Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL): Sparrow update for iPhone 5 rejected

An update to Sparrow, an iPhone mail application, has been rejected for the iPhone 5, and the app has been removed from the App Store altogether, unless a new version is submitted.

The Next Web, which reported the development, spoke to Sparrow developer Dinh Viet Hoa.

“We managed to get a rich text edition [and] the keyboard appeared without the user [having] to tap on iOS 5,” said Viet Hoa, about the reasons for the rejection.

Rich text editing in email is a feature that Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) added in iOS 6 which means that the Sparrow team will have to release an update for the email client that will be for iOS 6 only in order to take advantage of Rich Text. iOS 5 users will still be able to use Sparrow, but they won’t be able to update to this latest version

In fact Viet Hoa announced the rejection on Twitter saying that the Sparrow app update for iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 was rejected.

"The way those tweaks were implemented apparently violated enough rules for Apple to reject the app. Rich text editing in email was a feature Apple added in iOS 6, it was not available in iOS 5," The Next Web said.

The Sparrow team which had been acquired by Google over the summer for the efforts it put into the Gmail application, had updated the app several times, including support for Google's new 'Open in Chrome' features.

A recent update to Sparrow for Mac brought support for Apple’s Retina display and Mountain Lion’s Notification Center, the report said.