Trillian for iPhone: Two months later, still no response from Apple...
It's been 60 days since our initial and only submission to the App Store.
Context & Ripple Effects
Cerulean Studios' complaint extends a pattern documented throughout 2009: an App Store review process that runs without published timelines or explanations. Back in March, Ars Technica reported Apple itself seemed unclear on the state of developer contracts, and high-profile third-party submissions like SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone had already shown how a major app's fate could hang on Apple's internal process rather than any public rule.
First-order effects
- With neither an acceptance nor a rejection after 60 days, Cerulean Studios has no feedback loop to act on — engineering work on the Trillian iPhone client is effectively frozen.
- iPhone users who want a multi-network instant-messaging client have no sanctioned way to get one, because access to the device runs entirely through the queue Apple controls.
Second-order effects
- Developers building apps in categories adjacent to Apple's own software must price in the same asymmetry; an unconfirmed report of an in-house Radio.app for iPhone underlines that first-party equivalents do not depend on third-party review outcomes.
- Approval timing becomes an unbudgetable variable for any studio allocating resources to the iPhone platform, pushing some toward platforms where submission outcomes are predictable.
Third-order effects
- If silent, indefinite stalls remain standard practice, App Store approval functions less as a quality gate than as an unaccountable strategic filter over which categories of software reach the iPhone — the structural tension between curated distribution and developer predictability that defines smartphone platforms.
The trend: App Store review opacity is hardening into a core governance problem for the iOS ecosystem, with Apple's gatekeeping quietly deciding which app categories exist on the iPhone.