Rotten Apple

The new iPhone 4.0 SDK language appears to make creating applications in any non-Apple-approved languages a violation of terms. What this means is that Apple isn’t going to allow any apps developed on or in any other platform into the App Store. Yet another blow to the Adobe Creative Suite 5; which made major changes to the Flash application to make creating iPhone Apps a possibility for non Apple developers. Adobe has acknowledged the change to the New York Times, but doesn’t have any change in plans just yet.

I would love to say that I’m shocked about this, but sadly I’m not. In fact, I would expect nothing less from a company who holds such tight reigns over developers and employees.

Apple may make some of the coolest products on the market, but their leadership is absolutely LAME!

You Make the Call

Now, my interpretation of Apples intentions maybe wrong but here’s the actual change to the iPhone SDK in Apple’s own words:

Prior to today’s release of the iPhone OS 4 SDK, section 3.3.1 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement read, in its entirety:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

In the new version of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement released by Apple today (and which developers must agree to before downloading the 4.0 SDK beta), section 3.3.1 now reads:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).