Yes, the news is absolutely right; Apple app store has certainly approved its first torrent application. Apparently, a BitTorrent app called the IS Device has appeared in the Apple’s app Store for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad notwithstanding the fact that Apple has a history of declining the approval of these BitTorrent apps because of the possibility that these apps could be used for Internet piracy.
The IS Device was created by a media-hosting site Image Shack and simply allows Image Shack’s premium subscribers to download it to their iDevices and use this service to manage their torrents from an iOS device. This app was previously known as Jack Torrents and used to be available under Cydia for jailbroken iOS devices. If you do not have an idea what a torrent is, then torrents are specialized files utilized in peer-to-peer network environments.
Basically, the BitTorrent is some sort of a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol that has the ability to share the bandwidth load for large file transfers between a large group of users. It has been used by Image Shack for a variety of legitimate services. However, it has also earned some negative feedback because of its strong tendency of being used by some illegal file sharers since the only way to download a torrent in an iPhone is simply by jailbreaking it first. But for sure there is always an important reason behind the emergence of this IS Device.
The app developer behind the IS Device named Derek Kepner also admitted that convincing Apple that the IS Drive was not designed to break the law is quite a difficult task. He strongly believes that there is no reason for Apple to reject the said app in the recently issued Apple’s app store guidelines.
Apple has been for blocking those apps because of some hesitations and the fear that it may somehow compromise its video and music business in iTunes. However, just recently Apple has taken the pressure off its app store approval guidelines in response to the criticism being thrown to it. As a result, those applications which were not previously permitted like the Google Voice Apps have appeared.
Well, it seems that Apple didn’t realize that the IS Drive is a BitTorrent application since its developer did not make use of the words “torrent “or “BitTorrent” and has projected this application to be more of a download manager rather than a torrent application. Basically, the IS Drive simply allows users to check and manage downloads from ImageShack.us site, which basically includes image hosting, photo and video sharing and a paid downloadable BitTorrent service.
The IS Device is currently available at the Apple app Store and costs around $ 5 and also requires the iOS 4.0 Software Update or later versions. It is compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and works only with ImageShacks subscription service.
(Concept image for Utorrent)
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Tags: how to download torrent in iphone, iphone torrent app store, iPhone Torrent guide
