Longtime reader and tipster The Reptile wrote in to tell us about Fortune’s coverage of the iPhone Amber Alert app and its problem getting into the App Store:

Now Jonathan Zdziarski, one of the original iPhone hackers and the author of several O’Reilly books, has hit on something that might work. It’s an open letter to Steve Jobs pleading with Apple’s CEO to speed up approval of the Amber Alert iPhone app that’s been sitting in the queue since February 14. The application uses GPS location information to funnel sightings of missing children to the nearest law enforcement agency as quickly as possible.

Has Apple dropped the ball? There doesn’t seem to be a duplicates functionality, or official Amber Alert app that could explain the problems this time (see PodCaster and StarPlayr), does there? Is Apple that understaffed and ill-prepared in the face of 25,000 apps, or are the $99 novelty apps and iPod touch-highlighted games making so much money, no one really cares about the rest?

Full text of the letter after the break…

To: Steve Jobs’ Executive Team
From: Jonathan Zdziarski
Subject: AMBER Alert Application

Steve,

The need to send this email represents everything that is wrong with your App Store review process. I’ve been working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to build an App Store application that revolutionizes how missing children are reported to law enforcement. By using the iPhone’s GPS and some geo-analytics, we’re able to build automated search radii 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.

I won’t get into the politics of the App Store review process, or my beliefs about how this has hurt your relationship with independent developers. Instead, I’m simply asking that you pick up the phone and help push this application through. If you had to sit and look at these kids, as I have in the time I did developing and testing this application, you’d realize just 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 unable to withstand the unreasonable delays Apple has taken in approving this application. The reprobate and fearful world these children are surviving in 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.

Jonathan Zdziarski

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Amber Alert App Languishes in Approval Limbo — Dev Writes Open Letter to Steve Jobs

While the recent coverage of Steve Jobs and his health has ranged from the respectful to downright tabloid blogism, Apple and their CEO have remained their usual utterly-silent selves. Until now. In one of his rare open letters — and the first ever on personal matters — Steve Jobs says:

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

The letter does not directly say he dropped out of Macworld for health reasons, and therefore technically should not vindicate some of the more disturbing speculation we’ve seen lately. Jobs concludes by reaffirming his goal of always putting Apple first, and hopes the Apple community supports him in his recovery. Apple’s Board of Directors put out a simultaneous release re-stating their support as well.

For TiPb’s part, we hope everyone joins us in wishing Steve Jobs a quick and complete recovery, and a healthy and happy 2009.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Steve Jobs: I’m Okay, Enjoy Macworld

Not content to simply produce great (and great looking) software, Craig Hockenberry continues to knock it out of the park on his furbo.org blog as well, this time with an open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs on App Store Pricing:

As an iPhone developer who’s been in the App Store since its launch, I’m starting to see a trend that concerns me: developers are lowering prices to the lowest possible level in order to get favorable placement in iTunes. This proliferation of 99¢ “ringtone apps” is affecting our product development.

This is something we’ve been following on TiPb, and something that both interests and concerns us greatly. The App Store is quite literally a killer app on the iPhone, but competition of revving up from all sides, including Android Market and the BlackBerry series of offerings.

Check out Hockenberry’s complete article, and let us know what you think Apple could do to properly incentivize developers to make the next Excel, the next Quark, the next killer app?

Or should they? Do you prefer your $0.99 apps, and don’t really care if we ever see anything more?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Hockenberry: An Open Letter to Steve Jobs on App Store Pricing