Update 3/10/2009 14:20 
AMBER Alert has been made ready for sale in the App Store. Thanks to 
all who helped make this issue visible. It looks like Apple decided 
to move on this and give them a break. Thanks Apple.

Please visit http://www.zdziarski.com/projects/amberalert/ for a
link to the iTunes store.

3/8/2009

Open Letter to Apple, Inc., and Steve Jobs

To the Executive Team at Apple, and Steve Jobs,

The need to send an email such as this represents the magnitude of the
problems the App Store faces, and everything that is wrong with its
lengthy and ambiguous review process. The mere fact that a free utility
that can quite possibly save lives cannot make it into people's hands
within a reasonable amount of time is just a highlight of the ongoing
problems independent developers like myself have been experiencing with
Apple for the past year.

This letter is to make you aware of an application I've volunteered my
time to engineer with the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children - AMBER Alert. This App Store application has the potential to
revolutionize how missing children are reported to law enforcement. By
using the iPhone's GPS and some geo-analytics, we're able to build a
number of automated logistics tools and quickly relay sightings to law
enforcement agencies. With an audience of millions of iPhone users, the
missing kids that are out there stand to gain a LOT more exposure.

Yet nearly a month has passed since my February 14th submission, and
the application continues to sit "In Review". NCMEC has adapted their
infrastructure to handle these submissions and has a call center
trained to respond to them, as well as their CIO, regional directors,
and many others ready to devote time to making this application
successful - yet this entire team continues to wait on Apple to approve
this application.

The App Store review process is non-responsive to a cruel degree, and
unfortunately, a month is sadly only a small amount of time compared to
some of my other applications that Apple has chosen to flat out ignore
for three months or more. While spending time developing commercial
applications only to face Apple's silence is frustrating, to have an
application (like AMBER Alert) developed solely on a volunteer basis,
and for such a good cause as finding kidnapped children - to have this
non-profit application ignored is entirely insulting.

Is it the belief of many that these discriminating and opaque review
processes are hurting Apple's relationship with independent developers
- a demographic that once carried Apple for many years. With the advent
of the Android store, the Blackberry store, and competing iPhone
application stores such as the Cydia Store, continuing to operate in
this mode of cold silence will only drive away more developers.

While these matters are better left for lengthier conversations, I'm
asking that you pick up the phone today and help push the AMBER Alert
application through. If you had to sit and look at these kidnapped
children, as I have while working on this application, you'd realize
just what a depraved world we live in, and how urgent it is to have an
application like this be able to get information out (and sightings
back in). As a developer and a human being, I'm anxious to see this
application released. If I were the parent of one of these missing
children, I would be beside myself with anger over Apple's apparent
lack of interest in this application. The reprobate and fearful world
these children are surviving in - if they are still surviving - may
very well be prolonged because of Apple's lack of interest in
independent developers like me.

Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss this.
Otherwise, I hope you'll do the right thing and light a fire under
someone's seat in the App Store. If there is any application that
should be getting reviewed today, this is it. I would be glad to put
all of my other application submissions on hold to see this processed
as soon as possible.

Jonathan Zdziarski
http://www.zdziarski.com/projects/amberalert/