On Friday, Apple posted their official response to the FCC's questions regarding the removal of Google Voice enabled iPhone apps from the App Store. That afternoon, the news spread like wildfire with countless tweets, blog entries, and news articles on the subject.

For the moment, let's put aside the fact that a lot of people are still upset about the unavailability of Google Voice apps on the iPhone. This subject has been discussed ad nauseam in so many other blog posts and news stories, that I won't bother rehashing it again here. Suffice it to say, while I too am unhappy about it, I do understand Apple's decision to protect their core phone functionality. As developers, we do often forget that the iPhone is Apple's product, not ours. Google Voice's Message Inbox IS almost identical to the iPhone's Visual Voicemail feature, with the exception that Google Voice actually goes one step further by also including text transcriptions of the voicemail messages. The Google Mobile iPhone app simply links to web-based versions of its services (such as Gmail), so I'm sure there'll soon be a mobile web version of Google Voice that we'll be able to access the same way (via Mobile Safari). But enough about that. There's obviously pros and cons on both sides of this fence. Back to Apple's FCC response...

At first glance, many iPhone developers applauded Apple's letter, since it provided a deeper look behind the magic curtain of the App Store. In recent weeks, Apple's Phil Schiller has made a valiant PR effort to improve the App Store for iPhone developers, so by posting their letter to the FCC online, was this yet another example of Apple revealing a new level of transparency on the inner workings of the app approval process?

While this new transparancy should be making iPhone developers happy, it ended up having an adverse effect. In their letter, Apple stated:

"There are more than 40 full-time trained reviewers, and at least two different reviewers study each application so that the review process is applied uniformly."

Doesn't that sound great? I thought so. Then Apple goes on to say:

"We receive about 8,500 new applications and updates every week..."

This is where iPhone developers started doing the math, tweeting and blogging about their startling revelation. 8,500 apps submitted every week and only 40 full-time reviewers to handle all those submissions? And if each app is reviewed twice (by at least 2 separate employees), then that's really more like 17,000 reviews a week. If you divide 17,000 by 40 reviewers, then each reviewer is responsible for reviewing approximately 425 apps per week. Now most of the posts I've seen are assuming that these reviewers are working only 5 days a week, clocking in at a typical 40 hour work week. With that in mind, that gives each reviewer only 5 or 6 minutes to review each app in order to get through all of the weekly submissions.

So after spending months slaving away on your iPhone app masterpiece, your app's entry through the pearly gates of the App Store depends upon an Apple reviewer's 5 minute experience with it. Obviously, when you look at it that way, it sounds devastating and unfair. Macworld's Jason Snell likened it to Lucy and Ethel's hilarious attempt to wrap chocolates on a rapidly accelerating conveyor belt. And while Jason was joking, it does seems like an appropriate comparision.

But before we get too riled up over those numbers and turn into an angry lynch mob, we all need to remember that they are comprised of too many assumptions. We can only assume the reviewers are working a 5 day, 40 hour work week, but knowing Apple's ambitious drive, they may work many more hours than that. They may also work staggered shifts, so that there are reviewers on duty 7 days a week. There may also be interns and part-time employees that help as well. The point is that we really have no idea how long an average app review lasts. Some updates may get approved within a couple minutes if the developer only fixed a minor bug, while some new 1.0 apps may take hours (even days) to review.

The truth of the matter is that Apple's new found transparancy may not be that transparent after all. We simply don't have all the facts yet. I for one remain optimistic that Phil Schiller's current crusade to improve the App Store will continue. If the number of weekly app submissions keeps growing at such an alarming rate, my fingers are crossed that Apple's planned App Store improvements are coming sooner rather than later.

And hiring a few more app reviewers wouldn't hurt either...

iPhone Insights by Dave Wooldridge

Labels: iphone