Analogism

Apple decided to drop the not so popular iPhone Developer Non-Discloser Agreement. Hopefully this will attract even more developers to the iPhone market. The timing of the announcement is suspiciously convenient as the T-Mobile G1 was announced recently, which features the Google made platform Android, released under the open source license. To me, this feels like a good response to the customers feedback, and also perhaps a necessary strategic step. Not that I think developers would simply stop developing for the iPhone, but it definitely makes the platform more attractive and might result in even more high quality applications.

Apple announces:

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.

Via AppleInsider