BitTorrent app rejected by Apple

BitTorrent’s reputation as the standard for illegal file sharing has brought down the banhammer from Apple.

The company has rejected Maza Digital’s Drivetrain app, a simple interface for remote control of the Transmission BitTorrent client. Essentially, the App would let users manage downloads to a computer running Mac OS X and several other platforms. Apple says it can’t allow this kind of application.

"We’ve reviewed Drivetrain and determined that we cannot post this version of your application to the App Store at this time because this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights," Apple said, according to TorrentFreak. "We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store."

In response, Maza Digital told TorrentFreak it was "disillusioned with the whole App Store process." The rejection followed a request for user interface changes in April, then an additional delay as Apple said the review would take longer than expected.

There are couple of reasons why this rejection is ridiculous, the most obvious being that remote control of a BitTorrent client isn’t illegal. Perhaps Apple wants no part of BitTorrent given the results of The Pirate Bay trial, but even then a remote control application is still far removed from torrent tracking.

Apple is being inconsistent. After the story broke, iPhone developer David Muzi told iLounge that his Trackr app lets users remotely queue torrents thrugh uTorrent and Transmission — pretty much the same thing that Drivetrain would do. It’s on the App Store now for $2.99.