Apple is one of the leading providers in multimedia. They’ve created some of the sleekest and most powerful laptops and desktops. They’ve developed such gadgetry as Apple TV and the numerous versions of iPods.
The iPod Touch and iPhone has allowed developers to create applications that change the way we view reality and live our daily lives. Developers can create almost anything on the little devices such as social networking apps like Facebook, MySpace, Bump, and Twitterrific or video games like Peggle, Madden 10, Drop 7, and Karmastar. It allows users to manage their lives in the palm of their hands.
Recently, Apple has been denying some apps. It has been questioned by most gadget enthusiasts, and it appears that Apple may be biased towards competition.
Google voice, one of the many apps Google has created, allows users to make phones calls through a generated number. Google tried to release a version of the app onto the iPhone, but was shot down by Apple, who decides what applications go onto their iTunes App Store. Every app has to go through Apple’s screening process before being approved or denied. Apple not only denied the application, but pulled other already approved apps like it. This disapproval of the app could lean heavily on the fact that the app would have been competition against the main functionality of the iPhone.
Apple also rejected a dictionary application, Ninjawords, for not meeting the required rating settings, which required the app to have a 17+ rating. Apple has some fault in this because they were not clear about the rules and regulations about their censorship and rating policies.
Apple has denied applications which do not coincide with their own application functionality or accidentally went past their policies, even when it is partially their fault. Apple will, however, release a number of fart-emulating applications and apps with almost naked women in them, such as “Attack of the Zombie Bikini Babes from Outer Space” or “Asian Boobs”.
As Apple denies other companies’ apps from their devices, the companies are either looking at other spaces to place their virtual products or even making their own platforms. Research In Motion has their Blackberry App World for Blackberry users. Palm is working on their own app pool for developers to swim through. Windows is also producing an app store of their own inside Windows Mobile. They are even attempting to capture iPhone users by gaining popular iPhone apps onto their own platform.
Apple will still stay around the top and it probably won’t lose a massive amount of customers. Apple has, however, not only given incentive for current users to switch to another platform to find their app needs, it also put itself on the same playing field as other top media companies like Microsoft, Palm, and RIM.
Varity has become a bigger name in the app industry and everybody is working to give you, the customer, just about anything.
