Joe Hewitt, the man behind the facebook iphone application (the number one free app and probably the best app on the entire app store), quit iPhone development. Techcrunch reports that Mr. Hewitt quit due to frustration with the App store review process.

A story at the Washington Post asks Facebook to support developers over Apple but doesn’t make any case about why Facebook should do this. He makes comment that Facebook has a communications and engineering teams taking over for joe but it would be nice if facebook did something.  There’s not a real idea of Facebook should do (or why a company would do something) other than stop supporting Apple.

I look at my facebook stream page and its filled with iPhone submissions.  My wife probably thinks Facebook is a native app.  I doubt she’s accessed it from a web browser since she created her profile.  Facebook exploded for most of the people I know after the iphone came about.  Facebook loves smart phones, and the iphone in particular.

So, if I’m Facebook, and my genius engineer quits in a huff and wants to do something else, I cheer loudly.  I’ve probably wanted him to knock something else out of the park for a while now anyways.  I’ve got junior engineers that can take that gig over.  Maybe my genius can crush the Droid market now.

Facebook iPhone Dev Quits Project Over Apple Tyranny
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