Google admits breaking App Store rules
Google acknowledged breaking the official rules of Apple's iPhone software development kit when it created the latest version of the Google Mobile application for the iPhone, but denied a more serious charge.
A Google spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Google Mobile uses undocumented APIs (application programming interfaces) in order to use the iPhone's proximity sensor to prompt a verbal search. iPhone developers were only supposed to use the APIs that Apple published in its SDK when they create their applications under the terms of that agreement.
Google has denied, however, a more serious charge that it was linking to private or dynamic frameworks in the Google Mobile application. That's considered a big no-no in the development community.
The problem with using undocumented APIs is that your application code could break in the future as Apple updates its software, but a lot of developers appear to have taken that risk in order to deliver a cool feature, such as Google's verbal search prompt.
Under the original terms of the SDK, however, applications using such techniques were not supposed to make it through to the App Store. As a result, other developers who played strictly by the SDK rules would not have felt it possible to create an application that duplicated Google's voice prompt using the proximity sensor, whereas those who had the resources to quickly rewrite anything that ran afoul of the App Store gatekeepers could push ahead and test Apple's limits.
Given Apple's uneven process for approving applications onto the App Store, the question has continued to come up as to whether Apple's ability to keep up with the flood of applications into the App Store has been stretched to the breaking point. It's not clear whether Apple knew Google was using the undocumented APIs when it approved Google Mobile, or whether it simply missed that code.
Google might be forced to rewrite the code for Google Mobile or change the way the application uses the proximity sensor if Apple decides to enforce the terms of the SDK. A number of Apple representatives appeared to be on vacation this week, and so requests for comment are not likely to be immediately returned.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
Time was you could develop for any platform without that platform's company determining if you could or not. However if you didn't develop as they suggested, you were S.O.L. if whatever liberties you took with your code got broken by later OS revisions. It's time everyone, Apple included, stop looking at the iPhone as a phone that can run apps, and start looking at it as a handheld computer with a dedicated phone function. Because that's what it is. If adding simple, reasonable and expected functionality (*cough*cutandpaste*cough*) can cause security or functionality issues, effin' FIX THEM! If just once in a while The Jobs could look at his company as a top-level competitor in an important market, instead of a home for his personal whims and pet projects, Apple and the computing world at large might be in a MUCH better place.
'cos if they open, they knew their product will become unsecured and will expose them to security issues and will have to do regular patching/updates (will be no different from Windows then)
I thought Apple users and anyone developing tools for their products are already aware of this limitation. No idea why Google took the decision to break that rule. I would say Google to keep their hopes as low as possible. They'll likely have to redo their coding.
What Google did was the spirit of hacking. If it works, and it doesn't break anything else in the iPhone, I see nothing wrong with it. If Apple does a future update that breaks Google's app, then it's Google's job to fix their program.
I expect it's largely a matter of who you are and what sort of money you have that really determines the treatment you get with Apple. I have no evidence whatsoever to prove this, but that is the impression that Apple is giving with their actions of late.
- by Topspin14 December 1, 2008 1:53 PM PST
- Why do we care? How about Apple allows good programs that work well to be available in the store, and crappy buggy ones aren't allowed on. Or...they could allow all 3rd party programs and let consumers decide what they like and don't like. Jeez this doesn't have to be that difficult.
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(19 Comments)P.S. I'm not a developer...just a person with common sense.