> Second, if a client is going to withhold final payment based on Apple acceptance, there is no way I would work for them

It sounds from the article that payment terms were agreed upon before commencement of the work. Why did developer accept that contract if he thought it was wrong or unfair? Walk away / ask to change that bit / extra payment, etc. But renegotiating payment schedule half way through the project, really? That's poor work ethics.

And, BTW, I don't think it's a dumb app - it is actually quite smart, main risk was apple finding technical issues like "you are using wrong api / it crashes on iphone 3g". Customer wanted protection against issues like that.

Rephrase it in a way "you build app, I pay you. If you help me get it approved I give you $200 more". What is wrong with that?