It appears that Apple is up to its old tricks again and exercising some quality control over the applications available through its App Store.

Hot on the heels of it banning applications it considers to be inappropriate, Apple is now pulling apps with Wi-Fi stumbling features, according to numerous reports.

Apps such as Wifi-Where, yFy, and Sekai Camera work by showing the user where all the nearest hotspots are to him or her, using both online directories and dynamic real-time tracking of local Wi-Fi hotspots.

Three Jacks Software, the company behind Wifi-Where, released a statement on its site sharing the email Apple sent by way of explanation.

Apparently Cupertino told the firm its app had been removed from the App Store because "there are no published APIs that provide the ability to manipulate the wireless connection or the show level of information regarding the wireless connection as demonstrated in the application".

So it seems the message to developers is loud and clear: don't use private APIs in your products or Apple will probably get around to removing them.

As Apple has stated its position on apps which use these so-called private APIs before, the news will be less controversial than Cupertino's last attempts to ban certain apps from its online marketplace.

At the end of February, Apple decided it would clamp down on "overtly sexual apps" after complaints from some parents and female customers. Some argued at the time that the rules were too restrictive and seem to have been only sporadically enforced, for example the FHM and Playboy apps were apparently overlooked.

06 Mar 2010