Apple CEO Steve Jobs has personally intervened to reverse the rejection of an iPhone and iPod touch application for what is believed to be the first time. Ars Technica reports that Brian Meehan of Pointy Heads emailed Jobs directly following the rejection of the company’s live video streaming app Knocking Live Video. Knocking uses a private API, an act which is strictly prohibited in Apple’s iPhone developer agreement, to stream live video from an iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS to any iPhone or iPod touch.
Notably, the iPhone 3G does not support video capture via the built-in Camera app, making the application the first in Apple’s official App Store to offer video from the device—similar techniques have been used in jailbreak applications to gather video using an iPhone 3G or even an original iPhone. According to the report, Meehan’s email focused more on Apple as an organization than on any specific API or application. “I reached out to Apple to reconsider our application due to its potential to culturally change how people share live moments phone-to-phone,” Meehan said.
He added that he made his case “in a way that was not about me or our app, rather about being a life-long user of all Apple products, about how I believed in Apple and that I believed Jobs would respond.”
Within days of sending the email, Meehan received a phone call from an Apple executive—who wishes to remain anonymous, according to the report—and was told that the app would be approved for sale, and that the rejection reversal order came “directly from the top.” Although Google’s Google Mobile App was previously approved despite using unpublished APIs, it is unclear whether Apple knew about the infraction, making this the first time Apple has knowingly approved an application which uses an undocumented or private API. In fact, it is believed that the company is now using automated software to check incoming App Store submissions for private API. Knocking Live Video is available now as a free download from the App Store.
