In a blistering open letter published by Panic co-founder Steven Frank, the software developer makes clear that the pulling of the Google Voice app represents the epitome of where the App Store is broken.

 

 

Was Apple behind the rejection? AT&T? Who cares?

Fact: AT&T sells Blackberries that can run an official Google Voice client. No problems there.

Fact: Apple continues to sell iPhone apps that permit you to send free SMS messages. No problems there either.

Fact: You can still do everything that the Google Voice app would have done by accessing the web interface through Safari, albeit slightly less conveniently. I doubt they’ll pull Safari from the iPhone, although that would be the logically consistent thing to do.

I haven’t heard a single explanation for the rejection of the Google Voice app that makes a shred of sense at all.

 

Apple continues to stick to their original reasoning for rejecting the app, namely that Google Voice duplicated features of the iPhone's native software. An explanation that is wildly inconsistent with their approval of many apps that also duplicate native features.

The move is reminiscent of the App Store's rejection of the Eucalyptus electronic book reader for making the Kama Sutra available. This, even though, the Indian erotic manual was available as a free download through Stanza and Amazon's Kindle apps, as well as through Safari's access of the Gutenberg text.

Frank's volume was, however, apparently loud enough to reach the halls of Cupertino and catch senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller's attention. Daring Fireball's John Gruber also received a personal email from Schiller responding to his criticisms of the App Store approval process. In both cases, Schiller made clear that Apple hears their complaints and is taking their criticism to heart.

What remains to be seen is whether or not the growing number and volume of complaints regarding the store are sufficient to affect a change in policy. As for now, the process remains not only broken but frustratingly opaque to developers and customers alike.