'Shabby' doesn't rate with Apple

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The co-founders of Shabby Apple, a workplace-inspired online dress boutique that caters to women of all shapes, ages and sizes, decided to tap into the ever-growing smart-phone application industry.

Banking on the success of their website's "Fit to Flatter" section, which assists women in determining which cuts, fabrics and styles best accentuate their features, Athelia Woolley and Emily McCormick chose the Apple iPhone as the vessel to get their tips into purses everywhere.

Titled under the same name, Woolley said they enrolled "Fit to Flatter" with the iPhone Developer Program in June and were told they would hear back from Apple about their program in about two weeks. On that note, the co-owners immediately went to work on building every inch, every curve of the application.

During that time, Woolley and McCormick wrote the application, hired an illustrator to create hand-drawn silhouettes of their company's eight main body shapes -- Hourglass, Apple, Pear, Pencil, Athletic, Womanly, Tall and Short -- and began publicizing their efforts.

But when two weeks came and went, there was no word on "Fit to Flatter."

In search of answers, they "did everything we could possibly do to figure out what was going on," Woolley said. "We ended up calling 12 times."

"Thank you for your interest in the iPhone Developer Program. Please know that as the legal entity name provided in your enrollment contains an Apple Trademark, we are unable to process your request and your enrollment has been withdrawn," the message stated.

The e-mail continued, "You may submit a new enrollment using a legal entity name which does not include an Apple Trademark or you may submit an enrollment as an Individual instead of a Company/Organization."

Essentially, Shabby Apple's "Fit to Flatter" application had stalled and been tossed out because its namesake contains the word "Apple."

"We're a completely innocuous site, and our name is completely innocuous, too, so we were completely flabbergasted -- both of us -- that we were rejected because of our name," Woolley said.

"It's not as if we're called Shabby Macintosh," she said, half joking.

"They waited this entire time to get back to us and there was nothing we could do to get this answer any earlier, so it was just a frustrating experience," she lamented.

Adding insult to injury, "Fit to Flatter" was finished and ready to go.

Having cleared the first hurdle in Apple's three-step process of development, testing and distribution, Woolley and McCormick were left without a product to show for their efforts, not to mention their nearly $15,000 investment.

With the App Store as the sole means of distribution to the iPhone market, "Fit to Flatter" would not be available to Apple customers without major changes.

Down but not out, Woolley and McCormick have begun to shop their application to other mainstream venues like Google Apps and BlackBerry, but contend that the necessary conversion for the application to properly function on other platforms is costly.

As the "Fit to Flatter" iPhone application would have done, the widget will continue educating women about curves and styles while helping dispel the tribulations of online shopping.