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March 5, 2010

Apple Drops Wi-Fi Sniffers from iPhone App Store

I am compelled to write this story simply to say it does not matter: Reports came out a few days ago that all the iPhone OS applications that sniff out Wi-Fi, scanning the vicinity for signals and other information, have been removed from the App Store, the only authorized place from which iPhone and iPod touch owners can download apps, free or fee.

It doesn't matter, despite all the yelling about it. The sniffers were dropped because they use a private framework, hooks in the operating system that are not documented nor allowed for third-party developers to use. Apple scans and checks for these kinds of uses, and rejects programs that employ them. The sniffers got a pass for some reason, but someone at Apple woke up and kicked them out. It's a shame for the developers who put time into them, but using private frameworks is a completely well-known risk.

This dumping of sniffing apps is entirely distinct from Apple's arbitrary and capricious acts related to other programs and categories of programs, in which developers acting in good faith and according to guidelines find themselves on the wrong side of a shifting line. That happened to "sexy" programs, all of which not made by major firms like Playboy and Sports Illustrated, were dropped without warning.

It's been suggested that Apple should have an open and closed mode on the iPhone, letting people choose to run apps that haven't been reviewed and filtered by the company, but making no guarantees about those; in the closed mode, only Apple-approved apps would run. Apple seems to have no motivation to make that change, however, with its closed system working just fine for it, if not developers.

4 Comments

Apple has an "open" mode on iPhone: it's called jailbreaking.

I find it hard to believe that Glenn Fleishman, someone generally rational, wrote entries attacking Apple for not allowing developers to use private APIs, period. That is the first issue any knowledgeable person would consider when an app is rejected.

Moving on to attack Apple regarding a different category of app - those rejected because of concern about obscenity or poor taste - is even more inane. Those issues have nothing to do with the technical concerns explaining the Wi-Fi finder app exclusions.

Has some nitwit highjacked the name "Glenn Fleishman"?

Since I wrote in the post that there was no reason for anyone to scream and yell about Apple dropping applications that use private APIs, I believe I am still Glenn Fleishman. I am not attacking Apple about this.

Rather, I was contrasting Apple's perfectly consistent and well-documented basis for removing apps that use unapproved frameworks with its inconsistent and poorly justified ongoing app removals that conform to all the rules.

You're being an Apple apologist if you believe that the "sexy" apps that Apple rejected, some of them after many months on the best-seller list, suddenly went from appropriate to obscene or in poor taste. Apple moved the velvet ropes.

Yeah, that's not Apple having an 'open' mode on the iPhone, that's you, the user, taking advantage of a security hole to perform unauthorized changes to the software configuration on the device. That same security hole, by the way, is, well, a security hole, one that actually makes the iPhone less secure (by definition) and will eventually get patched. And rightly so.

So, please, continue to 'take advantage' of these security holes; I love laughing at the whiners when their jailbreaking fails again.

Meanwhile, Apple is right in this case. The SDK clearly states that using private frameworks is not allowed under any circumstance. I'm sorry to see these apps go, because they provide a valuable service when the iPhone can't see a network you know is there, and they sure make war-driving easy, but them's the breaks.

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