Veteran Mac software developers Rogue Amoeba also dabble in the iPhone OS space – at least they have until now. The company’s CEO has joined the slowly growing ranks of iPhone OS developers who are spurning the platform unless Apple makes significant changes to the App Store application approval process.

Posting to the company’s official blog, Rogue Amoeba CEO Paul Kafasis describes the trouble his company has had getting a bug fix to Airfoil Speakers Touch posted to the App Store.

Airfoil Speakers Touch is designed to work with Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil app for Mac OS X and Windows. It enables you to send audio streaming from your computer to your iPhone or iPod touch, enabling the portable device to “work just like a mobile AirPort Express receiver.”

Kafasis noted that Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0.1 is finally available for download from the App store – a bug fix for the original release that’s taken three and a half months to work its way through the App Store’s approval system.

Kafasis explained that the initial two rejections occurred based on an apparent assumption from someone in the App Store review process pipeline that Airfoil Speakers Touch uses artwork copyrighted by Apple – specifically, graphics of Apple hardware and the source application icon.

In fact, the application does not infringe on Apple’s copyrights by containing such imagery. The software relies on publicly exposed functions built in to Mac OS X that identify the system and software in use – that artwork is something that’s on the Mac, not something built into the iPhone application. Airfoil Speakers Touch simply shows the user the icon, sent from the host computer, to help them identify the source.

“It’s a nice little bit of polish, but it’s also functional – it lets the user verify what machine they’re receiving from, what source application, and what that source application is doing,” said Kafasis.

Kafasis noted that Apple had approved Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0, which displays the exact same behavior. 1.0.1 was merely a bug fix that didn’t affect this visual display of information. What’s more, 1.0 remained available for download in the store throughout this lengthy approval process.

Ultimately, Rogue Amoeba acquiesced, making the requested change to the application. As a result, Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0.1 is now available for download from the App Store, but it isn’t as pretty as it used to be.

“In the future, we hope that developers will be allowed to ship software without needing Apple’s approval at all, the same way we do on Mac OS X. We hope the App Store will get better, review times will be shorter, reviews will be more intelligent, and that we can all focus on making great software. Right now, however, the platform is a mess,” said Kafasis.

Kafasis added that Rogue Amoeba will not develop any new iPhone apps, and updates to existing apps will be rare.

“The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we’re focusing on the Mac,” Kafasis concluded.