Ever since the App Store really started to take off, apps duplicating other apps' functionality have been turned down by Apple one by one. While some of them replicated the features of Apple's own applications to very little extent, Apple has been ruthless and denied every one of them. This is also the case of an app called MailWrangler, which seemingly conflicts with Apple's own Mail application.

“So in July I wrote a small iPhone app called MailWrangler,” says the developer of the app. “Basically this app enabled a user to add their GMail accounts (standard and Google Apps For Your Domain) which they could load and switch between them quickly,” he explains.

“It embedded Webkit into the app and logged you in to the accounts automagically. Normally to check multiple Gmail accounts in mobile Safari you would have to log in and out of all of the accounts, typing the username and password for each. Using just the Apple Mail application you aren’t able to see threaded views, your google contacts, archive (quickly), star, etc. without going through the hassles that are present when using Gmail’s IMAP on the iPhone. There’s a similar app for the Mac desktop called MailPlane.”

The developer reveals he submitted his app quite some time ago (on July 17). Just over a month later, he got his response from Apple. As you would expect, it was in the negative:

“...Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. [...] There is also no way to edit an account once it has been added...” Apple said.

The developer found this claim “interesting,” noting that it's pretty hard to confuse Gmail with Mail.app, despite the fact his MailWrangler deals with fetching / handing e-mails. The key difference, as the developer points out, is that it simply (and directly) loads inside an app, showing a user's Gmail account.