One more iPhone app rejected for duplicate functionality

In an ongoing string of rejections by Apple's iPhone App Store, Angelo DiNardi's MailWranger is the latest application to get turned down, for much the same reason that Alex Sokirynsky's Podcaster was rebuffed about a week ago.

Apple officials have deemed that, like Sokirynsky's application, DiNardi's "duplicates the functionality" of an Apple tool built into the iPhone platform. As in DiNardi's case, Apple sees similarities with the iPhone's built-in Mail app.

DiNardi, however, is arguing that there are big differences between his app and iPhone's Mail. For one thing, his application -- unlike Apple's -- uses the Web interface through an embedded browser; and he also claims that Gmail in the iPhone's Mail lacks features that include threaded views and Google contacts.

Up to now, Apple has offered a hodgepodge of reasons for turning down other apps from the App Store. Apple claims that the rejected Murderdrome comic strip violated a section of its SDK agreement banning applications containing "obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content."

Then, curiously, Pull My Finger -- an application that produces five or six sounds of human flatulence -- got rebuffed not on the basis of offensive content, but on grounds that it is "of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community."

Irritated over the treatment of some iPhone developers, many observers are calling for greater consistency on Apple's part.

On the WebMonkey blog, for example, Adam DuVander has pointed out that the App Store is selling more than 20 different third-party tip calculators, with each one duplicating the functionality of the iPhone's built-in Calculator app.