It has been said tons of time in the forums, it's not apple that has to deal with these copyright infringements. How could they check all the copyrights of the world? What if the specific apple reviewer who took care of it doesn't know about the Nintendo DS? Nintendo confirmed its direct intervention to have that application pulled: http://tinyurl.com/nr8czr
Not so sure about that as Apple derives royalty revenue from paid app sales. Sure, the onus is on the developer to be on the honor system not to infringe on 3rd party IP, but then again the distribution system is Apple's. Don't you think there has to be a bit of accountability on Apple's part? As a comparison, Sony and Microsoft's game submission systems can sometimes reject or withhold approval on games based on IP infringement. Granted the App Store is more than just games, but it really does make you wonder how the app review process is managed sometimes. I guess the big question is whether the DS app's dev will ever get their money. Or if not, who does???
Thought I'd add this link to Apple's recent response to the FCC regarding why they rejected Google Voice. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/ In that post, Apple also answers FCC's question about their review process (quoted below). So essentially, they have "more than" 40 reviewers reviewing apps, with 2 reviewers assigned to apps. 8,500 apps reviewed per week, 20% get rejected on initial sub, and average apps get approved in 14 days. 8,500 apps per week? Wow, that's mind blowing. While this doesn't answer everything about the approval process, it gives you a little more info on what goes on at Apple.
