Ridiculous App Store approval policies
He knows what he is speaking about. We couldn’t agree with Hewitt’s sentiments more. We share the very same view on what is going on around Infinite Loop. Apple has built some truly fantastic products, but their approach to the App Store is frightening.
“My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer.
The web is still unrestricted and free, and so I am returning to my roots as a web developer. In the long term, I would like to be able to say that I helped to make the web the best mobile platform available, rather than being part of the transition to a world where every developer must go through a middleman to get their software in the hands of users.”
Joe Hewitt is a software engineer at Facebook, which he joined when the company he co-founded with Blake Ross, Parakey, was acquired in July, 2007. Before that, they created the Firefox browser.
In his spare time, Hewitt has become a major contributor to the iPhone development community. He released his own sample framework and code that is now being used in dozens of iPhone web applications. He also wrote the Facebook iPhone application.
Joe is also the creator of, and a regular contributor to the popular FireFox web development tool FireBug.
Joe is a co-speaker of Teens in Tech Conference (San Francisco 02.2010.). Speakers