Google vs. Apple, on soft skills and drinking the Kool Aid!

[This post was written in Aug. 2013, but is still as relevant in June 2015, and today in March 2024 with the DMA coming into play]

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fanboy, the fruit kind. I like robots too, but I find them not sufficiently human, pun intended.

That being said, from time to time, I can really appreciate what Google can do with its soft skills (you know that thing a few humans possess; typically not an engineer’s forte). Today, I would like to highlight a practical case where Google, with a simple email, shows much greater empathy and at least gives the illusion of caring for its developer community. Here’s a copy of the email many of us received last week with my numbered (x) comments below:

Subject: Google Play Developer Program Policy Update

Making Google Play a great community for users is an important part of helping build a successful platform for you as a developer to distribute your apps. From time to time, we update our content policies as part of an ongoing effort to provide a secure and consistent experience for users. We strive to maintain clear guidelines for you as developers, to help us grow this platform and engage with those users (1).

This email is to notify you that we’ve made some changes to our policies; here are some highlights (2):

- Streamlined the ads policy, with guidance on interstitial ad behavior, and a new “System Interference” provision, which prohibits ads in system notifications or home screen icons, and requires user consent when an app changes specified settings on a device (3)

- A revised hate speech policy that provides more comprehensive coverage, while recognizing Google Play’s role as a platform for free expression

- Clarification that the gambling policy extends to all games that offer cash or other prizes; that virtual goods and currency in games are subject to the payment processor policy, that incentives should not be provided to users to rate an app; that artificially inflating an app’s install count is prohibited, and that the Google Play Program Policy applies to all developer information or content made available on the Store.

Please review the Google Play Developer Program Policy to see all the changes and make sure your app complies with our updated policies.

Any apps or updates published after this notification (4) are immediately subject to the latest version of the Program Policy. If you find any existing apps in your catalog that don’t comply, we ask you to fix and republish the application within 30 calendar days of receiving this email. After this period, existing applications discovered to be in violation may be subject to warning or removal from Google Play.

We recognize that some developers will need to change their app and advertising practices (5) to comply with the revised policy, but we believe these changes will help ensure all users and developers can maintain confidence in the standard of apps available on Google Play. Our aim is to foster a high standard of app behavior, so you will be able to take advantage of Google Play as a successful platform to distribute your apps and continue to grow your business. (6)

Regards,
Google Play Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

You have received this mandatory service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Play service or account.

First of all, we receive an email, instead of being told to just re-validate the terms typically at a time when we’re busy in our app submission workflow process. The above email update is asynchronous, and makes it much easier to process calmly.

Then, the soft touches:

(1) Restate and remind the context; policies are not there to make life difficult for developers, but rather to help grow a platform and raise the bar. Granted, Google has a lot of catching up to do here! But stating a shared goal puts me on the same team and puts my mind in a positive mental state to process the new “constraints”…

(2) Highlights! THANK YOU SO MUCH. With Apple, every new policy update makes me feel like I need to use the diff online command tool to find out what crept up and what will bite me back down the line. Here, the highlights tell me what I’m in for. 3 bullet points. Probably only one or two concern me. I can digest it directly from the source, right there. Or I can dig deeper by reading the entire updated policies, but probably don’t need to. Don’t let me guess, or worse, discover the biased version from an (over) analysed blog post which inevitably is looking for the unwritten catch (which will add unwarranted anxiety).

(3) Short list, unafraid of using the “ad” word including technicalities like interstitial (Google understands and accepts ads, fully). Here, plain catching up to Apple who’s had similar guidelines for a while. But introducing those changes is a huge deal in the Android world. That email was definitely the right thing to do.

(4) This whole paragraph is EXPLICIT, and leaves no doubt as to what is likely to happen and when. New apps, updates, and existing apps. On the fruit side, we actually never know if it will apply to new/updates and/or existing apps…

(5) Apologize, by empathetic. Nice touch. Doesn’t hurt. App publisher teams work as hard on an individual basis as any Google or Apple employee (if not more?). Thanks for recognising the work that actually makes YOUR platform stronger. Actually, since most publishers won’t turn ROI positive, then double thank them.

(6) Re-state the intent. It’s for the greater good. No shortcuts allowed. Life is hard. Suck it up. The platform rules. Publishers are guests. I knew it when I joined.

In essence, the above memo is a slam dunk announcing tough new constraints for a number of developers. But it’s a rallying call. It’s subtle in its own way, and it’s done right.

My feeling with Apple is that the developer relationship is brutal, in your face, with little to no empathy, Darwinian and unapologetic (except when there is an explicit mess, e.g. dev tools downtime). Apple does most things right, including letting us know when things change. But there is often too much room for doubt, anxiety, interpretation. It’s unnerving.

I suck it up not because I’m a fanboy; I do so because in my opinion, Apple’s end product is superior, by a large margin. Still, no excuse for not using soft skills to manage the developers expectations… could go a long way to strengthen the platform, and the entire business.