iPhone dev program acceptance rate: 16%

As a dev that is in fact in said program, let me say this:

It is more trouble than it is worth at this time, and there is NO GUARANTEE AT ALL that *anything* you write will be sold on the App Store.

None whatsoever.

Tho I cannot get into details, I will say that the hoops you have to jump thru to even *debug* your app on an actual phone once you are actually "in" are un-sane and the whole process is VERY un-Apple.

And as the "beta" has progressed it has gotten *worse*.

Like screaming cursing you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me worse.

"Convoluted" is the word that comes to mind.

You want to get your app on the phone?

Drop me a line....maybe we can work out a publishing deal :)

Be glad there are brave suck- um, I mean, *souls* out there wallowing thru this pig poop for ya...

-K

It's BETA, you morons! It's a limited BETA program! It's not out yet! 4000 is a shitload most than more companies allow during the beta process.

I think one of these figures is misleading. As the poster said, companies applied, *and* had their developers apply as individual, to make sure at least one developer got through. Other developers applied twice or more, until one of their applications got accepted. So it's probably not 19 000 developers left out in the cold.

I wonder how many of the "why do we care?" commenters are developers themselves? Anyone? Didn't think so.

I think most developers (myself included) that haven't gotten into the program yet are just annoyed that Apple hasn't been more open about how the process will work. The original announcements made it sound like much more that 16% of applicants would have been accepted by this point. Make no mistake, being first to market is going to be a big advantage in some areas. How many task management applications do you think will even have a chance after people plunk down money for OmniFocus when its the only app of its kind at launch? Even if a developer writes something better, its a tough sell to get people to pay again for something they already have an application for. (This is just one example).

Now, people may say that developers aren't entitled to write apps for the iPhone. Fine. But its infuriating knowing that the only real qualification being used at this point is a lottery drawing. The individuals that were accepted got lucky with the random number generator and those that didn't get in are left behind for no particular reason. (Commentors above that aren't even serious developers but have gotten into the beta just confirm this).

I still expect that everyone who wants in will be accepted once the App Store officially launches (otherwise they should have been filtering people based on some sort of actual criteria already) but it would be nice if Apple would at least come out and confirm this publicly.

Oh, and for the people that keep thinking limiting the developers will improve the quality of apps in the store: The invites have been mostly random thus far, so there will be just as many junk apps written already. Letting everyone in will certainly increase this number, but it will also increase the number of genuinely useful applications by the same proportion. This gives anyone with the ability to filter their buying habits based on reviews/etc a much better chance at finding quality stuff in the store. For those not so gifted, you're probably in trouble either way.

I was accepted almost immediately into the program... which is curious to me as I had no experience whatsoever in the Mac programming world. A web developer by day, I only tinker with Mac programming by night. I was very surprised to learn not only that I had been accepted, but that so few made it in...

if the acceptance rates stays that low we'll kick the iphone and focus on andorid development. as android will have an app store too and it's a completely open system it's now our favoured platform.

fyi: i wrote something about that on my blog at http://www.androidcode.de/offenes-iphone-sdk-eine-uebertreibung/ (german) - and it's a shame that apple is just about to piss off their developers (the most iphone developers are oldschool mac developers).

I thinks it's just unfair: Those who got in, have a head-start and can earn money earlier... If they delay participants after the release-date of the App-Store it really hurts on the bottom-line. Also some application ideas might be already on the store, while it might look like, I was a copy-cat by just duplicating an application, where it might be the other way round.

I'm currently blocked for testing (Accelerometer...) and even had to install the jail-brake toolchain, just to do real testing. But as the development (framework + environment) is quite a bit different, I have to do additional, unnecessary efforts.

Interesting...

I assumed that most applicants got in, since I'm nothing special. Though I suppose I do have a shipping, for-sale Cocoa app, and they did call and confirm I was who I said I was along with requiring proof of my business license, so I guess they really were somewhat picky. Anyway, hopefully they open it up to anyone who applies when iPhone 2.0 is released.

I have been developing iPhone apps full time since the SDK was announced and I applied for the developer program on day 1. However, it is now less than 1 month until the App Store opens and I wonder if I have wasted all this time developing apps that I won't be able to market. Apple has released no information about when other developers will be accepted into the program. Will I be accepted next week, next month or next year? I am beginning to think I should cut my losses and switch to the Android platform. Very frustrating.

What's ridiculous to me is the sense of entitlement companies like Rogue Amoeba and many others feel. Nobody at Apple ever said that you'd be guaranteed anything, and certainly not access to the devices just by asking.

The floodgates will open once the 2.0 update is out of the door. If you've got a problem with it, quit whining and go write WinMo apps.