After 15 months of being “In Review”, AppLauncher was rejected by Apple on December 16, 2009. AppLauncher was submitted to the App Store on September 11, 2008, and had been languishing in what one might call Apple’s Gitmo for iPhone apps:(

AppLauncher is a free utility for launching apps from an alphabetical list.  It worked within the published iPhone SDK and so its functionality is limited to those apps that supported being launched by other apps (i.e. implemented a “custom URL scheme”).  AppLauncher is no different than viewing/launching your applications “by name” on your Mac or other computer.

The reason given for the rejection is that Apple doesn’t want users to access iPhone apps other than through the interface Apple provides (swiping through iPhone/Touch screens to find an app or typing the app name in the search widget).

That we got a phone call from Apple on the 9th followed by a re-examination of AppLauncher prior to the decision to formally reject it is appreciated.  Certainly an improvement over the few “Your application is requiring unexpected additional time for review” emails received in the intervening months.  Perhaps Apple has taken to heart Obama’s campaign promise to close Gitmo before the end of the year…

We developed AppLauncher for our  own use to quickly access apps we were developing and that Xcode and iTunes were putting all over the place within the 10 visible screens or beyond.  We submitted it as a free app to the App Store so others can make use of it.  Though a relatively small number of apps support launching via the custom URL scheme, most developers we contacted last year said they would support it in their next rev once AppLauncher was available.  Sigh…

In any event, AppLauncher is a very handy utility and we hope that Apple will incorporate its functionality in a future iPhone/Touch OS  as the current UI has become unwieldy for managing the tens of apps that many users have.