Okay some official apps could do these:
- Steal phone numbers (Unity game engine).
- Messing around using address book API (there’s one company doing this, and it finally got caught).
- Make a prank call (although the app just exits afterward).
- Reboot the phone accidentally.
- Hangs the phone.

All of these are the things that Apple could solve by adding some more restrictions to the API. They have the full control to protect the private API.

Now, your claim is quite invalid in the case of “All a developer has to do is to use undocumented features to get out of the sandbox.”

It’s not enough. They have to be able to communicate and operate “system-wide”.

They need to be able to run in the background for some situation, or else it just stops functioning (iPhone OS only allows one app running at a time).

It needs to be installed in the filesystem, not the sandbox folder (App Store could not install apps outside the sandbox).

In the case of jailbroken apps, those apps are not living in the sandbox as most official apps. They’re installed directly on the iPhone filesystem as most of other iPhone OS built-in apps. This is controlled by Cydia.

Some apps in the jailbroken system (which are using undocumented API) are also taking advantage of intermediate system such as WinterBoard, MobileSubstrate, SBSettings, or I don’t know what else.

There are some that’s taking advantage of some unix binaries, a port of the existing binaries from the Intel platform (desktop).

If we’re just using the undocumented APIs, we could not access or execute these binaries.

The point is,
Of all App Store whiners, lots of them knows what’s best for users and what will be great for their apps.

Some of them are just pure whiners who just want to win the popularity contest in the App Store. But, not all of them.

But, the way Apple communicates by closing in on them, putting up silly reasons for rejections doesn’t help at all. That’s the thing that never changes until now, ever since devs start complaining.

Developers know that.

All a developer has to do is to use undocumented features to get out of the sandbox.

Examples of this are in the jailbroken iPhone marketplace.

This is why an open App Store is dangerous for the consumer.

Apple has been continuously refining its App Store vetting process. Thus as time goes on, things will improve.

I don’t like those developers that WHINE, WHINE, WHINE. They should get out of iPhone development. Good riddance when they leave. The other app developers can be left to making tons of money.

As for the greed, I don’t mean to imply that either Rogue Amoeba or Facebook are acting out of greed. Instead, they are used in this article to frame the current discourse on AppStore issues. There is a large demographic of developers who create one off applications with no plan of supporting their applications, but still continue to charge for them. I think both Hewitt and the R.A. team have some valid points about approval times, but my point on a whole is that they need to take a step backwards and look at the process from a consumer lens. Hope this clears some things up a little.

It couldn’t do much (as Joe had said), unless the unofficial apps from Cydia which requires a firmware to be Pwned.

I’m not even talking about unofficial apps or jailbroken ones, there’s no intended relation between a “transparent” App Store and an “open iPhone”.

It’s purely about the assumption that an officially signed app, built with iPhone SDK would be able to do dangerous things. The worst that it could do are:

- Exhausting the current memory on the phone, and it exits, because of memory warning.
- Crashing apps, which just exits.
- Messing around with your contacts using address book API (but this is a security problem).
- Add more here, please.

So it has very few chances to eat the OS :-).

Because we’re not talking about jailbroken phones. But, a legit app, that has not pass the review stage. (Apple themselves do not really test all apps for proper functionality 100%).

Let me defend Joe a little bit, regarding this, not Rogue Amoeba:

1. Facebook app is not a paid app.

2. He has his rights to quit his iPhone Dev project. (TechCrunch is making too much noise out of it).

3. Facebook will continue to be maintained by other developers, which I’m sure will have the capabilities to maintain it.

4. It’s “Joe’s decision” not Facebook’s decision.

Referring to iPhone Devs as greedy is a very discriminative opinion.

The people who are not quitting are:
- Companies who keep on investing the platform with their massive amount of apps with similar basic functions, but different content. These people don’t care about quality, they know how to take advantage some workforce to “churn out” apps. Hundreds may be rejected, hundreds more are in the store.

- Devs who doesn’t give up on the platform, and still making their efforts to be successful.

The people who quits:

- Those who want to do something else. Well if their apps doesn’t make a dime, why bother ?
If atebits quits, then people could complain, but his app is in the store and works fine. Not screwing the phone.

- Those people like Joe Hewitt, who prefer to do web development. (He’s working at Facebook remember. It’s better to send complaints to Facebook).

- Rogue Amoeba (they had done something that violates iPhone SDK’s agreement, so it’s reasonable to make complaints to them).

But, as a long time iPhone Dev. Joe Hewitt has truth in what he said.
iPhone apps have very few chances or capabilities to ruin your phone.

Apple has designed the iPhone app bundle to be sandboxed, unable to do dangerous things that would ruin the device’s basic capabilities.

Unless if you installed an unofficial app for jailbroken phones, which has a lot more system-changing capabilities.

Oh, and I do still think that the words and actions of Hewitt and Rogue Amoeba are very damaging from a PR / image perspective.