Apple iOS and other mobile devices, which are restricted to running pre-approved applications from a digital distribution service are examples of a closed platform.
As I already told you.
Anybody can write an App and put it on the App Store.
Therefore by its very definition it is not a closed platform. In the same way as Android and Microsoft, Apple provide developer APIs and its up to the developers to write the code.
The approval process is pretty much entirely a security process in order to ensure, for example, that :
- Apps do not attempt to run security exploits on the devices
- Apps do not attempt to claim more privileges than they formally declare (e.g. developer uses microphone but does not declare this using the API interface ... Apple are strong on privacy and make it mandatory that stuff like microphones and camera use requires user permission and hence developers have to code stuff accordingly in order to ensure users are given a chance to explicitly authorise access)
The other smaller element of the approval process covers blatantly obvious common sense stuff that any good developer should cover by default (e.g. no buggy crashing apps).
Given the amount of time, effort and money that goes into writing a quality App for a device, the Apple approval process is quite frankly a very minor hoop to go through. Which is why you are making mountains out of molehills. Any competent and experienced programmer won't have any problems getting their App approved.