The App Store has revolutionized the way mobile applications are developed and distributed. With over 250,000 apps and 6.5 billion downloads, the App Store has become the world’s largest mobile application platform and App Store developers have earned over one billion dollars from the sales of their apps.
We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.
In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.
In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.
The App Store is perhaps the most important milestone in the history of mobile software. Working together with our developers, we will continue to surprise and delight our users with innovative mobile apps.
Source: Apple Inc.
MacDailyNews Note (added 11:30am EDT): This does not mean Apple iPhone, iPod, and iPad users will be able to use Adobe Flash while browsing the Web. This is about using third-party tools to develope iOS apps.
Read more about the changes via Daring Fireball here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, how’s it feel to be jerked around, Adobe? You guys like it? Jump little doggy! Now roll over and play dead.
Looks like the FTC, the EC and whatever other acronyms are going to have to find other things on which to waste the taxpayers’ money. We’re sure they’ll all have no problem doing so.
Obviously, developers having App Store Review Guidelines is a Very Good Thing™.
Hopefully, these moves will result in innovative apps, not just a proliferation of lowest common denominator app excretion. We don’t need a bunch of crappy ports that fail to take advantage of iOS’ unique capabilities.
