iPhone News Updated

AT&T unveils iPhone application for business users

AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. phone company, introduced an application for business users of Apple Inc.’s iPhone today as the carrier looks for new ways to boost revenue in a near-saturated mobile market.

The application, called AT&T Connect, will help customers conduct conference calls and send text messages during them. It’s part of a push to make more traditional communications services available on mobile phones, said Chris Hill, vice president of mobile products for AT&T’s business group.

Smartphone apps may be a low-cost solution to slowing growth by helping to stimulate demand for data plans, Hill said. The business group has been affected by layoffs at companies, cutting demand for employee phone services. Wireless growth has slowed in the U.S., with more than 9 mobile devices for every 10 people, according to the CTIA industry association.

“There’s two areas where we’re seeing explosive growth,” Hill said yesterday in an interview. “One is the movement of voice-only subscribers to smartphones.” The other is wireless connections to machines, such as medical equipment that can upload patients’ test results, he said.

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Apple Rejects Michael Wolff’s iPhone App — Because He Criticizes Steve Jobs? (AAPL)

Apple has rejected an application dedicated solely to Michael Wolff’s Newser columns.

Michael, who reported the news, thinks the app was rejected because he often takes shots at Steve Jobs in his columns. His last column’s title: “Is Steve Jobs Off His Meds?“

Apple’s official reason for rejecting the app is that it lacks “sufficient amounts of content to appeal to a broad audience.”

Michael, of course, uses the app’s rejection as an opportunity to take a shot at Apple, complaining that it has too much control.

He writes, Steve Jobs is one of the “most mercurial and paranoid and unusual men in American business” and he’s “telling you what you can and cannot read.”

Not entirely. Steve Jobs is not stopping you from reading Wolff’s writing. His columns are easily accessed through the iPhone’s Safari browser, and the columns are also in the Newser app, which is available through the App Store (iTunes Link).

All Apple is doing is rejecting a separate app with a reduced amount of duplicate content.

Still, it’s hard to argue that many, if not MOST apps in the App Store lack “sufficient amounts of content to appeal to a broad audience.” So, another case of an app being rejected for a seemingly arbitrary reason. (With no easy way to predict in advance that the app would have been rejected.)