Apple has recently removed Airfoil Speakers Touch by Rogue Amoeba and AirFloat by The Famous Software Company from the iTunes App Store for using AirPlay APIs in a way Apple did not intend them to be used. These apps basically let you use another iOS device as an AirPlay speaker. So, for example, you could beam your audio from your iPhone to an iPod touch or iPad. Though these API's are public, it looks like some reverse engineering was needed to get them to work in this way, and that's what Apple has taken exception to. Airfoil was just taken down this week, while AirFloat was yanked last week.

Apple may just be sour that these devs have found a way to crack into AirPlay without going through the usual "Made for iPhone" accessory certification process, and allowed users to have AirPlay speaker setups without buying additional AirPlay certified audio gear.

There's obviously a big business in that kind of thing, but also a lot more quality control; there's no way of making sure these apps don't provide a sub-par experience, since there's no documented iOS API to test against. If the AirPlay is glitchy or inconsistent, then buyers might get the idea that AirPlay sucks, and will refrain from spending more on, say, an Apple TV.

There was a certain amount of noise made since these types of apps have been in the App Store for years in some cases, and have been approved over and over again during that time, including when they submitted versions with the AirPlay features.

Again, it shows that frustration doesn't only exist in Apple's curation, but in the sometimes arbitrary and sometimes delayed ways in which they enforce it.

Well, I guess the Cydia store exists for a reason... Is Apple right to shut these guys down and protect private APIs, or should they go ahead and let developers make cool apps that leverage the technology that's already there, stability and testing be damned?

Source: Rogue Amoeba, Daring Fireball, The Verge

Update: This app seems to break core functionality, read my article here on uninstalling Wi-Fi Sync. Until the developer decides these issues need to be addressed, I can't recommend anyone pay for this application, or until another workaround is found. The developer has been completely unresponsive when I've tried to contact him about the issue and at this time, I have no current easy solution to resolving broken backups and upgrades.

Wi-Fi Sync for iPhone is a jailbreak app that allows you to wirelessly sync with iTunes as opposed to having to plug in your phone.  It found it's way into Cydia after it was rejected by Apple.

As of now, Wi-Fi Sync is only Mac compatible.  The developer is currently working on a PC version which he states on his website should be complete in about 8-10 weeks.  If you have a Mac and want to try it out, simply click here to get the Mac desktop software, then go in Cydia and purchase Wi-Fi Sync [$9.99 - Cydia Link].

After you've installed Wi-Fi Sync on your Mac and your iPhone, you should now be able to pair them.  The first time you do this, you'll need to be by your Mac as it'll ask you to accept the connection.  You'll see this new icon in your Mac task bar (far left).

From that menu you have a few settings.  One being to disable backups.  I did this, as backups typically take a while and obviously, over wifi, your syncs will not be as quick as they are via traditional USB connection.  It'll definitely make your battery take a hit with backups enabled as the time it takes to sync drastically increases.  To disable backups, just click that little icon and click to disable backups.

Now I don't know if it was just me or if it's a bug but my Mac kept asking me to accept the connection everytime, or wouldn't find it sporadically.  There was also a couple times it would boot me off and my iPhone would tell me I had no wi-fi connection.  As this app is in it's newborn stages, we will see how it progresses in terms of stability and feature set.  As far as I see, you'll also need to tell your phone to sync automatically if you plan on using this app while not directly in front of your computer.  If that setting isn't there, you'll physically have to be in front of your computer to hit sync, which to me is somewhat counter-productive.

In my opinion, it's a nice tool but I don't know if it's worth $10 at this point.  I personally encountered a few more bugs than I would have expected for an app with this type of price tag.  We'll see what the developer does to refine it in the coming months.

Pros

• Ease of use
• Convenient
• Uses same familiar syncing process users are already accustomed to

Cons

• Drains battery pretty quick
• Must have automatic sync enabled for this to be useful
• Price tag is somewhat high
• Mac Only (for now)
• Breaks backups within iTunes
• Breaks the upgrade/restore process within iTunes

Last week the first iPhone (and iPod touch) app to feature nudity was live in the iTunes App Store. Technically, however, it was simply a change in the server behind the app -- the developer added nude images.

Subsequently, however, the app became unavailable. The developer first reported that their own servers couldn't keep up with demand for the newly nudified images, but it turns out Apple laid the hammer down on the "soft-core porn" app:

Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.

Given that Apple has included new parental controls and App Store restrictions in iPhone 3.0, including a declaration for nude content, and given the eternal argument that nudity is available for age-appropriate viewers via iTunes movies, is there some contradiction still at work? Or is Apple drawing the line artificially close for now while it watches and gauges reaction?

[via CNN]

While we don't want to turn this into the rejected-app-of-the-day column, as an end-cap to the week, and perhaps a chance to test out the theory we proposed earlier in the BargainBin post, we thought we'd pass along one last example of Apple App Store weirdness, via Mippin:

Quite early on in the process they failed us because of rude words in some of the Internet articles we were publishing. Early this week Tweetie was rejected for the same reason- they kicked up such a stink on Twitter that Apple backed down within hours and accepted it. When this happened to us though, 3 weeks ago, we bowed to their greater wisdom and implemented 2 levels of checking for our iPhone application to prevent "objectionable" content getting through. We rate all our 50,000 feeds in Mippin and prevent most if it even getting to the user, then just to be sure we check every word in the article real-time for a list of rude words and if one appears we block the display of the content from the server. We thought this was enough, but this week we got rejected because of a YouTube video - we were amazed at this. In the very amusing video "sxephil" does use one rude word, but in our minds YouTube have allowed this through - its certainly acceptable to them. What's even worse we found the same video through Apple's own YouTube application on the iPhone

Friday the 13th? "Duplicates functionality" coverall? Vestiges of the same Tweetie "Church Lady" reviewer? And will it get to the point where developers can cry "pocket rejection" or "incompetence" when even valid issues are raised by Apple? What do you think?

Comparative screenshots after the break...

Was it the outcry on Twitter? The evisceration courtesy of numerous blogs? Or did someone at Apple actually take our advice and wake up? We don't know. But we do know this: according to developer Loren Brichter:

Great news! [Tweetie] 1.3 has now been approved! Alright Apple!

Hopefully this wasn't as capricious a reversal as it was an earlier refusal, and Apple is actually investing some thought in how to get the App Store approval process back on track.

Hey, we can dream, right?

Following up on the story about Tweetie 1.3 being rejected because an Apple reviewer saw the word f**k in the Twitter Trends tab, developer Crowded Road contacted us with the story of their app, Human Weather, which was initially rejected by Apple for a similar reason: someone happened to have dropped the f-bomb in the Twitter-stream while it was being reviewed.

Crowded Road went to the trouble -- and no doubt cost in man/hours -- to implement a filter for said reject-worthy words, and is now available FREE in the App Store [iTunes link]. But so what? As the developers themselves rightly told us:

This kind of policy is doomed to fail simply because it is impossible to police. Apple is only check the app content through a random test as part of their approval process. Of course, looking for “offensive” content as part of an approval process is futile because user generated content is both limitless and unpredictable.

No doubt this is correct, as creative internet users already know. F**k getting filtered? Fug, fukc, fack, fock, f u c k, and limitless other combinations impenetrable to machines but easily parsed by human pattern-matching brains, will easily slip through to offend those easily offended and amuse those easily amused alike.

We'd typically finish up with a rant about how the App Store could be improved, made more transparent with clearly defined criteria, even establish a ratings system for apps as they have for iTunes media, but really, even they must know this by now, right?

Wow, alliteration much? Not sure if it was just a delay (as Apple seems mostly impervious to pressure from the web or customers, open letters included), or some bizarre equal and opposite reaction to Tweetie 1.3 being rejected, but AppleiPhoneApps.com is now reporting that Jonathan Zdziarski’s AMBER Alert app has (finally?) been approved and published to the iTunes App Store:

AMBER Alert [iTunes link] is now available at the [US] App Store for free, and gives users real-time information regarding missing children. Zdziarkski worked closely with the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children to make this the official AMBER Alert tool for the iPhone.

Another app, BargainBin, is still languishing in limbo, however, prompting an interesting question on the same site about whether or not the App Store uses "pocket rejections" at times.

Clearly the App Store process remains anything but clear...

While many sites are reporting that the iPhone App Store has hit 10,000, MacRumors says it's not quite there yet, but will be soon:

While several sites have reported that 10,000 iPhone Apps have been released into the App Store, the actual number of active iPhone apps that can be downloaded is about 9,676 as of today's count. The discrepancy comes from the fact that many apps have been removed from the App Store for various reasons (trademark infringement, discontinued apps, pulled and released).

With approximately a quarter of those being games, and a tenth each for entertainment and utilities.

Want to get your App up as part of the next 10,000? Erica Sadun has some tips for you. What are they in brief?

Keep your icon consistent throughout the various sizes, don't link to web sites you haven't deployed yet, don't ever include any mention of "beta", and do not reference forbidden accessories (like a mic for the iPod Touch).

Check out the full article on App Store Lessons for much more by way of explanation and example.