Spotify hiring iPhone software developer

Spotify is advertising for a full-time software engineer, whose job it will be to develop for Apple's iPhone.

The position of 'Software engineer, iPhone platform' requires someone "who knows the ins and outs of C++ and Cocoa Touch like the back of his hand," according to the posting on Spotify's jobs page.

Rumours of a Spotify iPhone application surfaced late last month, when a video was posted to the Web purporting to be in-development footage of an app being built by Spotify. This followed news released in January that Spotify had hired Gustav Söderström from Yahoo, as director of portable solutions, sparking excited discussion about Spotify's intention to take its popular desktop app mobile.

Apple's strict and often archaic application-approval process could prove a challenge, however -- Apple recently blocked, then unblocked, a Twitter application update because Twitter contained naughty words (y'know, unlike Safari and the Web).

Additionally, Apple won't allow anything into the App Store that competes with any application it offers itself. The company has been meticulous at blocking apps it deems competitive, such as the original Podcaster app.

Would Spotify compete with the iTunes Store? By playing full songs and albums, would it be classed as competitive to the iPod application? Your guess is as good as ours.