4 ms·

Apple Pulls BitTorrent iPhone App from Store

24 points by razin 16y ago

jonursenbach 16y ago
Well that didn't take long at all.
eps 16y ago
Can anyone elaborate on what developer guidelines would an app implementing a form of BitTorrent client violate?
- BonsaiDen 16y ago
  Apple just doesn't like BitTorrent. Well actually it's their partners in the music industry which don't like it.
- grkhetan 16y ago
  Well, from the guidelines - it violates this guideline: 22.4 Apps that enable illegal file sharing will be rejected Also in general, bittorrent is maily used to download copyrighted content illegally. I mean comeon, all bittorrent users know it and use it for that. Secondly, I really dont think iphone is good for bittorrent also -- i mean you would continuously loose battery and bandwidth. Also its background multi-tasking does not allow more than 10 minutes of downloading so it will not work properly in the first place. Thats why, this app was merely monitoring and managing download queues happening on a server. So its better in terms of implementation but still voilates copyright guidelines and illegal files sharing guidelines.
  - scrrr 16y ago
    Also in general, bittorrent is maily used to download copyrighted content illegally. I mean comeon, all bittorrent users know it and use it for that. It's a pity though. BitTorrent is advanced technology that should be used more widely and beyond file-sharing, for example by music and video artists and software vendors.
    - cookiecaper 16y ago
      There are significant deployments of BT among software vendors. You probably already know about them, but in case you don't, off the top of my head, Blizzard uses BitTorrent to distribute patches for WoW and most Linux distributions use torrents to distribute ISOs. Both perfectly legal, legitimate, and great uses of BitTorrent. I wish that BitTorrent usage was more prolific among legit large downloads too, it would really help with corruption, etc. BitTorrent is really the simplest way to fix a large file that mostly downloaded correctly but has a few corrupt chunks; the torrent client resolves that problem automatically for already-downloaded files and fixes it on-the-fly on downloads it handles. It is really annoying to download a 350MB service pack from Microsoft at 300kb/s and then have to download the whole thing again because "the file was corrupt". I don't know if MS just has shoddy servers or what but I've had that happen multiple times. Large torrent swarms, which Microsoft could easily populate itself but may not even need to, usually max out a client's connection and then the corruption thing would never happen. I should try to sell consulting services on torrents to MS at some point I guess.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    I've used BitTorrent for legal files a lot. An example would be Ubuntu CD images, or patches for games. "Secondly, I really dont think iphone is good for bittorrent also -- i mean you would continuously loose battery and bandwidth" The easiest way to remedy that would be to ban all apps. Then no apps would use any battery anymore.
mitchellh 16y ago
It may be that the fact this is a BitTorrent app has little or nothing to do with it being pulled... The article mentioned that to even use the app it requires a premium ImageShack membership. I'm not an iPhone developer, but from what I've read online, this itself is a violation of the terms, and may be the reason for pulling the app. While I don't have the exact rule on hand, it is something along the lines that your app can't require a paid membership to use, unless you're able to offer a trial/signup in the app. I'm more inclined to believe this especially because it sounds like this isn't a BitTorrent downloader, but just a manager, which I don't really see as an issue.
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  The Spotify app requires a premium membership and Apple has no problems with that. The British Airways app requires a British Airways Executive Club membership and Apple has no problem with that. Requiring (free or paid) membership is only a problem in the App Store if it's unreasonable, e.g. the core functionality of the app would work without a membership.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  The iFound application also requires a membership, which is invite only. It was removed for a while but has since returned.

24 points by razin 16y ago

jonursenbach 16y ago

Well that didn't take long at all.

eps 16y ago

Can anyone elaborate on what developer guidelines would an app implementing a form of BitTorrent client violate?

BonsaiDen 16y ago
Apple just doesn't like BitTorrent. Well actually it's their partners in the music industry which don't like it.
grkhetan 16y ago
Well, from the guidelines - it violates this guideline: 22.4 Apps that enable illegal file sharing will be rejected Also in general, bittorrent is maily used to download copyrighted content illegally. I mean comeon, all bittorrent users know it and use it for that. Secondly, I really dont think iphone is good for bittorrent also -- i mean you would continuously loose battery and bandwidth. Also its background multi-tasking does not allow more than 10 minutes of downloading so it will not work properly in the first place. Thats why, this app was merely monitoring and managing download queues happening on a server. So its better in terms of implementation but still voilates copyright guidelines and illegal files sharing guidelines.
- scrrr 16y ago
  Also in general, bittorrent is maily used to download copyrighted content illegally. I mean comeon, all bittorrent users know it and use it for that. It's a pity though. BitTorrent is advanced technology that should be used more widely and beyond file-sharing, for example by music and video artists and software vendors.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    There are significant deployments of BT among software vendors. You probably already know about them, but in case you don't, off the top of my head, Blizzard uses BitTorrent to distribute patches for WoW and most Linux distributions use torrents to distribute ISOs. Both perfectly legal, legitimate, and great uses of BitTorrent. I wish that BitTorrent usage was more prolific among legit large downloads too, it would really help with corruption, etc. BitTorrent is really the simplest way to fix a large file that mostly downloaded correctly but has a few corrupt chunks; the torrent client resolves that problem automatically for already-downloaded files and fixes it on-the-fly on downloads it handles. It is really annoying to download a 350MB service pack from Microsoft at 300kb/s and then have to download the whole thing again because "the file was corrupt". I don't know if MS just has shoddy servers or what but I've had that happen multiple times. Large torrent swarms, which Microsoft could easily populate itself but may not even need to, usually max out a client's connection and then the corruption thing would never happen. I should try to sell consulting services on torrents to MS at some point I guess.
- Tichy 16y ago
  I've used BitTorrent for legal files a lot. An example would be Ubuntu CD images, or patches for games. "Secondly, I really dont think iphone is good for bittorrent also -- i mean you would continuously loose battery and bandwidth" The easiest way to remedy that would be to ban all apps. Then no apps would use any battery anymore.

mitchellh 16y ago

It may be that the fact this is a BitTorrent app has little or nothing to do with it being pulled... The article mentioned that to even use the app it requires a premium ImageShack membership. I'm not an iPhone developer, but from what I've read online, this itself is a violation of the terms, and may be the reason for pulling the app. While I don't have the exact rule on hand, it is something along the lines that your app can't require a paid membership to use, unless you're able to offer a trial/signup in the app. I'm more inclined to believe this especially because it sounds like this isn't a BitTorrent downloader, but just a manager, which I don't really see as an issue.

DrJokepu 16y ago
The Spotify app requires a premium membership and Apple has no problems with that. The British Airways app requires a British Airways Executive Club membership and Apple has no problem with that. Requiring (free or paid) membership is only a problem in the App Store if it's unreasonable, e.g. the core functionality of the app would work without a membership.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
The iFound application also requires a membership, which is invite only. It was removed for a while but has since returned.