Last Thursday, Apple announced that they were relieving some of the heavier restrictions on iOS development, as well as publishing guidelines so developers know what kind of criteria their apps are measured against for approval. While it’s not a complete abolishment of the App Store like some people want, it’s a huge step in the right direction.
The fact that they’re not restricting tools is a big one. From what I understand, Adobe’s Flash cross-compiler is now completely legal, as are MonoTouch and similar platforms. Flash still can’t run in the browser like it can on Android, but that’s really not what Adobe was after with the CS5 cross-compiler.
The runtime is addressed by the new, clarified 3.3.2 rules, which states that an application cannot download or install executable code, but interpreters and their scripts can be bundled into the application. This was big for game companies, and I think we’ll see more people exploring the use of scripting languages as app platforms now that the wording is clearer.
3.3.9, the section which apparently banned the use of 3rd party ad networks, has been relaxed. The main sticking point, one that Jobs called out in his D8 talk was that the analytics packages were gathering hardware data and leaking information about Apple development hardware. Now, with time to calm down, Apple’s reverse their strong arming, allowing other people back in, but still explicitly blocking hardware analytics tracking.
Finally, the App store guidelines. While I don’t have an iOS developer account, I did catch some of the details at Daring Fireball . It really sounds to me like Steve Jobs was directly involved in this document, either in writing it or dictating it. The language is casual, has his tone to it (“We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps.” Gee, wonder if that meme finally got under his skin?) and is delightfully absent of legalese. Several rules that had never been explicitly stated yet were used to reject apps were finally stated, like apps that simulate a ‘desktop/multi-app widget experience’. It certainly doesn’t cover everything, but it’s definitely way better than what was available previously.
I did not expect Apple to reverse their decisions so drastically. They really do like having control over their brand and user experience, so when they played hard ball earlier this year, it wasn’t really a shock. This set of changes is welcome, but should also demonstrate to potential developers that Apple really will change things drastically under your feet - here’s hoping it won’t be a repeat of the lockdown next time.
