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There has been a lot of news during the past week about the App Store, and the approval process that comes along with it.  Apple clearly needs to work on this process and absolutely must be more transparent.  One thing that I’m not sure they understand is that they are impeding other companies such as Cerulean Studios from doing business entirely or severely hindering it. That being said, here’s a roundup of some of the more popular App Store horror stories over the past week or so:

1.  Facebook for iPhone developer Joe Hewitt has very publicly quit developing for the iPhone platform out of protest to Apple’s policies.   (TechCrunch)

2. Apple implements a new software tool for app approvals to check API usage.  Developers are only allowed to use documented API’s in their apps and Apple has a new toy to make sure developers are really playing by the rules. (Twitter via @Gruber)

3. Rogue Amoeba, the developers of AirFoil and AirFoil Speakers Touch for iPhone, have also decided to stop supporting the iPhone platform until things change.  Their big issue is that a bug fix update was held up for over 3 and a half months because of some API’s that their Mac app uses to send images of the computer and application to the iPhone app.  What it turned into is a trademark dispute and Rogue Amoeba decided just to back down and ship an update without the pictures in it.  This is ridiculous because the API’s are public, documented API’s on Snow Leopard and they had not violated any written iPhone SDK or any of Apple’s rules on 3rd parties using their trademarks.  If you look at any of the 3 following articles, head over to the last link at Daring Fireball first.  It gives a good 3rd party breakdown of the situation, and even dissects another blog’s response which actually defends Apple in this case. 
(Rogue Amoeba original post)
(Rogue Amoeba update post)
(Daring Fireball)

Cerulean Studios, developers of the ever popular Trillian IM client have developed an iPhone version their newest version, Trillian Astra.  This app was submitted on August 14, 2009.  As of this writing, it has been “In Review” for a whopping 94 days now!  In my opinion, this is freaking ridiculous!  As you can see, Apple really desperately needs help here.  While Cerulean Studios has not posted a blog update since the 60 day mark in the review process, I want to help get the word out on their iPhone app and help get the word out even more about how broken Apple’s review process is.  There are other (great) IM apps out there with push notifications and Trillian Astra is just another one to fall into that category, so what’s the deal with the holdup Apple?  Please pull your heads out of your tails and work on this!
(Cerulean’s blog post at 60 days)