Facebook developer Joe Hewitt, the mastermind behind one of iPhone's most popular social networking applications has officially announced he has quit the project. Late Wednesday afternoon Hewitt launched a significant tweet heard around the world.
"Time for me to try something new. I've handed the Facebook iPhone app off to another engineer, and I'm onto a new project."
Hewitt cites Apple's App Store policies as the reason he's moving on from developing the Facebook app for iPhone. Meanwhile, millions of Facebookers are anxiously awaiting update 3.1 which is expected to include push notifications.
In a brief conversation with Tech Crunch, Hewitt aired his grievances with Apple, lashing out at the company's wildly absurd app review processes that have vexed both developers and users since the service was launched through iTunes back in July of 2007.
"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," Joe Hewitt said, "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."
It was only three months ago that Hewitt publicly pledged his allegiance to Apple in a personal post entitled "Innocent Until Proven Guilty", after Apple was bashed in the press for another round of App Store buffoonery. In that same post he made it clear that his major complaint centered on the App Store review process. It appears little has changed for Joe since then.
"I have to promise one thing. No matter how annoyed I get, I will not stop developing for Apple's platforms or using Apple's products as long as they continue to produce the best stuff on the market. I never forget how deeply Apple cares about making their users happy, and that counts more than how they treat their developers. Besides, when I have a problem with a friend, I don't threaten to boycott our friendship until they change, so I'm not going to do that to Apple either." Hewitt wrote on August 24th."Having said that, I have only one major complaint with the App Store, and I can state it quite simply: the review process needs to be eliminated completely."
Joe Hewitt has decided to default on his grand promise, determined to return to his roots as a web developer. The move is certain to cause a ripple effect for many iPhone developers like Joe, trapped by a system that offers the lure of instant access to millions of fiercely loyal users. But that exposure comes with the cost of giving up ultimate creative control over to a middleman. When that middleman happens to be Apple, developers have learned to nut up or shut up.
Hewitt signed off on Twiiter, ending the day with a faint but meaningful tweet to some 13,000 followers hanging on every one of his 140 characters. I'm pretty sure Apple is paying attention now.
"For every dev that leaves iPhone in frustration, 1000 new ones join up. iPhone is an unstoppable train regardless of how much we complain."
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