A senior Apple manager has been outed as the man behind a series of “novelty” iOS apps, potentially violating the company’s rules.
Wired reports that Philip Shoemaker, director of applications technology where he has responsibility for the App Store, also sells several apps through the store under his company name, Gray Noodle.
The apps including a micturation simulator — iWiz — and the equally charming Animal Farts.
After being outed by Wired, Shoemaker deleted a Twitter account and edited his LinkedIn profile to remove the reference to Gray Noodle. He has not responded to requests for comment.
Apple policy on employees’ apps is quite clear.
“Apple’s policy allows for employees to have apps on the App Store if they’re developed and published prior to their start at Apple,” the company said in a statement.
“Phillip’s apps were written, submitted and approved before he became an Apple employee. His experience and perspective as a developer is one of the valuable things he brings to Apple’s developer relations team.”
But Wired discovered that three of the apps were published after 9 March 2009, the day on which Shoemaker said in Twitter that he had started at the company. That would require a special exemption from a vice president. It isn’t known whether Shoemaker had one.
