Another iPhone dev bites the dust. Rouge Amoeba calls it quits.

Think Facebook’s Joe Hewitt giving up on iPhone development was a one time thing? At the very l east it’s a ground rule double as Rouge Amoeba has announced that they too are ceasing iPhone development on account of Apple’s App Store policies.

What exactly did Rouge Amoeba make? Their iPhone baby, Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0 allows iPhone/iPod Touch users to pick up broadcasted audio from their Mac or Pc. A handy app no doubt. After they released the first version, the realized that there were a few bugs in in audio playback when multiple sources were being output too. A fix was promptly submitted. What ensued next was 1/4 year of hell.

Apple rejected the update soon from the start because the app used images of “Apple-owned Graphic Symbols” — something the first version had for some time. Not to mention, using “Apple-ownded Graphic Symbols” for things such as navigation is completely legal in Mac development. Why is the iPhone any different?

The last straw wasn’t an “all of a sudden” type of deal. Instead, when the developers finally saw their update hit the light of day and the App Store storefront, they realized that it had taken Apple three and a half months — three and a half months — to approve and release a small update. This update mind you while small, fixed a rather serious bug. Meanwhile, the entire time this back and forth, wait, wait, wait game was going on, the original bugged version with “infringing symbols” was still available for purchase. Rouge Amoeba developer Paul Kafasis stated:

“Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare. The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we’re focusing on the Mac.”

Public accounts of developers big and small leaving the iPhone platform because of the approval process and overall App Store policies should be worrying Apple. Without breakthrough devs and apps, there’s nothing to the iPhone. It’s just another phone. Though as many have already mentioned (Joe Hewitt in particular), “for every one developer that leaves, ten more sign up”. That statement should be exciting and encouraging. But it’s not. Instead of feelings of joy and excitement I’m left feeling sad that more devs are getting sucked into this pit of suck.

9to5 Mac