I am about to embark* on developing an application for the iPhone, of which I am going to sell thousands of copies and then retire to the Caribbean (just like all iPhone apps right?) but I have a few concerns, primarily with Apple’s app store policy about what qualifies (and disqualifies) an application from being sold – or given away – on the app store. Now I don’t know much about Apple’s policy but I have followed the various discussions about it in the “media” so I know about things such as how if your application is deemed to compete in some way with Apple then your app will be rejected etc but it doesn’t help when I keep reading articles like this. From a business perspective I don’t want to spend months developing something only to have Apple turn around and reject it!

This neatly segways into my next point: Why isn’t there an independent store selling applications for the iPhone? A place where all the misfit applications rejected by Apple can be sold on – think of it as a council estate for mobile phone apps. Maybe there is one; I have no idea. I can see why developers would want to sell their apps through the App store as it’s baked right into iTunes and it’s easy to pay for and put on your iPhone etc but surely there must be some other way to manage applications? I guess I’ll find out soon enough but if you have any useful advice in the meantime, please leave a comment.

* when I say “about to embark” that’s actually dependent on dragging myself away from my keyboard and down to the Apple store to buy myself a new Macbook Pro; mine is getting a bit long in the tooth. As they have just released the latest versions and lowered the price I guess I don’t have any excuse not to get one.