Apple: to torrent or not to torrent

Posted on 12 May 2009 at 11:45

Apple has rejected an iPhone and iPod touch client for the popular BitTorrent software, Transmission, despite passing similar apps.

Maza Digital’s Drivetrain is a simple front-end that lets you find and add new torrents to Transmission running on your Mac as well as pause, resume and remove torrent downloads and monitor activity.

But that was too much for Apple, which told the developer that “this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights” and refused to allow it onto the iTunes App Store.

Maza described the ban as “ridiculous” as the app itself does nothing illegal and said that Apple has apparently, “decided that any app that has anything to do with BitTorrent (even if the app does not download/upload anything!) is treated as doing something that ‘is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights,’ and will therefore likely be rejected.”

But that doesn’t explain the presence of Trackr, which lets users cue torrents remotely, much like Drivetrain would have liked to do. Apple’s App Store approval process remains as unpredictable as ever.

Author: Simon Aughton

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