With the news and announcements of iPhone OS 4.0 … apparently there is a new Apple Developer Agreement (EULA for iPhone/iPad development) that will, at some point, come into play.

In it, there’s section 3.3.1, and a clause that reads:

“Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited.”.

UPDATE; Here’s the full clause:

“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).”

If you’re following Adobe CS5 news, this seems to be a pretty big deal (although I’m not a lawyer by any means). It’s pretty simple process (right now), to tell if an app submitted to Apple’s store is made with the iPhone packager from Adobe (open up an .app file and search for strings). Also, Apple is using their static analyzer which helps in the process to some degree. I imagine it’s the same on other platforms, or not much harder.

Wonder how this will all play out for Adobe, Apple, and all the other 3rd party products out there compiling down natively and tapping into APIs (I won’t bother to list them here, as they are numerous). Surely, apps already in the store will stay there, at least until they are updated with new user agreement terms in place? And would it be possible for devs to stick with the 3.x SDK and not agree to newer EULA terms? Food for thought, although overall, this recent news from Apple is very bad for Flash Developers not looking to take the plunge into Objective C and Apple tooling.

It’s like what smart developers have said all along, if you’re going to learn a platform, learn it natively (if you can).

It’s a good thing some of the other 3rd parties have targeted other devices/platforms that are must more open and willing to allow for this behavior.

This could be a “Though shall not pass” moment for Adobe (or at the very least, Flash Developers) …

Perhaps Adobe will ship the iPhone Packaging in CS5 knowing full well that apps will be rejected, and tie up their team of lawyers for a few months trying to figure a way out … I’m not sure. I hadn’t heard of any apps previously created with CS5 being pulled, but then again, those apps were pushed to the store without the new agreement in place.

It would be great if Adobe could comment on what this news from Apple means, and what the action will be taken.

From a Flash developers perspective, given the timing, it appears as if Apple has given the shaft to Adobe first, (unfortunately), but I’m sure they want to shaft everyone else doing the same thing. It’s Apple’s play yard, and they have as long as they want to take action.

UPDATE 04/08/2010 (someone iposted the legal copy):

iPhone Developer Program License Agreement and here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Apple, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.