Apple Easing Up on iPhone Developers? Letting Private API Usage Slide Temporarily

After a series of high profile complaints, it seems that Apple is making efforts to improve the App Store experience for their developers. After taking a hard line against the use of private application programming interfaces (APIs), iPhone developer Vimov reports that they have had a relatively positive experience in seeking approval for an update to their iSimulate app.

Despite inadvertently leaving in a programming call to a private API, they were pleased to find the update had still been approved and they were simply warned to address the issue in the next update:

Thank you for submitting your update to iSimulate to the App Store. During our review of your application we found it is using a private API, which is in violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement section 3.3.1; 3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to resolve this issue in your next update.

In the recent past, such an oversight would have resulted in an automatic rejection that would have cost the developer weeks of time going through the re-approval process.

This past week, Apple made further efforts at improving the lines of communication with developers by offering an RSS news feed for developers with news and tips about App Store submissions.