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By now, most people are familiar with the complaints regarding the consistently confusing and complex process of getting Apple to approve a new app for sale in their App store. It has certainly become fashionable to depict Apple as the evil corporation that cares little for the struggling developer, and there is no shortage of articles and blogs which drive this point home. While it may ultimately be fruitless to contribute to the already healthy amount of chatter regarding this subject, as long as Apple continues to create such a hostile environment surrounding what should be a relatively egalitarian form of commerce, they should be aware of the massive amount of disapproval their policies are fostering.

Two recent developments highlight Apple’s determination to maintain rigid control over the App Store and its contents. In a recent post on the iPhone Dev Center, they encourage developers to utilize the Core Location framework for apps which require location-based information. They go on to offer this warning, “If you build your application with features based on a user's location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.”

I wonder who determines what "beneficial information" entails? Even if Apple does feel a responsibility to shield their end-users from unnecessary or unwanted advertising (I suspect that fear of litigation may also play a part in this warning), wouldn't the best way of ensuring that consumers get what they want be to let the consumers themselves decide? Isn't the entire point of mobile apps that you can customize your experience by downloading only the ones you want and get rid of the ones that you don't? If an app is bombarding people with inappropriate advertising, it will naturally be filtered out by word of mouth or will at least be deleted from users' devices once they discover its properties. Additionally, there must be some people who would actually be interested in receiving information about nearby discounts. As long as the description of the app clearly states the intention of the developers to deliver this sort of advertising, then the responsibility lies with the person who downloads the app, not Apple.

In another fit of paranoia, Apple recently delivered a veiled threat to a developer for including the name of a competitor in the description of their app:

"Thank you for submitting Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab 2.2 to the App Store. During our review of your application, we found that your application contains inappropriate or irrelevant platform information in the Application Description and/or Release Notes sections.

Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store. While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to remove “Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!” from the Application Description.

Please log into iTunes Connect to make appropriate changes to the Application Description now to avoid an interruption in the availability of Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab 2.2 on the iPhone App Store."

I'm not sure why simply mentioning that the app was hailed by another company is grounds for denial, but the way this letter is written is the most insidious part. It starts benignly enough, with Apple assuring the developer that the app will not be rejected due to the inclusion of Google in the description; but the addition of the assertion that failure to enact the change could result in "an interruption in the availability" of the app is in essence the same as saying the app will be rejected unless it is revised.

Apple obviously has the right to accept or reject any app based on whatever criteria they see fit, but the continuation of an application process shrouded in secrecy and seemingly arbitrary rules will only cause the ranks of the developers who have already shunned Apple to swell. This will be detrimental to Apple as a business, and mobile consumers as a whole, and the breadth of apps available could suffer as a result; it is difficult to justify a system which doesn't seem to benefit anyone involved.