It's not the first time apple is acting in such an unfavorable way towards inventors/developers.
It was exactly the same story regarding the use of the voluem button for taking pictures. 1st banned by apple and the later on integrated by apple. Not the best attitude imho.
That was a shrewd marketing move by a developer to get his app blocked by Apple so he could make hay on it. Unfortunately, it paid off. The app shot up the charts after they manufactured that controversy for all the free publicity.
Maybe more constructive than just banning would be to approach a solution together with the initial developer. Honoring his innovative approach and eventually granting him temporarily a slight advantage in exchange for bringing his innovative idea to the ecosystem instead of just playing copycat...