Apple Shows the Love to Our Private APIs
December 10th, 2009Much has been said and written about the App Store, up to being described by its fiercest critics as a totalitarian service with draconian policies, all due to how Apple handles the review process of developers’ submitted applications.
True, the weirdest apps are let through, and others are given the finger for little to no apparent reasons. We have witnessed this first-hand, and barely survived a review process that lasted for three months; that of iSimulate, a tool for iPhone developers that makes developing iPhone applications easier. It is no easy to wait for three months not knowing when, or if, your work will see the light, and to top it off, not being able to start a discussion with the gatekeepers.
One good has just happened though. Apple, perhaps in the spirit of the upcoming holidays, approved our 1.5 update of iSimulate although it used a private API. Alongside the approval of the update, came the usual and dreaded rejection e-mail, but its wording wasn’t as bad as before:
Thank you for submitting your update to iSimulate to the App Store. During our review of your application we found it is using a private API, which is in violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement section 3.3.1; “3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.” While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to resolve this issue in your next update.
The non-public API that is included in your application is UITouch._touchFlags.
Please resolve this issue in your next update to iSimulate.
They caught it, but they let it through. This was an old piece of code that missed the cutting floor. So instead of us having to go through the review process all over again, we will just have this solved in the next update. Perfect.
We commend Apple for this action, and hopefully this will only be the beginning of more, more and more leniency. It surely isn’t the transparency many seek, and the floodgates have not yet been opened, but oh boy, surviving a rejection is no mere an ordeal.
We live to fight for another app. Yaaay! But for now, party all day.
