Apple Rejects App Because It Duplicates iTunes Functionality

From Slashdot, we find out that Apple has decided an application that allows you to download podcasts straight from the phone “duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.” The application was denied entry into Apple’s walled garden of an application store as a result.

An application I use very frequently on my Nokia N95 8GB is the built in podcasting software. It is imperfect in many, many ways, but it does what I need it to do: download podcasts without tethering to a computer. This is a massively useful piece of software to me!

That isn’t to say there isn’t other ways this software can be distributed. In fact, the author makes it available through an equivalent of a development certificate signed version of a Symbian app. However, Apple still retains the right to use the kill switch on any application it doesn’t like. As a user–granted a user who works for Nokia–it makes me unwilling to buy software for an iPhone as I know that Apple can kill it if it doesn’t like it for some reason.