14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is doing away not only with apps that feature adult content, but also Wi-Fi finders, a developer has revealed. His WiFi-Where application is no longer available in the App Store. The developers of WiFiFoFum and yFy also say Apple banned their apps for using private frameworks to access wireless information.
“We received a very unfortunate email today from Apple stating that WiFi-Where has been removed from sale on the App Store for using private frameworks to access wireless information,” the developer of WiFi-Where says. “It also appears that all other competing WiFi enabled apps have been removed as well. This is very unfortunate as the past 2-3 months have seen a handful of new WiFi apps get approved. Hopefully Apple will allow this functionality in a future SDK,” the developer concludes.
The actual private framework WiFi-Where used (to use) in order to find hot spots isn’t named either by Apple, or by the developer. Still, the developer is clearly aware of what it has done wrong, although it didn’t necessarily know it was wrong when it developed WiFi-Where. The application features a scan mode that finds all the nearby Wi-Fi hotspots.
“WiFi-Where uses both the location capabilities (GPS and cellular triangulation) of the iPhone platform as well as the built in 802.11 radio to let you find any and all hotspots wherever you go,” the developer claims. The latter feature may be the cause of its purging, since the remaining Wi-Fi finders in the App Store find hot-spots only by using the iPhone’s GPS, or network triangulation capabilities. Also noteworthy is that, in addition to finding hotspots, WiFi-Where allowed users to upload scan results to the Wigle.net online database.
Moves such as this one are common at Apple, with the company constantly pulling or rejecting applications that use private frameworks. These frameworks are only for the iPhone maker to employ, although Apple systematically opens them to developers, with new rules set in place every once in a while.