As if jumping through hoops were not enough, thanks to Apple’s NDA, all these developers are working in localized vacuums. In development, the community is the single greatest asset. Being able to rely on the wisdom, insight, and forethought of others is a gift of incomparable value. As the few readers of my blog may be aware, I’ve had to learn both Django and Python from the ground up over the course of the last few months, and I shudder to think what that would have been like without a community to lean on.

It’s the final steps in Michael’s process that really got me, though. Apple rejected his app at one point due to a bug. If not for the nothing-short-of-insane NDA, that bug might not have been introduced. Michael may have been able to benefit from the experience of other iPhone developers at many stages in this process, resulting in, if nothing else, at least not wasting Apple’s time reviewing iterations of the app that were not yet viable. Each of the three times (!) that Apple reviewed Michael’s app, they could have been reviewing other apps waiting in the long line to gain placement in the App Store. For Apple’s own benefit, they should reign in that NDA, just so they won’t have to answer the same questions 100 times over or review the same apps scores of times as developers try to learn the ropes.

I’ve thought about hobbying around with iPhone app development, but frankly horror stories like this one (which actually and sadly is not really a horror story) scare me. But the answer probably isn’t going to come from developers and certainly not would-be developers. I think the only people Apple will listen to is their customers, the users of iPhones. This effects consumers as much as the developers, because it means slower and infrequent updates to the apps they use and many times paid for. It also means waiting for apps they need or want just as anxiously as the developers wait for them to be released. It means many good services may not take the time or effort to make an iPhone app, and that one is probably the most devastating of them all.

Seriously, Apple. What the hell?