Chimp Studios says its iOS developer tool, App Scanner is now free after being rejected by Apple for the Mac App Store.
App Scanner is a utility that mimics Apple’s automated review process and picks through an apps internal structure to see if a developer has — intentionally or not — used a private application programming interface, an offense that warrants an immediate rejection. Chimp Studios originally intended to deploy App Scanner on the Mac App Store; however, Apple denied it due to legal concerns.
“It is a bit disappointing that in the three years that the iOS software development kit has been available to third party developers, Apple hasn’t provided any kind of pre-check tool,” says developer Andrew Schenk. Apple recently released Xcode 4 on March 9 to the general public on the Mac App Store for $US4.99, with registered developers receiving a free update. Despite a complete redesign of Xcode it did not feature a private application programming interfacescanner.”
The latest version of App Scanner — which requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later — adds on a command line interface that developers can use to more tightly integrate scanning into their build process as well as a simplified form for improving scan results, he says. App Scanner 1.4.2 is free to use for an unlimited time. It can be downloaded directly from Chimp Studios website (http://www.chimpstudios.com/appscanner/). App Scanner originally debuted in October as a $2.99 shareware app.