Editorial

Posted on 11 Aug 2008 at 16:59

 

Gallery

With delays in vetting content for the iPhone and the pulling of a game over security concerns, Apple needs to be careful that it doesn't scupper the App Store.

What's up with the iPhone app store? Apple is vetting all of its contents, as it promised, but not without problems. Every iPhone developer, as you'll know by now, has to be a fully signed-up member of the developer programme, with a certificate to prove who they are, so that Apple can track their submissions. That's a good thing, and it should give us the confidence to download and run their applications on a device that quickly becomes a repository for every piece of information we own.

So how could it be that within a month of the store's launch, Apple has already pulled one application over security concerns, and another developer tells us of woeful communications? The security concerns centred on Aurora Feint, a multiplayer game that, should you choose to use its community feature to see which of your friends is also playing, would send the contents of your address book to the game's servers. It wasn't so much the fact they were harvesting your address book - they didn't use it for any nefarious purpose - more the way it was transmitted that raised the most eyebrows. It was sent unencrypted.

Why didn't Apple spot this in its testing? The two developers fixed their oversight, submitted an update to the App Store and then wrote a long explanation on their forum while that update sat 'in the queue marked as In Review'. In Review could just as easily mean in limbo though, if the experiences of another developer are anything to go by. Dr Lee Konowe developed an application for monitoring diabetics' blood sugar levels, which worked fine in the SDK, but gave different results on the handset. By the time MacUser pointed this out, he had already produced two updates, but as the first was in the review queue he couldn't submit the second, more appropriate, update in its place.

Clearly, it's early days for the iPhone 3G and the App Store, but there is a good reason why most mobile phone developers don't let users install their own applications, which Apple is demonstrating ably in these two examples; administering the process to ensure the results are safe and secure is a time-consuming and lengthy business.

If the iPhone really is to be the next big thing to drive Apple's profits to unimaginable levels, the App Store must quickly shed its milk teeth, and deliver to users - and developers - a speedy, reliable service.

Author: Nik Rawlinson