Ben Thompson:

Apple, though, does deserve some of the blame for the slower development of these new opportunities. Their reticence in enabling sustainable businesses on the app store makes building a business on apps, particularly new-to-the-world concepts, a risky proposition. This is unfortunate; after all, it was a 3rd party – Adobe – that truly drove desktop publishing. Unfortunately, the way Adobe treated Apple in the late 90s likely contributes to Apple’s current attitude towards developers, but it’s to Apple’s own long-term detriment.

Thousands of words have been spilled this past week dooming the iPad, or holding it up. Of all those, the above passage strikes me as most imperative. I've talked to a lot of iOS developers and they seem to be struggling a lot. After all, when's the last time you heard some kid making millions on a new app? Only big studios are making that money now, because the App Store is simply broken. Search, charts, upgrades, trials, you name it — it's broken.

The iPad will never reach its full potential if developers are not properly incentivized to develop for it, to look at it as a way to do what they love.