First-order effects

• Vonage's mobile VOIP application sits out of distribution while the delay stands, leaving the company with zero presence among iPhone users until Apple acts on the resubmission.
• Apple takes the reputational hit: the 'technical issues' explanation lands just five days after it rejected and then reversed course on the Obama 'HOPE' app, feeding a narrative that its approval decisions bend to pressure rather than fixed criteria.

Second-order effects

• Every other VOIP developer eyeing the iPhone — Skype most prominently — reads this approval as the template: if a 'technical fix plus resubmit' clears the bar, rejection is negotiable, which changes how they pitch and time their own submissions.
• If the app ships and works as advertised, Apple's own voice-adjacent partners and any carrier tied to iPhone calling plans face a service that routes calls around traditional telephony pricing inside the device they sell.

Third-order effects

• The episode points toward App Store approval discretion becoming a standing structural issue: when one company's review process gates an entire category of communications software, each contested decision invites scrutiny of whether the gate should be governed by published rules rather than judgment calls.
• Should VOIP apps proliferate on smartphones despite the delays, the long-run pressure shifts onto incumbent voice pricing models — the phone number stops being the unit of value, and platform owners become toll-takers on calls rather than carriers of them.