• TechCrunch, Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:19 PM

Joe Hewitt, the Facebook developer responsible for the social network's hugely successful iPhone app, says he's washing his hands of the project, and it's all Apple's fault. "My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies," Hewitt said in a tweet this week. "I've handed the Facebook iPhone app off to another engineer."

Elaborating on his decision, Hewitt tells TechCrunch it was a direct result of Apple's tyrannical App Store approval policies, saying, "I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process... I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

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