Apple defends App Store approval process, but doesn't fix it
With a small but vocal segment of the iPhone application developer segment vowing to walk away from the platform for good, Apple senior vice president for worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller went on the defensive, sitting down with BusinessWeek for his first-ever major interview on the App Store's sta

Nokia reaffirms commitment to Symbian
Nokia is publicly refuting reports it will drop the Symbian operating system from its N-series device line in favor of the Maemo OS. According to a report published by The Really Mobile Project, Maemo marketing team member Tanja Sauvola told attendees at Nokia's N900 meetup in London that the handset giant plans to gradually phase out Symbian, with Maemo-based devices making up all of its flagship phone range by 2012. Not true, Nokia maintains. "While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we'd like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committe

RIM relying on apps to drive BlackBerry device sales
Research In Motion co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie maintain they are confident the firm will hold its ground despite declining stock prices and analyst concerns that rival manufacturers will threaten the BlackBerry platform's dominance in the North American smartphone race. RIM's leaders tell Reuters that software depth, breadth and integration will drive future device sales, noting the potential that lies in applications blending data and services from multiple sources. "The world has shifted to smartphones faster than I expected, really," Balsillie said. At its BlackBerry Developer Conference 2009 event earlier this month, RIM

iPhone developers mad as hell, not going to take it anymore
Among the major revelations of Apple's summertime response to the Federal Communications Commission's inquiry into its handling of the Google Voice VoIP application was the unprecedented look into the App Store approval process. According to Apple, the App Store receives about 8,500

Palm debuts Mojo SDK 1.3.1
In conjunction with the commercial debut of the Palm Pixi smartphone, Palm announced the release of both webOS 1.3.1 and an updated version of the Mojo SDK, promising developers a series of enhancements including APIs to prevent the screen from dimming or turning off as well as auto-generation of App Help/Support scene. The SDK also includes numerous framework doc enhancements: "We've heard the developer community's feedback about webOS docs loud and clear," writes Palm Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach on the Palm Developer Network Blog. "You'll see the first efforts to expand, clarify, and improve quality of the docs with this release. Notably, we've provided new step-by-ste