I don't get it. The summary is that the guy submitted an application, got rejected, appealed, the appeal process seemed to take too long, he emailed Jobs, Jobs phoned him and told him and "reiterated" (from the post) the app store rules until the guy decided he won't achieve anything.
I'm amazed at how Jobs telling the guy the same thing that he already knew (telling him 2 times actually) somehow made him go to a paragraph about Jobs with a well deserved opinion of quality products.
He still couldn't release the software, he got a "no go" for fixing the situation the way he could, he got absolutely no information about whether the issue will be fixed in the future or not. But that's ok, since Jobs called him? Seriously?
Humans especially like talking to humans in authority. If you're going to have to play by a rule, it's good to know that the rule is real, and not an imaginary rule made up by a fifth-level bureaucrat on a whim, or because they're looking for a bribe, or because they don't understand the company policy, or because you're small fry and only big players get to break all the rules.
And humans like consistency, closure, and clear boundaries. The hardest thing is not necessarily abiding by the rules: It's trying to avoid abiding by rules that aren't really there. The easiest way to ensure that you're pushing the envelope appropriately is to press yourself right up against the edge, and the best edges to push against are the ones that are firm, so that you don't keep having to second-guess yourself, or waking up to discover that your competition is getting away with more than you are because of some uncontrollable factor.
Jobs calling a developer amounts to him gifting the dev a chance for a free and easy PR. And that's exactly what this person is doing - he tells everyone about the call and gets some eyes to look at his app. So effectively Jobs said "No, we won't let you work around our bug, but in exchange you can get a traffic bump for your app."
Yes, to be honest, I didn't think of it from the "free traffic" perspective. But I wonder how important this actually is. Sure reddit / hn / slashdot crowd will happily check that kind of news, but are those services significant in any way in the number of applications bought? I don't see how a random user from the appstore target would find that post at all. But maybe I'm wrong here?
The marketing angle on this is great. It's not big exposure for apple, but it does completely illuminate a potentially larger conversation around API's. Steve is the one guy that could stop the conversation and having him make the 5min call changes the conversation for the issue, to how hands on Apple is with the development community.
Now, there is no way that Steve has time to deal with every problem, but things that have the potential for becoming bigger conversations I definitely see him stepping in quickly. He still reviews every.. EVERY single peace of advertising about the Apple brand and approves it personally...When it comes to brand, Steve is the most hands on CEO there is.
yes and because of the slashdot/hn/reddit traffic the site gets a large boost in inbound links which will up the site ranking thereby increasing search engine visibility. It could just be a total fabrication from the developer that jobs called him though and he might be saying it to get the traffic.
This also works for Jobs. By doing so, he keeps his executives on the hop, adds to his personal brand/legend, sends a clear message to those rumoring about his health status and to the developer base that has been complaining for some time.
I definitely said "this looks like an interesting app" to myself after first clicking and going to the page describing the app and then clicking the link to itunes and then waiting for itunes to load up.
I suppose it's better than Steve Jobs not calling him.
I think the part he appreciates is that his complaint was heard, even if the resolution wasn't to his favor. His complaint could have gone into a forever-unacknowledged black hole instead. That would be far more frustrating.
I do, however, agree with you that "having a bug in the SDK and not allowing you to work around it the way they do" is not grounds for talking about how great Apple and Steve are.
He could hit an automated response telling him the same. Jobs doesn't change anything in this story apart from perception. Why would we assume that a call from Jobs means not being in an unacknowledged black hole? Did he get any new information? Any timescale for fixes? Any help?
How do we know Jobs isn't just going through the list of "put it a the end of the list and let it die" issues and randomly selecting one to respond to? Feels good, but doesn't change anything - doesn't even promise to change anything.
I get an impression that getting an answer on launchpad from Shuttleworth is pretty much equivalent to unacknowledged black hole - they've got some plan they're not going to make public and your issue will not change its status for the next 1 year (then go to invalid / not an issue / won't fix). (from past experience)
Because the author had Steve Jobs on the phone and was able to speak the issue directly to Steve's ear. It's not that complicated.
An automated response doesn't tell me that my emails haven't gone straight to /dev/null. If I'm talking to Steve, and he responds to the sentences that I'm speaking to him, then I am confident that the issue has been "heard". (Promptly ignored, perhaps, but not just black-hole'd).
Compare it to as if you find some issue in the Linux kernel, post it to Linus and he calls you back via phone, explaining why it must stay that way (or so).
I'm amazed at how Jobs telling the guy the same thing that he already knew (telling him 2 times actually) somehow made him go to a paragraph about Jobs with a well deserved opinion of quality products.
He still couldn't release the software, he got a "no go" for fixing the situation the way he could, he got absolutely no information about whether the issue will be fixed in the future or not. But that's ok, since Jobs called him? Seriously?