It would have been nice for the App Store's public relations team if the biggest news in the past few days was the introduction of a more transparent progress report for applications under review, giving developers some of the feedback they need to see where their apps are in the pathway towards approval and release. Unfortunately, that minor but tangible step toward a more open approval process is overshadowed by a story of frustration and disaffection from one of the platform's rising stars: Joe Hewitt, the man behind Facebook's popular iPhone app, is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

Hewitt's frustration with the app review process isn't new, but in the same August blog post where he called for the elimination of review, he promised "I will not stop developing for Apple's platforms or using Apple's products as long as they continue to produce the best stuff on the market." A few months later, he's announced that he's handing off the Facebook app to another developer, and he's reached the point where his frustration has overcome his willingness to continue working on the iPhone. [Commenter 'Gak' points out that Hewitt's open-sourced Three20 library for iPhone devs has been flagged for use of private frameworks, which may have been one of the final straws.]

Hewitt spoke to TechCrunch earlier today, and his attitude is clear:

"My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

Losing the talent behind the top social networking app in the store is bad for users and bad for the platform, but I don't imagine that Apple is going to give up the lockdown of review anytime soon. Is there a way around this logjam that will let developers innovate at Internet speed while still giving Apple some semblance of control? Here's one idea...

After a couple of weeks of waiting in the iTunes app store approval queue, the 3rd major update of the popular Facebook for iPhone [iTunes Link] application has been released. Joe Hewitt, the developer of the app, has been working on it for quite some time and submitted it for review on 8/16. If you're still seeing 2.5 in the app store, Joe suggests deleting the app from your phone and reinstalling it -- it will be 3.0.

The new version includes some of the most requested features including:

• Better news feed with direct links to comments
• Ability to "Like" posts
• RSVP to events
• Create/upload photos to albums
• Write/edit notes
• Customizable home screen
• Improved photo viewing with zoom
• Better notifications

Hewitt is already working on the next release, version 3.1, which is rumored to focus on adding Push Notifications.

Check out some shots of the app in action:

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Joe Hewitt of joehewitt.com. A software engineer and web developer as well as a classically trained kazoo player, Hewitt is the man behind the latest iPhone development craze: iUI, the user interface software development kit for the iPhone. iUI, which is built using JavaScript and CSS, makes it easy for third party developers to create lickable iPhone websites that both look and, more importantly, feel like they were created natively as part of the iPhone.

To use iUI, you don't have to be a CSS or Javascript expert. iUI converts standard HTML source material into iPhone interface conventions, even taking advantage of native iPhone graphics. And, importantly, iUI continues to grow and develop as an open source project and as a topic of discussion at the iPhone Web Development Google Groups community.