apple support forums.

I continue to use Apple products — not because they’re a model of excellence, far from it — but because they’re better than the alternatives. I’ve learned to live with that and use this blog and Twitter as a means of telling those who have drunk, or are thinking of drinking the Apple kool-aid, that they should be warned about what they’re getting into.

When you bite into the Apple, most of it will taste delicious but you’ll also get that musty taste of rot.

“Quality is inversely proportional to complexity multiplied by time.”

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As Complexity increases, Quality decreases.

As time moves forward quality still decreases even if complexity remains the same.

First postulated in 1997, I’m sad to say that nothing has changed.

For computers, year after year, the hardware and software gets more complex and this multiplication results in the abysmal, and rapidly declining, quality we’re experiencing in the computing industry.

Perhaps it’s due to the fast computers and lots of memory and disk space that breeds carelessness, but for whatever reason, the quality of some programs written by some of the world’s largest (not finest) companies is just awful. These same companies also charge for upgrades that contain more useless and buggy features. We upgrade on the hope that the old version’s bugs are fixed in the new version. They often aren’t, or they’re broken in different ways.

Of course, it’s not just large, monolithic corporations that tolerate lousy programming. It’s endemic in the industry. Too much pressure to ship, ship lots of features, and let the customers do your testing.

When you see great programs these days, you know that the programmers are truly superstars in their field because they’re so uncommon.

When I was programming, I took it as a personal failure if someone reported a bug in my code. Now, too many programmers just shrug their shoulders and give you the “whatever” look. Bugs are expected; what’s the big deal, right? Wrong. I don’t expect perfection, I expect ownership.

So how does this apply to Apple, you ask? How much time have you got?

Here are my observations after using Snow Leopard for a while:

Better: It does seem faster in areas such as networking. But that may be because I was having so much trouble with Leopard networking, that anything is better.

Bug: There’s a bug in Mail where Smart Mailboxes always sort by Subject. I can change it, but the next time I relaunch Mail, it’s back sorting by Subject again. Extremely annoying. [Update: With some judicious editing of a .plist file, I managed to make it so that it always sorts by date. Better, but needs to be fixed.]

Feature: I do like the new white text on black background menus in the dock. I shouldn’t though, because they’re different than the menu bar. I prefer consistency to cuteness, so maybe Apple should try this look in other menus.

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The following is my chronicle of the Snow Leopard installation on my primary computer, an early 2008 MacBook.

Anyone reading this blog knows that I have a lot of problems with Leopard, so I will do lots of backups first. I emit an aura that is deadly for computers and software so I just know I’m going to have problems.
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My daughter made a stuffed skunk for me one Christmas several years ago as she thought it would be funny to keep it under my monitor to remind me of how stinky computers were. I use Apple computers.

The skunk remained under my Dell monitor for years (it’s a Dell because your monitors were, and are, overpriced). In a recent cleaning binge, I consolidated my stuffed stuff to sit above my HP printer.

I was musing about all the articles being written about your iPhone App Store for the bonehead decisions and your defensive reply (a miracle that you did officially reply and from Phil Schiller no less). I recently read Jason Calacanis’ “The Case Against Apple” and the immediate response from the Apple pundits saying his facts and logic were wrong and his article was “pathetic and reality deprived“. The irony being that Calacanis described himself as having a love affair with Apple. And we see an earlier Twitter message from one of his detractors calling out Apple on yet another App Store blunder.

So, yeah, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship between you and your customers. As I was trying to decide how I felt about all the negativity descending upon you, I realized I was staring at my stuffed stuff and something clicked.

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I’ve used your products primarily since March 1, 1984 when I bought my first original Macintosh and ImageWriter printer. I was proud to be a Mac owner because it was so superior to the alternatives.

In the subsequent years leading up to the present time I became a Mac bigot. Everything else was not only not good, it was trash and I wondered how anyone could use that crapola.

Then Macs started going downhill with quality problems in the hardware and software. Macs just sucked less. I stopped doing unpaid sales and evangelizing for you and kept pretty quiet. When people asked me what kind of computer to get, I would no longer say, “Get a Mac”, I’d say, “What do you want to use a computer for?” I often told them to buy a PC.

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I’ve been fortunate in my career to never have worked for tyrants. Sure, I’ve worked for some bozos, but never someone who got their kicks from intimidation. Or someone who yelled at me while spraying spittle in my face. Or someone who threatened to fire my sorry ass unless I did this or that by some impossible deadline while sacrificing my family and social life, or my health.

I’ve never worked at Apple.

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I see you’re offering a “free” iPod Touch if we buy a Mac for university. There are two things wrong with this ad, and no, one of them is not the ubiquitous asterisk and “Terms apply” gotcha.

There’s no such thing as a free iPod

Again, you’re proving you’re no different than most other retailers in deceptively saying that the iPod is free. It’s not free, it’s included in the price. Well, actually, it’s worse than that. We have to buy it at the retail price and you will rebate up to $259. Since the cheapest Touch retails at $259 that doesn’t cover the taxes now does it? So it ain’t free, is it?

It’s also just a rebate, which means you’re bribing us with our own money. We pay you. You hold on to millions of dollars of our cumulative money earning interest for weeks. We waste our time filling out your stupid rebate form and sending it in (don’t get a single character wrong or it’s grounds for rejection). You give us our money back sometime while we worry about if you’re using a shady rebate company that will conveniently “forget” to send the cheque. We’ve still paid the taxes and you’ve stolen our time.

Clearance

And, for those who don’t follow your product release cycles, you neglect to mention that this is the older generation model that will be replaced with the next generation in — oh — October. Once all the kids are back at school and have had to purchase the Mac and iPod.

Fine, fine, it’s a nice way for you to clear inventory before the new model comes out. Why not be up front about it or just discount the Mac price by $259? Then we save on taxes and don’t waste time on sucky rebates. Right, because your cost is a heck of a lot cheaper than the cash price, so it’s really costing you nowhere near $259 to make this offer.

You demean yourself with every one of these deceptive tactics.

It’s been reported that Microsoft received a call from someone at Apple telling them that the laptop hunter ads were misleading. Another petty action. So you lowered your prices a teensy bit to make the MS ad just slightly incorrect and suddenly this is worth a call to Microsoft? Good grief, this is a rounding error.

While you see iTunes Store tracks priced at $0.99 and a MacBook at $999 we all know that you’re doing what virtually every retailer does and deliberately try to mislead consumers to think the product is cheaper. I don’t fall into that trap. I say that you sell songs for a buck and have a $1000 laptop. Even I’m wrong because by the time you add on sales tax to the MacBook, the price is noticeably higher. Far higher than the price difference that triggered your call.

Don’t you have more important things to worry about, like — oh heck, don’t get me started.

What’s up with trying to disable Palm Pre syncing with iTunes? Are you guys so afraid of Palm and their miniscule market that you’re willing to expend programmer resources to try to block the Pre?

When I was managing software developers I made it clear that I didn’t mind if they put Easter eggs into the code as long as they wouldn’t damage the company’s reputation when they were discovered or leaked. A bit of humour is good for the soul and can make a monolithic company a bit more human.

But there was one caveat. If there were anything other than cosmetic bugs in the code, or if we missed a deadline, I was going to be P.O.ed about them wasting development time on fun when the serious business of robust code or meeting commitments was getting the short end of the stick. There’s a bit more to this discussion, but I don’t want to digress any more.

My question to you is this — why are you directing effort at the Pre when you have so many defects in iTunes and syncing with iPods, particularly my 2G Shuffle? Just look at your own support forums for a huge list of bugs. Get your own house in order before you worry about the Pre — it’s just an Easter egg.

Or are you threatened that much?