When Apple unveiled the iPhone SDK, they announced that developers need to be accepted into their iPhone developer program in order to release software for the device. Prior to acceptance, software can't be tested on the iPhone itself, nor can it be sold through the forthcoming App Store. So on the very first day possible, I submitted our application in Rogue Amoeba's name and provided all the relevant details, then sat back to wait.
A little over a week after the SDK was introduced, Apple sent out an email that many read as a rejection letter. This letter actually said little more than "Hang on, we're still working on our system", but it was quite poorly worded and led to much confusion at the time. Eventually however, developers began to be accepted, two weeks after the iPhone developer program was officially launched.
We heard nothing from Apple at that time, so we continued to wait and work within the iPhone Simulator. However, while the Simulator is nice, it's no substitute for working on the actual device. In some cases, the Simulator does more than the actual phone and in others, it fails to do things that the phone does. There's no promise that a program will work identically on both the Simulator and the device itself, meaning it's crucial to test on the actual hardware.
After a month of waiting, with no contact from Apple save form letters that went out to all developers, we'd grown quite frustrated. We don't know if we should invest our time in a platform for which we may not even be allowed to release software. Finally on April 8th, one of our developers decided to apply to the program as an individual, to see what would happen. Shockingly, in under 24 hours he had a certificate which enabled him to work on actual hardware.
So what's going on here? This experience is not uncommon, as we've talked to a number of other respected Mac software companies who've experienced long waits or have not yet been accepted to the developer program at all. It seems as though Apple's program has two paths, one for individuals and one for companies, with the company track being processed much more slowly. As the program affords the developer nothing but the ability to work on the actual iPhone hardware, however, having two tracks seems pointless. There is no promise that your application will be sold in the iTunes Store, nor of anything else. So why service a tiny individual developer faster than some of the biggest names in Mac development?
Ultimately, the problem here is with communications, or lack thereof, from Apple. When Apple first announced the SDK, thousands of developers rushed to apply for the development program, a flood for which Apple may not have been prepared. However, since then, Apple has bungled the processing these requests. Confusing emails and a lack of useful correspondence have left us waiting to hear the status of our application for a full three months and counting. Will we eventually be accepted to the program, or will we ultimately be rejected, and barred from providing software for the platform at all? At the moment, we simply have no way of knowing.
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