Last year, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users were delighted to learn that VLC media player had become available for their device via the App Store. But now, thanks to a licensing and copyright dispute, that particular party has been cut short and the software pulled offline. Bizarrely, the only way people can get this free and open source software now is to pirate it. You couldn’t make it up.
For many Mac users Transmission is the BitTorrent client of choice. Unfortunately, managing Transmission’s BitTorrent downloads on the iPhone or iPad can only be done through a web-interface. This annoyance is now resolved thanks to iControlbits, the first and only native iPhone app for the Transmission client that apparently escaped the prying eye of Apple’s anti-torrent police.
Apple is known for the stringent guidelines it applies when deciding which software to allow into their App Store – BitTorrent is one of the things on their ban list. However, one developer who carefully avoided the dirty word “torrent” in the submission process, eventually managed to get a BitTorrent-related App approved by Apple.
To users of Cydia, Icy and Appulous, alternatives to Apple’s App Store are nothing new, but soon there will be a new and unqiue player in the market. Promising to become “the most beautiful application repository on the market” appDowner will be the first App Store competitor to use BitTorrent technology.
An iPhone application designed to remotely-control the Transmission BitTorrent client has been rejected by the Apple App Store. Apple told the developer that this type of application is often used to infringe copyrights, so therefore the company has decided not to allow such software on the App store.
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Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
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