Thumbs up or down for the app approval process?

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The seasoned smartphone user loves getting their hands on new apps. Be they weather forecasters, mapping devices or just the sound of a light sabre – ask an iPhone user – it is a high point of owning one of these up-to-date, shiny devices.

But not is all love and flowers when it comes to creating the apps and getting them into a store so we can download and enjoy them. Developers who submit the apps have turned a grumble about approval processes into a yell recently and when the creator and developer of Mozilla takes a pop, people tend to sit up and listen.

We take a look at four of the big guns in the app store market and give you an insight into what they offer, both to the customer and developer.

Android’s Market

Let’s start with Google’s offering to the mobile application scene, the Android Market. Originally launched on 22 October 2008, the Market has 10,200 apps to date and the Google platform-based handsets are increasingly rising in popularity.

We have yet to see a real foot stamping comment when it comes to the approval process but perhaps this is down to the lack of one.

Google has left approval in the hands of Android users. All developers have to do is create the app, register with Android and publish it. It is then down to users to report any offending apps. Although, in August, the company announced just one per cent had to be taken down.

The company puts a big focus on calling it a market rather than a store due to its open source community philosophy and seems to be a favoured method with app developers.

Of course, there is the concern that a lot of the apps will be useless or even offensive but that is down to Android users to decide.

Apple’s App Store

Next up is the overlord of the applications space, Apple’s App Store. Launching before any of the others we are discussing, the app store came into our lives back in July 2008. To date the store has over 85,000 apps with more than 125,000 developers involved in the creation.

However, being the biggest and perhaps the best doesn’t negate the App Store from criticism.

Unlike Android, Apple reviews every app submitted to go onto its store, which it claims is in order to “protect consumer privacy, safeguard children from inappropriate content, and avoid applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone.”

Yet the long and arduous process of getting an app onto this mammoth store has lead to many complaints as developers were waiting a long time for approval and were reportedly not getting paid for their work.

Extra criticism also comes Apple’s way when undesirable apps such as Baby Shaker or I am Rich manage to work their way through.

Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner, told IT PRO its size is its downfall.

“[The] Apple App Store remains miles ahead of any other current offering simply because of the sheer number of apps and the ease of use of the store," she said.

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