Last month, the folks of Rogue Amoeba made headlines when they announced that their app, Airfoil Speakers Touch, was removed from the App Store. Apple pulled the app, after more than a month of support, without giving the team much of an explanation.
Speculation flew about regarding the mysterious removal, eventually settling on the idea that maybe Apple was looking to implement a major feature from the title in its upcoming iOS 6 release. But, as Rogue Amoeba tells it, that wasn’t the case at all…
Paul Kafasis explains:
“We now know that Apple’s issue with Airfoil Speakers Touch was specifically related to its recently-added ability to receive audio directly from iOS devices and iTunes. This was not properly conveyed in our initial conversations prior to the removal of Airfoil Speakers Touch from the store, and Apple’s representatives apologized for the fact that the entire process was “poorly handled.”
It’s clear that despite previous claims, Airfoil Speakers Touch was not in fact using private APIs [which Apple doesn’t allow]. The Enhanced Audio Receiving add-on was implemented entirely from scratch and conformed to Apple’s published guidelines.
Regardless, Apple is using the authority they provide themselves in the guidelines and program license agreement to remove apps they don’t like.”
Kafasis goes on to speculate that Apple didn’t like the new feature in Airfoil Speakers Touch because it allowed users to stream audio directly from iTunes and iOS, making it unnecessary for them to purchase expensive AirPlay hardware — which Apple licenses.
Either way, the drama appears to be over. Airfoil Speakers Touch is back in the App Store, minus the whole Enhanced Audio Receiving thing. Which is a shame, really. Because users who bought the app for that specific feature, are out of luck if they ever do a restore.
It’s gone.