At today’s WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs outlined the top three reasons apps get rejected from the notoriously strict App Store.

First, the app doesn’t do what the developer says it does. I can get behind this. It protects the less tech-savvy users, of which there are plenty, from fooling with apps they don’t understand. Second is the use of private APIs. This is probably the most hotly contested issue with iPhone development. Jobs says the APIs are problematic because they often break every time the iPhone OS is updated. Sure, but they also give developers a lot more flexibility with the phone, and isn’t it in the developer’s best interest to release working versions of those apps for every update?

The final reason is that the apps crash. Having reviewed several apps myself, I know that replicable bugs are a big problem.

Jobs did say that 95% of apps get approved within 7 days.

The internet just about blew up the other day when word dropped that Apple would be selling contract-free iPhones at unsubsidized prices. There were rumors that the handsets would be unlocked as well, but that was just a rumor. If you’ll remember, this happened last year, just before the launch of the iPhone 3GS. The idea is to get rid of as much inventory as possible. It’s not easy to sell those expensive handsets, but some of the folks that can send of them overseas or feel like running them on T-Mobile will pick them up.

The news virtually guarantees a new iPhone model in the coming summer. What other reason would Apple have for selling unsubsidized handsets? The smart money says there will be a fire sale on subsidized 3GS models, just like there was on the 3G. Would you pay $99 for a 3GS on AT&T? Yeah, I thought you would.

You can check out the official leaked document at Gizmodo.

We should be seeing a new iPhone this summer, which makes Apple’s patent filings a whole lot more interesting. There’s one in particular that could make walking and using your phone a whole lot easier. Of course, it could also encourage the one hand on the wheel while the other tries to operate a touchscreen that gets so many drivers into trouble. At any rate, Apple has filed for a patent that would allow a user to navigate the iPhone interface by using gestures over the camera at the back of the phone.

The idea is that swiping one way or the other would allow you to move through voicemails, jump around web pages, skip tracks, and so on. The camera could also be tap sensitive, allowing for easy, one-handed selection in a variety of applications. Since this is all going to be built into the iPhone OS you can bet it would also show up on the iPad, though I can’t say I would find that particularly useful.

The patent is one of those rare useful filings. Since the original date on the filing was Q3 2008, we could assume that the tech would be street ready by the time Apple’s ready to make a new iPhone announcement.

Source: Patently Apple