Apple Relaxes iOS Terms & Conditions on Third-Party Developer Tools

Apple has lifted its ban on intermediary development tools for iOS, paving the way for third-parties to port their software to iOS, instating a condition saying the App Store software must not download any code.

The news may come as music to Adobe’s ears, after being blocked by Apple to leverage its Creative Suite 5 for porting Flash apps to iOS devices.

“The App Store has revolutionized the way mobile applications are developed and distributed,” Apple announced today.

In a typical manner for the Cupertino giant, the document continues with an update on the number of titles available in the app store, complete with statistics on downloads and other aspects, such as developer earnings.

“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,” Apple acknowledges.

“We are continually trying to make the App Store even better,” the Mac maker continues.

“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,” Apple reveals.

The company notes that all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps are now more relaxed.

So long as the resulting apps do not download any code, “this should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need,” Apple notes.

The changes come just weeks after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reportedly reviewed a complaint from Adobe over Apple's banning of Flash from its iOS portables.

Apple previously updated its iOS 4 SDK terms and conditions to ban intermediary tools that would allow the likes of Adobe, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft to port applications developed using their own tools.

Apple had made the change soon after Adobe proudly announced that its Creative Suite 5 would boast the ability to port applications written using tools other than the iPhone SDK to the iPhone.

“In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps,” Apple’s September 9 announcement adds.

“We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.”

Apple likely felt there was still room for clarification regarding its methods of interacting with the developer community, thus concluded:

“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.”