App Store welcomes third-party browsers… for now

Well, well, well. Looks like Apple might be getting a bit less draconian with its App Store approval process as four third-party web browsers went up for sale as of last night. Running from free to $1.99, the most promising of the lot looks to be the $0 Edge Browser which allows you to use up all 3.5″ inches of your iPhone or iPod Touch’s screen by ridding that screen hog of a nav bar. In the past Apple has pulled quite a few promising apps because they “violated the terms of the SDK” but often times it seemed like a plain case of “please don’t make us look bad because you improved upon our designs/are trying to add a feature we clearly don’t care about.” Because of this we imagine that quite a lot of anxious people will rush to grab the new browsers out of fear that Apple will pull them, but perhaps the fact that four were released at once can be taken as a sign that positive change is coming to the App Store in terms of the application approval process. That or Apple is just eager to show off what people can do with its SDK to those young punks that hang with the WebOS SDK crowd.

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