The situation regarding Apple's App Store for the iPhone is getting weirder by the day. Several applications have been rejected from the App Store based on seemingly dubious claims such as duplication of functionality (even though they didn't duplicate anything), or alikeness to default applications. Of recent note are two applications: Podcaster and MailWrangler. The developers of these applications openly protested against the rejections due to their seemingly random nature, consequently sparking a wave of criticism from the community at Apple.

Apple, however, was less than pleased, and, in an attempt to stop these criticisms, the company has added an NDA clause to its rejection notices: "THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE." These policies from Cupertino are devastating for developer confidence, and one high-profile developer (of Exposure) has already stopped developing applications for the current App Store. "I'm not going to invest time and money into new ideas for the iPhone until this mess is resolved," he stated.

Posted: Sep 29, 2008 6:27 am