Mark Bernstein makes an excellent point about the Apple App Store:

t’s not just a business model problem; it’s a potential disaster for mobile software innovation. To sell software for the iPhone, you have to get Apple’s approval. The approval process turns out to be a mess, and this — much more than the 30% overhead — threatens to wreck the marketplace. If you can’t predict whether Apple will let you sell your software, you can’t invest in making good software.

Uncertainty is a real killer in business, and eventually, it'll cause Apple grief. Thus far, they've been fortunate: the competition hasn't measured up, and they've been able to skate by. I seriously doubt that this situation will last indefinitely.

On the other hand, like Mark, I still have an iPhone in my pocket :)

Update: As if to emphasize the point, here's a tale of a simple app caught in the Kafkaesque world of Apple approval.

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