A note to developers posted on Apple’s website today reads as follows:
To Our Developers
We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.
We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.
However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.
Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.
Source: Apple Developer Connection.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Will-i-am” for the heads up.]
“It has happened before.” Squirm, Bill, squirm.
Anyway, this is great news for iPhone devs who will be able collaborate more freely!
About time – this will be a great step for Apple and developers.
About damned time! Geeez!
Now how about working on a uniform set of rules on what those said developers can or cannot waste their time and money on…
http://projectdiaspora.org
Something the critics don’t seem to have is patience. They keep forgetting this is new territory for Apple. Just give it time, Apple is reasonable, they’ll figure it out. Don’t need to rip them a new one.
Well done Apple. And I agree with Anonymous©, Apple are a reasonable company and it is in their interests to protect their stuff.
A compromise on Apple’s part with a reasonable explanation – a small win.
They indirectly attributed the NDA change to developer feedback. Perhaps “ripping them a new one” was indeed required to bring this about in the first place.
Buy a couple shares of AAPL while its low. Then you will realize that Apple is protecting your, an AAPL owner, money. All of a sudden it will make much more sense!
Those books waiting in the wings should be well tweaked.
Then why are all these knock offs are sprouting like wildfire looking more and more like the iPhone UI?
Maybe now those frigtards will finally shaddup. Knowing how much they whine about everything, it probably won’t.
@Jubei
i believe they made a rule about UI not being able to be copyrighted… i think thats how windows one on that specific lawsuit.. or were arguing that fact, and settled out of court or something like that.
Big woop. Give us background apps you pussies.
@Peruchito
Thats crazy. So Apple will just continue to create these amazing stuff, and anyone can copy it? That doesn’t sound right.
It’s about time! Way to go Apple!
To all the “about time” commenters… grow up please.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
In a situation where the entire platform is just over a year old and the app store is only a few months old, saying that anything is “taking forever” or “way overdue” or “about time” any of a wide selection of similar remarks is just ridiculous hyperbole.
You might want to stick to reasonable, factual arguments instead of just hyping up over-emotional statements about your “feelings.”
(I’m assuming here that the commenters are over the age of twelve, apologies to all the kiddies that posted the same thing)
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
I don’t know who’s happier right now: the developers or Microsoft.
Does this mean that I can finally download iFart!
Yeah!!! People in elevators better watch out!
If only I could use it remotely. Much better than the old days of putting a whoopie cushion under out living room couch when my sister and her boyfriend sat.
“Just give it time, Apple is reasonable, they’ll figure it out. Don’t need to rip them a new one.”
Don’t be silly. Apple is only easing up because developers are ripping them a new one and threatening to go elsewhere.
Lets face it, it was silly. For how many other platforms could you not write a “how to” book or discuss programming techniques on the Internet?
So let me offer you an alternative. Apple is a stupid unreasonable company who is secretive and used to selling to sycophants. They’re struggling to deal with moving past that and attract the wider community to their platforms.
Do you think if people hadn’t “Whined” as Ed Anger puts it, anything would have changed?
Yet another reason why Apple is so far above the rest.
If you are an example of the wider community, Apple has just made a big mistake.
Hooray for Apple! Hooray for the iPhone!
It is rather amusing how there are people who seriously believe that the complaining about the NDA had anything to do with Apple’s decision to partially remove the restriction. Apple is a $100B company. They have many quite intelligent people working for them, who know a lot of things individually, and even much more when put together.
It is very clear to me that this was a reasonable strategy, much like the SDK in the first place. If you look at the time line of the iPhone, things were arriving to it slowly. The iTunes mobile store, the SDK, 3G, GPS, App Store… There is no reason for Apple to make everything available right away, and every reason against it. This makes perfect sense for very many reasons, and to even think for a moment that some group noise from a buch of self-important developers could have made any relevance is seriously delusional.
@Please
Thank you.
Developer = Gonad
So we can now freely talk about development of an app that could still, in the end, be rejected by Apple?