Are iPhone developers losing their faith in Apple?
By Dave Jeyes
First came jeers from developers whose applications were rejected from the iPhone App Store because they mimic some built-in functions of the iPhone. Now the company has begun including a Non-Disclosure notice on its rejection letters.
The iPhone has drawn a strong developer community since it was release, in spite of the fact that developers are limited by the fact that no applications are allowed to run in the background. Developers are also bewildered by the App Store approval process which has not been made transparent by Apple.
At least two separate applications have been rejected for duplicating or trying to improve upon functionality built into the iPhone. First came the third party email client called MailWrangler then Podcastr which duplicate the mail and podcasting functions on the device. Rather than giving consumers the choice to use a different application, Apple simply rejected the submissions from being included in the App Store.
The developer of the Podcastr then began distributing his application through the Apple Ad Hoc distribution network to users that sought it out. Apple responded by cutting of this means of distribution and forcing Podcastr into the iPhone gray market.
The latest move of placing a Non-Disclosure notice on App Store rejection letters is drawing further criticism. Not only is Apple ruling the App Store with an iron fist, it is signaling that it won’t tolerate any dissonance in its ranks.
The key lesson that Apple may soon have to cope with is that developers don’t have to continue creating new applications for the iPhone. They aren’t Apple employees and can pack their bags to go work on creating applications for Symbian, Windows Mobile or the newly released Android mobile phone platforms.
Could it be that Apple will rethink its strategy and make nice with its critics in the coming weeks? The answer is unclear, but it would do well to open its robes to provide some insight on the approval process and let developers create whatever applications might benefit the users.
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