Apple now taking it easy on Private API rejections?
While the last weeks have been a bit frustrating for many iPhone developers because Apple suddenly started to reject apps that use private APIs (or had method names similar to those of Apple), it now seems Apple is loosening the grip a little. I received this response after my app had been in review for 14 days:
Dear Ole Gammelgaard Poulsen,
Thank you for submitting your update to Toginfo 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 initWithWindow.
Please resolve this issue in your next update to Toginfo.
Regards,
iPhone Developer Program
So the app has been approved even though it used private APIs! I haven't seen reports of this practice before now (I might just be slow?). Anyway I think this is great and indicates that Apple actually does care about the iPhone developers even though it sometimes seems like they don't.
November 30th, 2009 - 20:02
Woo, that is cool. And good to see for sure, let’s see how this evolves.
December 1st, 2009 - 10:00
It happened to me with my app Tap Forms. I am using UIFormattedPhoneNumberFromString(). It’s a harmless method that turns an NSString into a localized formatted phone number.
Does anyone know of an alternative method or library that does the same thing? I need to replace this for my next update.
Thanks,
Brendan