There is no shortage of angst many feel towards Microsoft for essentially cornering the PC market through what many perceive to be ‘not cool’ business tactics. However, when I read this blog post that alleges that Apple rejected a mail app from being listed on their App Store, I couldn’t help but think that this was ‘not cool’. The developer explains:
I submitted my application on July 17th. On August 29th I finally heard back from Apple:
… Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. …
This is an interesting claim since although handing email, my app is simply directly loading and showing Gmail inside of an application. How you can confuse Gmail with Mail.app I’m not sure.
Now, I do not know the whole story, I am just going by what was posted by the developer of the application. Assuming this is true, this leads me to one of the following conclusions:
- Apple just made up an excuse not to allow any competition to its built in iPhone app.
- If this is the case, then Apple should take a lesson from Microsoft’s experience . After all, many Apple product and brand lovers are people who were upset at Microsoft for forcing them to use certain applications (i.e. Internet Explorer, MS Office, etc). If Apple thinks competition is good, then prove it.
- Apple genuinely believes that this application is not that much different and thus, does not feel it deserves a spot in the App Store.
- If this is the case, then Apple should remember its brand promise. Apple seems to be all about choice. Why else would they have dozens of different colours and styles for their products? If this product truly is not different, then it will not sell. But as long as the application functions the way it supposed to, Apple should let the consumer decide whether or not to buy it.
Generally, tribes are not too forgiving when companies stray too far from the perceived brand promise. We have looked at several cases where the tribe turns on tribal leaders or even the company that ‘built’ the tribe (we’ll blog about these later). Either way, I think the developer has a point when he says:
If you’re going to have rules about this, enforce them across the board. The number of shitty apps in the store is off the charts and yet mine that actually works is getting blocked.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
