The moment Apple makes an API method public, they make a commitment that the API will be supported, unchanged, and maintained in the future. Any API creator mus

The moment Apple makes an API method public, they make a commitment that the API will be supported, unchanged, and maintained in the future. Any API creator must make careful decisions in that regard. You don't want to support something that you might want to change. Other factors that might affect such a decision: - Is the API method potentially volatile, from a hardware usage standpoint? Will it appropriately use the system's resources? (Or the cell network's?) - Is this method hackish? Is "this" the way we want to expose such an interface to developers for years to come? And, of course, Apple probably wants to keep the magic to themselves for some tasks. They want the upper hand, and generally speaking, there's nothing legally wrong with that. Someone once wondered, "Why doesn't Apple just let us use private APIs with the understanding that they might change?" For one, apps might break. And then Apple would have to decide whether they want to continue selling a broken app in the store, or instead keep the API and the potential burdens/other issues associated with it.