I'm really surprised that a company as PR-smart as Apple isn't concerned with all the FUD and grumbling regarding the app store approval process. Looking at their ads, it seems someone in there has realized that third-party apps are the next big value adders for users, but the people in charge of dealing with developers sure don't seem to have...

Apple's actually not got very good PR at all. Not in this sense of direct interaction.

When they're distant from the user they can polish up something fierce. They craft excellent commercials, help guides, online tutorials, keynote speeches, etc. It doesn't hurt that advertising an Apple product usually consists of just showing what it can do, no hype necessary. So they also have fanatic fans who love their work and spread Mac love by word of mouth.

Apple has always fallen apart in their direct user-to-staff interactions. Excepting the Genius Bar, which I've always seen as a sort of way of focusing Mac lovers in a place and paying them, they don't work well with people outside their own company. They've spent so much time cultivating their aloof status - no blogs, no public emails save Jobs's famously snippy one-sentence replies, very poor forum - that on the few occasions they need to interact directly, usually things go very wrong. The App Store is the biggest case yet, and I'd bet that Apple's solution won't be making the system more friendly, it'll be changing the system so that Apple no longer has to deal directly with developers who might get angry with them.