Unfortunately, Airfoil Speakers Touch can no longer receive audio directly from other iOS devices or iTunes.
I’m glad to see that the app is back, but it’s disappointing that Apple admits the developer did nothing wrong and yet they still have to remove functionality.
From what I’ve heard, all AirPlay software (including this one) uses a key hacked out of some licensed product to decode the AirPlay stream. Are people really surprised that Apple would not allow such software on their App Store?
I don’t support Apple on their protection of an obviously broken and bogus DRM scheme, but if that’s really how Rogue Amoeba got AirPlay to work, I’m not sure why they’re surprised Apple wants that feature out.
They can basically tell us what they want, and they do, they make some pretty blatant Apple-is-evil claims about Apple in this piece. Apple will never respond to such publications and for good reason, getting into public arguments like this is counterproductive. They’re using the good old, Apple is a dictator and we’re just a small developer BS argument to get some sympathy.
Maybe they didn’t use a private API, but they backward engineered an Apple feature to do something that it was not intended to do, it’s pretty obvious that Apple doesn’t like that and that that was the reason for the removal.
“Unfortunately, we have no ability to issue refunds in the App Store. Only Apple does, and they maintain a “No Refunds” policy.” that’s just BS, Apple has given refunds before.
I love that they have closed the comments on the article.
Yep, the keys are the problem and Rogue Amoeba is just playing the victim card. I really like and use Airfoil but this quasi-dishonest position they’re taking is really disappointing. They should just admit that they took a chance by using a reverse engineered key and got caught – simple as that.
This entire episode reeks of a publicity stunt. Rogue Amoeba are smart folks. There’s no way they actually thought this app would be accepted in the App Store.
They hacked Apple’s encryption key.
To provide a service for free that Apple licenses on a royalty basis.
And by glossing over this fact in their blog, they are being trés disingenuous.
Disingenuous. As much as I like what Rogue Amoeba does, and the utility they’ve added to AirPlay/AirTunes over the years, I think this situation could have been resolved much cleaner, and with much less fanfare, had they been upfront about the AirPlay key being the likely issue. Odd to complain about an obtuse app review process when the developer themselves is not forthright about what may have caused Apple to pull the app.
Actually Apple never said that. They said that the app wasn’t using a Private API. But although ‘public’ the Airplay API does require a usage license from Apple and Rogue Amoeba didn’t have one. Reverse engineering the tech because you don’t want to pay for a license is still ‘something bad’.