Paul Kafasis on Apple’s takedown of Airfoil Speakers Touch and its reintroduction into the App Store:

We’re pleased that Airfoil Speakers Touch is once again available in the iOS App Store, enabling you to use Airfoil to send audio from your Mac or PC to Airfoil Speakers Touch running on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. However, in order to get Airfoil Speakers Touch back into the store as a receiver for Airfoil, we had to remove its ability to receive audio directly from iOS and iTunes via AirPlay. This was quite disappointing to us, as we’d provided a feature that thousands of users found quite useful.

Airfoil Speakers Touch was removed from the App Store on May 24th, specifically for its Enhanced Audio Receiving feature which turned your iPhone or iPod into an AirPlay receiver. For instance, you could stream audio from iTunes to an iOS device that was connected to your home audio equipment. The feature was sold as an in app purchase — Kafasis states that over 7,000 customers paid extra for the functionality.

We now know that Apple’s issue with Airfoil Speakers Touch was specifically related to its recently-added ability to receive audio directly from iOS devices and iTunes. This was not properly conveyed in our initial conversations prior to the removal of Airfoil Speakers Touch from the store, and Apple’s representatives apologized for the fact that the entire process was “poorly handled”.

Apple’s problem with Enhanced Audio Receiving stems from Rogue Amoeba’s use of AirPlay in the app — Apple hasn’t made available any APIs for iOS devices to act as AirPlay receivers. Rogue Amoeba made clear that they weren’t using any Private APIs in their implementation. As John Gruber speculated, perhaps it wasn’t the issue of an API, but rather that Apple simply didn’t want a high profile AirPlay Receiver in their App Store.

John Gruber:

I think the bottom line is that Apple is saying that apps are not allowed to act as AirPlay receivers on iOS, but there’s no App Store guideline that explicitly forbids that. So they’re citing App Store Review Guideline 2.5:

Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected.

Kafasis specifies what guidelines Apple used to remove Airfoil Speakers Touch from the App Store:

Regardless, Apple is using the authority they provide themselves in the guidelines and program license agreement to remove apps they don’t like. Specifically, they cited a provision in the App Store Review Guidelines which allows them to reject apps “for any content or behavior [they] believe is over the line”. That’s certainly disappointing, and frustrating, but it’s the nature of the system Apple has created.

Kafasis is upset, and rightfully upset, this his customers paid for a feature that was swiftly taken away without good reason. It’s also frustrating for customers, who may have specifically downloaded the app to pay for and use this feature. Instances like this can have negative impacts on the reputation of the developer if customers are unaware that the removal of a feature they paid for was mandated by Apple. Kafasis writes that Apple licenses AirPlay to lots of vendors, and that Apple might not want their own products to compete with AirPlay enabled hardware sold in stores. Rogue Amoeba had no choice but to comply and do the best they can to provide the remainder of the app’s functionality for existing customers. As far as outcomes go, I think it was the best compromise, but certainly not ideal.

[via Rogue Amoeba, The Next Web]

Ever since developers started reverse-engineering the AirPlay protocol that Apple introduced with iOS 4.2 in November 2010, we have seen all kinds of possible implementations of Apple’s streaming technology being ported to a variety of devices, for multiple purposes and scenarios. From tools to turn Macs into AirPlay receivers for audio, video, iOS Mirroring sessions, then a combination of all them, to more or less Apple-approved “AirPlay audio receivers” sold in the App Store, then pulled, then released in Cydia, the past two years have surely been interesting for AirPlay.

When it comes to dealing with audio on my Macs and iOS devices, however, my preference always goes to Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil. As covered multiple times in the past here on MacStories, Airfoil is a powerful solution from a renowned Mac development studio that allows you to easily control audio sources on your Mac, and organize how audio is sent across your room through Airfoil Speakers, Airfoil Speakers Touch, or a mix of other utilities as I also previously detailed. I love Airfoil, because it just works. And today it gets even better with a major update to Airfoil Speakers Touch, which reaches version 3.0, becomes universal, and adds a $2.99 in-app purchase to turn any iOS device into an AirPlay receiver for audio.

Available for free on the App Store, the new Airfoil Speakers Touch runs beautifully on iPhones or iPads with Retina display. More importantly, it doesn’t require you to send audio to the app exclusively through Airfoil on your computer (more here), as an in-app purchase will unlock the ability to receive audio from iTunes or any AirPlay-enabled iOS app or device. This is neatly illustrated by the in-app purchase unlocking screen inside Airfoil Speakers Touch 3.0.

By enabling the “Input II” option, you’ll be able to turn a device running Airfoil Speakers Touch into an AirPlay receiver recognized by iTunes on your computer, iOS apps like Rdio, Spotify or Instacast, or iOS itself through the system-wide playback controls in the multitasking tray. In my tests, Airfoil Speakers Touch 3.0 was correctly recognized by iTunes, iOS 5.1 on iPhones and iPads, and any app that allowed for streaming audio through AirPlay.

The true potential of Airfoil, obviously, is unlocked when you start combining the various utilities provided by Rogue Amoeba together to build your own personalized wireless audio setup. Whilst I greatly appreciate the support for native AirPlay integration (at $2.99 and in the App Store, it’s a no-brainer), I still like to control audio in my office or living room with a mix of Airfoil, Airfoil Speakers Touch, and Reemote. The latter is a fantastic third-party utility that, connecting to Airfoil on the Mac with a “server” app, allows you to directly control single audio sources and volume levels on iOS.

This means that, if I want to simply stream audio from iTunes or iOS to my iPhone and iPad I can use Airfoil’s new input method; if the audio I want to stream, though, comes from apps like Rdio for Mac or QuickTime, I can fire up Airfoil, beam the audio with its InstantOn technology, and control everything — sources and volumes and playback controls — with Reemote for Airfoil. I can even control standalone speakers connected to my Mac if I want to get audio both on my iPad and the external speakers. It’s a wireless audio nerd’s dream setup.

Airfoil is one of my favorite apps ever created for the Mac — one that I immediately install every time I set up a new OS X installation — and now the iOS version has proper AirPlay support through a $2.99 in-app purchase that, ultimately, just works. If you’ve been looking for an easy way to, say, beam iTunes or iPad audio to an iPhone connected to your car’s system, the latest Airfoil Speakers Touch gets the job done. And if your audio listening habits are made of more complex and variegate needs, you can stay assured Airfoil Speakers Touch will equally serve you well thanks to the combination of Rogue Amoeba-made and third-party utilities mentioned above.

Get Airfoil Speakers Touch 3.0 here.

Instead of connecting to your iPhone or iPod touch from your Mac, what if you had the convenience of setting it up as a receiver right from your pocket? That’s the quick summary of Airfoil Touch 2, which is now available on the App Store for free. If you happen to have a setup consisting of multiple Airfoil enabled machines, or you don’t want to bounce between multiple rooms to make music streaming happen, Airfoil Touch 2 has a convenient setup where you can now “reverse connect” by selecting the appropriate input node on your Wi-Fi network.

Artwork and metadata are now transferred to your iOS device when streaming music, and an improved equalizer can be customized to fit your mood. Most importantly, however, is the built in remote controls for changing tracks and pausing music right from your pocket. You can’t browse your library, but you can skip over a poor playlist choice when streaming on the network. If you’re listening to music from your pocket, the music controls on your dangling white earbuds can also control playback. When you want to browse the web or play a game, Airfoil Touch 2 works in the background and in conjunction with the multitasking tray for easy media control.

Rogue Amoeba have been making steady improvements to their Airfoil apps, and if you haven’t check it out, there’s been some recent updates to the parent app for the Mac (that’s just reached version 4.5) that’s worth checking out.

[via Under the Microscope: Rogue Amoeba Blog]

Apple may have introduced AirPlay, but that doesn’t mean Rogue Amoeba is out of the game. In fact, AirPlay is rather limited unless you enjoy hacking your way out of a paper bag, and by no means can it expand its territory outside of iTunes. If you ever wanted to sit back on the couch and watch CNET TV on your 27″ Cinema Display through your iPod’s headphones, you’re out of luck. But with Airfoil, streaming audio anywhere allows one to achieve a state of wireless bliss.

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