14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, developer Derek Kepner admitted that he was likely “on dangerous ground” having a BitTorrent-based application in the iTunes App Store. Today, he can confirm it, as Apple recently called the developer to inform him that his IS Drive application was getting yanked.
“Just got a call from Apple. They're taking IS Drive down. I'm seeing what I can do. I have a feeling I won't be able to change their mind,” said Derek Kepner on Twitter, according to a Neowin report.
The IS Drive app allowed users of the Imageshack torrent download service to control and add torrent downloads through an intuitive interface right on their iDevice.
Those who managed to download the app in time can still use it. Those who didn’t might want to check with Cydia soon. Something tells us Kepner is going to sell it to the jailbroken community, as before.
When we reported that Apple had somewhat strangely approved the BitTorrent-based IS Drive, we noted that the company was known to have relaxed some of the App Store Review Guidelines, which led to the approval of multiple applications (or types of applications) that had been previously rejected.
“Some of these were BitTorrent apps. Apparently, Apple has eased off a bit in this area as well,” we said last week.
Unfortunately, while Apple has relaxed its policies regarding some concepts, it seems that BitTorrent apps don’t fall in any of these categories.
In an interview with TorrentFreak, Kepner said “I’m on dangerous ground here, and I know that. I’ll probably add a search feature where it’s up to the user to manually add the torrent site they want.”
“The app will not be designed to easily break the law and I hope no one intends to do so,” added Kepner. “But if a user is determined to break the law, what business is that of mine or Apple’s? They could do the same in Safari anyway, right?”
Whatever Safari reference upset Apple in that statement, the coverage IS Drive has been getting sure didn’t do its developer any good.