[nekoniaow]

I think Paul properly describes why Apple's current management of the App Store would ultimately end up deserving them if they didn't address it seriously rather sooner than later. However, deducing anything about the reasons which lead them to this situation seems a bit risky.

One doesn't need to look back far in the past to find examples of situations where Apple, after refusing to acknowledge the existence of a problem for an extended period of time suddenly came up with a solution that not only fixed it but also extended the playing ground significantly. The iTunes Store, the App Store, the iPhone copy and paste mechanism, etc. John Gruber could probably list quite a few.

Apple, or rather, Jobs' main problem is not one of efficiency but one of communication. His combined obsession for secrecy and control of the end user experience his mostly likely what produces this insanely inadapted public stance in face of the App Store obvious problems.

I seriously can't exclude that Jobs' obsessions won over the best of him and that he's actually fighting the tide instead of surfing it, but I wouldn't be surprised if a solution was already being tested inside the walls of the castle.

If Apple critics and users must learn anything about the company, it's that its public posture doesn't give away any information about what is actually brewing inside the company labs. If Apple must learn anything if it doesn't want to alleviate its most valuable partners (by which I mean developers), it's that posturing is not an acceptable communication practice and should be left people like Steve Balmer who have not much else to propose.