Apple Moves Goalposts, Approves E-Mail App

by Eric March on November 22, 2008 at 12:58 pm

It’s been a short two months since Apple rejected MailWrangler because it “duplicates functionality” of the built-in E-Mail app, despite the fact that it was intended to work with multiple GMail accounts in a way the built-in app can’t. Now, either Apple have relaxed restrictions on duplicating functionality, or this one has somehow slipped passed them, because Bag Dog Apps’ BdEmailer 1.1 has been approved and is currently available for sale in the App Store.

BdEmailer started life as one of several wide-format E-Mail apps that would let you advantage of the landscape keyboard for easier typing, but it originally shipped everything you entered off to the built-in E-Mail app for sending. This latest version now includes direct SMTP support for sending E-Mails directly from within the app itself — a feature it boldly points out in its description. Twice. How that managed to slip by is beyond me, but there it is.

It’s hard to say at this point if Apple is finally letting apps that are competitive to their own on some level through or if this was just a cock-up, but the former seems pretty unlikely, given Apple’s history. That means that we’re more likely to see BdEmail yanked from the App Store any day now, so those of you who want it had better get out $1 and grab it [iTunes Link] before it disappears entirely.

If by some miracle they’ve relaxed their restrictions on such matters, then perhaps they’d be kind enough to provide us with a map that more accurately nails down what’s allowed and what’s still forbidden that lies beyond the SDK rules we already know about.

(via Engadget)

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