Apparently stung by the fact that developers have been complaining about its decision to reject programs put forward for the iPhone App Store, Apple has taken its latest and most daring step forward.
No, I don't mean publishing a list of rules under which applications are accepted or rejected. Are you insane?
No, instead it has taken the path that is the obvious outgrowth of controlling what's going to go into your store. The latest rejection, according to this post at a forum set up to discuss - and try to figure out, reverse-engineering black box-style, quite what the rules are for acceptance and rejection - comes with the unfriendly instruction that
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE
Still, you can see what they managed to glean at this page, which runs to four apparent criteria. To which perhaps one can add another: participating in a forum trying to work out rejection criteria?
On the day when Google has got a lot of people very interested by unveiling the first phones running Android, which won't have any rejection criteria at all (that we've heard of..), this surely isn't the smartest time for Apple to be aiming at its feet.
