iPhone developers often stress their powerlessness in the face of Apple's approvals process for its App Store.

However, an increasing number of companies are trying to exert pressure on Apple via social media – blog posts and video demos in particular.

The strategy involves building buzz around a new iPhone app while (or even before) it's in the approvals process, with the aim of provoking an almighty stink if it gets delayed or rejected.

Streaming music firm Spotify is a good example. It blogged about its iPhone app - with a video demo - days before submitting it to Apple, and has since followed up by giving several journalists hands-on previews of the application.

The result: articles highlighting the app's innovative features, and high-profile chatter about whether Apple will approve it.

RealNetworks is taking a leaf out of Spotify's book too, having published its own blog post and video demo about its Rhapsody iPhone app this week – again, before submitting it to Apple.

The net effect is the same: bloggers and journalists (ME included) are writing about the app, and speculating about its chances of being approved. In both cases, the video demos can be embedded elsewhere, fuelling the stories.

This is all good social media PR, of course, building buzz around apps before they are available in the App Store. But in both cases, it's clear that an additional motivation was raising the pressure on Apple to approve the apps – or at least ensuring a rejection wouldn't go unnnoticed.

Alongside this trend, companies are increasingly confident about speaking out about the approvals process.

For example, Apple is currently responding to an FCC investigation into the non-approval of the Google Voice app for iPhone.

Why? Because Google itself issued a statement in July claiming that “Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store”.

Yesterday, Facebook software engineer Joe Hewitt went public  on his personal blog with his own frustrations at the approvals process. Meanwhile, games developer IUGO recently pulled its A.D.D. Lite game from the App Store, citing the delay in approval for the full version.

How much pressure is all this really exerting on Apple? The company has started to act on the unrest around its approvals process, with senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller reaching out to various developers in recent weeks, while the company has set up a weekly review board to handle apps that may cause controversy.

But as long as the Google Voice investigation rumbles on, it seems clear that we'll see more companies take the Spotify/RealNetworks route of social media seeding first, and submitting second.

Whether this will smooth their passage through the approvals process remains to be seen. But it's a far cry from the early days of the App Store, when even some of the largest iPhone games publishers were nervous of showing their titles to journalists before release, for fear of angering Apple and getting a blanket rejection.

The boot isn't quite on the other foot, and Hewitt's demand for Apple to scrap its approvals process altogether seems wishful thinking for now.

But still, to see developers and web firms using social media to press their case for approval in this way is fascinating.

Forget paying interns to write five-star reviews of your apps – increasingly iPhone-related PR is about trying to ensure your product gets on the App Store in the first place.