Reading the last Xojo newsletter, I stopped on the blog post http://blog.xojo.com/dont-give-mobile-the-cold-shoulder
While the reasons cited at http://www.cbronline.com/news/mobility/apps/why-are-most-developers-giving-mobile-the-cold-shoulder-4655434 mainly have to do with the indubitable complexity of XCode, Java and other mobile development environments, I am not sure this is the only reason.
For a lot of corporate developers, mobile devices are still looked down upon, and quoted as “toys”.
I agree that Xojo makes developing an app much, much easier than previous tools. Yet, in its present state, Xojo iOS is still extremely limited, and lacks a lot of features now common in most every iOS apps. Past the necessary adaptation to a new platform and a new UI, I found the creation of my first app extremely frustrating because of that. Fortunately, numerous declares alleviate a big deal of these shortcomings, but frankly, this is not the kind of rapid development we have been accustomed to with Desktop and Web.
Sure, one can quickly develop applications, at the condition not to need scrolling views and many other common features. Why is it not as simple as setting minHeight or minWidth like it is done in Web ? Sure, it will come. Not soon enough …
Now, there is yet another hurdle the undeniable qualities of Xojo iOS can do very little about. The iOS market is oversaturated, underpriced, and the current App Store is a shameful accumulation of indistinguishable titles. After working on much more time than it takes to watch the season finale of Mr Robot (about a couple months), I had released Elementary Letters with the hope to have at least a dozen sales a month or so. In fact, even if I search by its name, my app does not show before a couple dozen mostly unrelated junk. Effectively, it has been buried by the outrageously disorderly way the present iOS App Store works.
I am not alone in finding the present state of the App Store untolerable. There are countless accounts of the same misadventures in the Apple Dev forums. Unfortunately, Apple has locked all distribution of iOS apps throughs its own crappie iTunes, so it’s their way or the freeway.
I am usually not one to spit in the soup. But when the soup in question looks like an ocean to get drawn into, I feel it is necessary to warn potential swimmers about the dangers.
Better spend more time developing for OS X. At least, the MAS is not a mess yet.
Of course, I am speaking about general public, end user software, and organic growth. It maybe different for corporate development. Yet, if I was a corporation, I would have a very hard look before investing in an app that most probably will never be found by users, unless I pour a lot of money in Apple’s pocket to have a decent search rank…
