Jeff Mesnil
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Application Too Similar To Apple MobileMail Rejected From Apple Store

September 22, 2008

Apple has rejected another application from the App Store this time because:

… 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. …

If Apple was enforcing the same rule for Mac OS X, I could not use Thunderbird which I find more usable and responsive than Apple Mail.

What Apple needs to realize is that some of the best applications for Mac OS X (TextMate, Coda, Delicious Library, NetNewsWire, etc.) come from other places than Apple.

The iPhone could only gain from better applications and better competition (if only to push Apple to add landscape mode to MobileMail...).

Less crappy widgets, more usable applications and let the users decide.

[via df]