Apple's vision of the development ecosystem for its iOS-based products, including the iPhone and the iPad, has always been clear and uncompromising: Apps must written in one of Apple's approved languages, built with Apple's approved development tools, and approved by Apple's mysterious team of App Store guardians.
It was meant to give Apple maximum control over the experience on the company's devices. If developers didn't like it -- and many didn't -- then they would just have to forgo the opportunity to strike it rich on the industry's hottest platform. But today, the company eased some existing restrictions and offered a look into its app approval process, in what almost looks like a developer charm offensive.
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iPhone OS (as it was then called) had never allowed runtimes or virtual machines, which had excluded Flash and Java programs. This was the cause of much grumbling, but most accepted that Apple's stated motives -- keeping crash-prone layers of execution that it couldn't debug or control off of its well-tuned gadgets -- were sincere. But when Apple released the iPad in April, it also forbade the use of tools that translated Flash, Java, or C# code into one of Apple's approved languages, which struck many as simply a gratuitous show of control freak tendencies.
Even when the apps were built with approved tools, they were often rejected from the App Store in a process that was notoriously opaque. And the apps that made it were forbidden from using ad platforms that compete with Apple's own iAd. This high-handed attitude essentially said that developers needed iOS more than iOS needed them.
But all that's changed today, more or less. The sections of Apple's developer agreement that mandated most of those restrictions have been tweaked to allow you to build iOS apps with whatever tools you like, so long as they compile to compatible binaries and don't download code while they're executing. You can use any data-collecting ad service within your app, so long as it doesn't violate Apple's privacy rules. The guidelines for getting into the App Store may still be tough to the point of bluntness, but at least you now have a better idea of what they are.
A wave of gratitude predictably followed from Novell's MonoTouch team (who build tools to write C# apps for iOS), Adobe, and Google's Mobile Ad unit. At first glance, this looks like poor serfs cheering after receiving a bit of the king's favor. But tech companies don't do things just to be generous, and after months of bad developer relations, Apple seems to have decided that it's in its best interests to make nice.
Android may still be way behind iOS on phones, but it's closing the gap. The Android (and webOS) tablet market is still in its infancy, but in a few years the iPad will have some competition. And with high-profile developers jumping ship, Apple may have concluded it's better to relent a little now, from a place of strength, than to make a desperate plea to a completely alienated developer community down the line. One needn't get all shouty and sweaty to recognize that developers are an important constituency for even the most dominant platform.
This article, "Apple, iOS need developers' love after all ," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.