Apple has long since shown a very selective frame of mind in the types and quality of apps it allows in its App Store, but so far the targeting of apps to remove has been limited to those with content that Apple worries could be of a disagreeable nature for some consumers. In efforts to keep the brand as family friendly as possible and capitalize on the teen and soccer mom demographic they are famous for, the company has worked hard to keep bikini viewing apps and other less ‘appropriate’ material out of the App Store on a regular basis. This commitment to exercising total control over the products in the store has lead to a sort of expectation among consumers that the company will step in whenever it senses something not along the lines of its over all aims. The latest target of its removal campaigns has been more surprising: wi fi discovery tools. These are used to find or scan for hot spots of wi fi activity in the area surrounding the phone.
These scanner apps, also know as wi fi stumblers, are used to locate, in continuously updated real time, the number and quality of surrounding wi fi hot spots and the reason for the removal is simply that the APIs were of a private source and undocumented. While apps such as Spots and Wi-Fi Finder are viewed as okay because they search based on a directory, the apps Sekai Camera, yFy and Wifi-Where are not since they are adding their listings in a dynamic way that Apple is reluctant to approve of.