Another iPhone App Developer Quits Protesting App Store Policing

Another day and yet another app developer calls it quits in protest against Apple' App Store policies.

Shortly after Joe Hewitt, the lead developer at Facebook's iPhone app development team quit, today Rogue Amoeba has announced that they are following suit.


Rogue Amoeba is one of the earliest companies to join the app development bandwagon with release of iPhone apps such as MakeiPhoneRingtone. However, the company has apparently taken to move away from iPhone app development after their brush with Apple's policing over their Airfoil Speakers Touch app.

This iPhone app was released on the App Store a few months back. But problems apparently surfaced when Rogue Amoeba had to issue updates to their software to fix certain bugs. Apple, which had problems with their use of "Apple-owned Graphic Symbols" on their app had rejected the update. Rogue Amoeba, which claims that the use of Mac graphics was to represent navigational elements only and so was within development rules, had been struggling to get past Apple's gatekeeping since July of this year.

In a blog post announcing the release of Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0.1, the company has written that while the update is finally ready for download, they are shelving future iPhone app projects. In their words,

"The chorus of disenchanted developers is growing and we’re adding our voices as well. Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare. The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we’re focusing on the Mac"

However, with only a manual review staff in place, scanning through each and every submitted app for use of private APIs had been a tedious and time consuming process. By automating this potential bottleneck, Apple can not only secure possible loopholes in apps approval but also speed up the entire approval system.