Apple pulls Airfoil app from iStore

Venture Beat reports.

The reason? Apple didn't say.

Airfoil Speakers Touch acted similarly to Apple's own Airplay feature in iOS 5. The feature lets users stream audio and video from their iPhones or iPads to a high-definition television or speakers using Apple TV - the set-top box that accepts the stream. Unlike the Airfoil Speaker Touch, Airplay does not let users receive content from other devices to their phones. It does, however, directly compete with the product, making it safe to assume that's why Apple didn't want the app in its store.

The new ban robs Rogue Amoeba of revenue, for which it has few options to recover on iOS, Beta News says.

"As far as we can tell, Airfoil Speakers Touch is in full compliance with Apple's posted rules and developer agreements", CEO Paul Kafasis says. "We've already filed an appeal with Apple's App Review Board, and we're awaiting further information. Unfortunately, Apple has full control of application distribution on iOS, leaving us with no other recourse here."

An anonymous commenter, responding to Kafasis, states surely what many people suspect: “I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Apple is going to include a similar streaming feature in iOS 6 and iTunes 11, so they pulled your app for being too similar to the future feature. Disappointing though for many reasons, but purely from a customer standpoint because not everyone will be able to upgrade to iOS 6 or iTunes 11, or want to.”