The real question is "Who is Apple?" Or "who is the person in charge of approving iPhone apps who decided against your product?"

I suggest that the person is a VERY low man (woman) on the org-chart. That this person barely knows anything about icons inside Cocoa, or iPhone, or the man in the moon.

I suggest that the person looked at the icons and said, "Oh, wow, I better check with the lawyers to see if this is allowed."

And the lawyers said, "Oh no, we can't have outside developers using our icons in their art. That could diminish our copyright on the look and feel of our software."

And the app was declined.

Now, as has been very well explained in this bog post, there is NOTHING here that infringes on Apple's art.

But a LAWYER has decided that it would be easier to decline the app than it would be to find out the background.

From what I understand, most of the problems of the app store are like this.

Very low-level people (if they were higher-ups they would not be working on approving iPhone apps) scared to do anything except say no.

Perhaps that will be the new Apple marketing campaign. Instead of "Think Different" it will be "Just Say No."