Has anyone created an iphone app with "undocumented apis" and made it through approval? If so, could you share your processes to the world and any follow-up responses to apple review that may have made your case?
all the best.
A:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10108348-37.html
Google's search app uses undocumented API's, but made it through the review process. From what I understand regular developers won't get approved under these circumstances- Google is just "Special".
Zoomzoom83
2009-05-18 03:21:11
Calling it an undocumented API isn't quite accurate. Google's search app traps an undocumented event handler, it doesn't call an undocumented API. If the event handler is ever changed, it simply won't be fired by Cocoa Touch.
Steven Fisher
2009-05-21 00:53:30
A:
I forget the name of the app, but I read about someone who took the time to reimplement Cover Flow and yet still got rejected when he originally submitted it to Apple for approval.
While this was a few months ago, and so Apple could have altered their process since then, this suggests that they don't have an automated process that checks for the use of unauthorised API. If that's still true, it means that your use of "undocumented APIs" would probably go unnoticed unless it was very obvious and a reviewer could eyeball their use.
Having said that, do you really want to take the risk? You may not like the rules but you did agree to them when you signed up to the developer programme. It's not as though this rule is at all ambiguous, unlike some of the "taste" rejections.
Stephen Darlington
2009-05-19 11:49:17
+1
A:
As far as I am aware, the APIs that allow access to live camera images are not public, yet there are many applications that use them. Some of these have even been featured by Apple.
It seems in these cases that use of undocumented APIs has not prevented Apple approval, but there have been other instances with the same set of APIs that have not been approved. You might want to read http://www.appleiphonereview.com/news/apple-blocks-video-camera-app/.
All in all, playing with undocumented APIs seems like a very risky business to me. Ultimately Apple hold all of the cards. Do you want to potentially waste your time developing something that will be rejected?
Jamie314
2009-09-05 15:40:17