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Apple Rejects Snowtape for iPhone, But Doesn’t Provide Any Specific Reason

Alright folks, this is weird. Vemedio, the developers of Snowtape for Mac, have been working for the past few months on an iPhone version of their application, which I’ve got the pleasure to beta test. The application is stunning and impressive both in looks and functionalaties, but that’s not the point.

From what we can read on a post on Vemedio’s official blog, Apple has rejected Snowtape for iPhone due to its built in feature of recording internet radio and storing the files on the iPhone.

From the post:

“I got a call from Steve Rea of iPhone Developer Relations telling me that they can not approve Snowtape for iPhone. Effectively he said that Apple can not publish an app that records audio from an internet stream and store it permanently on the iPhone and of cause he explictly said that we can not have a function in our app for re-distribution of these recordings. What he meant is that Apple can not allow you folks to record internet radio and store it as MP3 on your local storage. Of course I tried to asked him about the paragraph in the iPhone Developer SDK agreement, we are violating. His sole words were, that there are lots of things missing in the SDK agreement and that they can not foresee any circumstance that leads to a denial of an app. That‘s right! We did not violate any paragraph of the SDK, yet they forbid us distributing our app.”

Vemedio didn’t violate any paragraph, but the app has been rejected because there are “a lot of things missing from the SDK” and they just can’t approve it. Too bad for Steve Rea that Martin Hering (the developer) went looking for other internet radio apps in the App Store and found at least 3 apps that have the same feature, but they’re online and available.

Unbelievable? A huge fail, I say. Come on Apple, go approve Snowtape - the app is great.

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