Apple faces the prospect of another scandal after it emerged a senior executive has defied company orders by selling apps through the App Store.
The director of the App Store, Phillip Shoemaker, was found to be selling his own applications on the site, using a pseudonym to conceal his identity and so get round an Apple ban on employees selling their content through the store, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
One of the apps Shoemaker sold under the company name Gray Noodle mimics animals breaking wind, while another offers a urination simulator, the paper said.
Shoemaker’s involvement with the apps, which typically sold for $1-$2 (€0.78-€1.56), was discovered after he posted details on his Twitter and LinkedIn profiles Wired.com reports.
Apple says Shoemaker’s apps were uploaded before he joined the firm in March 2009, Wired noted, however the news site discovered that three of the apps were uploaded after that date.
That revelation will do little to appease angry apps developers, particularly because the executive is one of the enforcers of Apple’s strict approval rules and has a say in what content can be uploaded to the store.
The firm has launched a moral crusade in recent months, pulling apps that sniffed out WiFi hotspots from the App Store, and banning content deemed to contain risqué images including women in bikinis and silhouettes.
The Shoemaker scandal comes just a week after Paul Devine, an iPhone procurement manager, was indicted on charges of receiving kickbacks from key Asian manufacturers