The popularity recorded by Apple’s App Store has been up to this point huge. Millions of apps have been sold and downloaded, setting a trend in the mobile phone industry.

Until now, one of the biggest concerns was related to the company’s policy on uploading the apps, as everyone willing to do this acknowledged the fact that there was a possibility of being rejected on all sorts of reasons. For example, some of the reasons were that a certain app was found offensive and many others appeared to interfere with the company’s own apps.

Yesterday, Apple made a small first step in the right direction, announcing that it will drop its duplication of functionality clause when it comes to new browsers and allow them to be downloaded. The reason why this move was referred to as a small step is because the change only concerns the browsers based on the company’s Safari. All the ones developed on Firefox, Opera and Chrome are still banned.

The new browsers are: the Edge Browser, available for free; the historyless Incognito, downloadable for $1.99, the tabbed WebMate, available for $0.99 and a new app called Shaking Web, used for making Web sites easier to read, which can be purchased for $1.99.   

Many developers feel very frustrated by this policy, as they feel that they could bring something new and appealing to the company’s offer, providing customers with usefull products. In the long run, things might change and Apple might actually consider opening its door for real.