The developer of the PCalc app, which was at risk of being pulled from the App Store this week, has been told that the decision has been reversed.
The app was originally due to be pulled due to the calculator function that existed within the app’s iOS 8 widget. Though the app had been around since the release of iOS, it was only recently that Apple took it down due to a violation in App Store rules. The violation is that the new iOS 8 extension widgets, aren’t supposed to do calculations on the phone.
James Thomson (@jamesthomson), the man behind the app, was told by Apple that the calculator element of the widget would have to be removed. Of course, for an app like PCalc, the whole widget would become practically inert. Thomson was told that the widget could only be used to type in calculations, and that the actual calculating would have to be done from within PCalc.
The irony is that Apple was featuring the app under ‘Great Apps For iOS 8’ in the ‘Notification widgets section’
Following the decision, Thomson took to Twitter:
Apple has told me that Notification Center widgets on iOS cannot perform any calculations, and the current PCalc widget must be removed.
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 29, 2014
He had “2-3 weeks to remove it, barring a miracle.” Through the amount of support he received on Twitter from users and tech blogs, he soon got the attention of Apple, and a day later he tweeted that he had ‘just had a phone call from Apple – decision has been reversed, no changes required to PCalc’s widget. Thanks everybody for their support!’
@jamesthomson I gotta say, this is the most emotional I’ve felt about a calculator since I discovered you can spell words upside down
— Ben McCarthy (@BenRiceM) October 30, 2014
It seems like miracles can happen.
Source: Cult of Mac,