App Store Submissions Now Subject to Private API Use Checks
- November 21st, 2009 - 12.34 am UTC
- Apple News, iPhone, iPhone App Store
- Alex Brooks
Apple has begun running all App Store submissions through a static analysis tool which will identify apps using private API calls.
Apple offers developers for the iPhone and iPod touch a list of public application programming interface (APIs) which are free to be used and well documented. Apple also has a collection of private APIs which only Apple is allowed to use and generally don’t inform developers about. There are several reasons why Apple doesn’t want private APIs being used; security reasons, consistency reasons, or that the API is subject to change potentially breaking the app in the future.
Many apps currently on the App Store already use private APIs but as finding them is incredibly difficult they often slip through the strict Apple approval process but now Apple has added an automated search of app code to find such banned APIs.
The automated process is already creating stories of apps being rejected for use of private APIs which developers are denying.
Comments
Ben 21st November 2009, 02.35 am
What is not being said is the library the developer was using is the three20 library that Hewitt from Facebook got busted for. The library uses private APIs and infers others. The developer was linking to the library which pulled in the guilty code. The media is making this out to be a whitch hunt for Apple, where the truth is, developers are being lazy. Nothing is perfect, but there is a reason the AppStore is destroying the Android Market. Quality of applications and a tight ship. There are over 100,000 apps, and a small handful of issues. The saying the squeeky wheel gets the oil….totally true.
Marty Gough 21st November 2009, 19.04 pm
@Ben: None of our projects use the three20 library. As a matter of fact, our most recent project (and the one mentioned in the post linked-to above) doesn’t use any third-party libraries at all. This is clearly a case of Apple not being careful about their use of static analysis tools.
Neil 26th November 2009, 17.46 pm
There are also api’s that are available in cocoa and not yet public on the iPhone. This is at best lazyness on apples part and at worst, will you guess.