It’s not even a story any more that Apple loves to reject Apps from the App Store. Today’s entry in the Big Book of App Rejections is µMonitor, an App that monitors µTorrent that you have running on your PC. Apple rejected it because “this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights.”
And if Apple is prepared to make the blanket statement that BitTorrent is “often” used to infringe copyright, then maybe it can explain why it approved myNZB. It’s an App that let’s you monitor SABnzbd, a Usenet daemon that absolutely rules. (I switched from Unison to SABnzbd about a month ago… so much faster.)
So, if BitTorrent is “often” used to violate copyright, then what does that say about Usenet, especially when all we’re doing is combing through the binary groups (via NZBs)? (Usenet discussion groups are still top-notch, though. I learned a lot about Mac in comp.sys.mac back in the day.)
My guess is that Apple knows the number of people who know how to use Usenet are so miniscule compared to the number of people who are able to use BitTorrent. As it stands, I can almost understand Apple’s concerns. Let’s face it: when you say the word “BitTorrent,” your mind first goes to The Pirate Bay and not distrowatch.org or downloading Blizzard patches!
All of that said, you can still actually download µMonitor, you just need to jailbreak your iPhone and search Cydia.