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Inside Apple's iPhone SDK Gag Order

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-first-rule-of-iPhone dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Tom Yager takes a closer look at Apple's iPhone SDK confidentiality agreement, which restricts developers from discussing the SDK or exchanging ideas with others, thereby leaving no room for forums, newsgroups, open source projects, tutorials, magazine articles, users' groups, or books. But because anyone is free to obtain the iPhone SDK by signing up for it, Apple is essentially branding publicly available information as confidential. This 'puzzling contradiction' is the 'antithesis of the developer-friendly Apple Developer Connection' on which the iPhone SDK program is based, Yager contends. 'You'll see arguments from armchair legal analysts that the iPhone developer Agreements won't stand up in court — but those analysts certainly won't stand up in court on your behalf.' Anyone planning to launch an iPhone forum or open source project should have 'a lawyer draft your request for exemption, and make sure that the Apple staffer granting it personally commits to status as authorized to approve exceptions to the iPhone Registered Developer and iPhone SDK Agreements,' Yager warns."

2 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not quite accurate by stewbacca · · Score: 1, Troll

    Sigh....one of these days somebody will actually link to an interesting product. I didn't even look real hard to know I would NEVER buy that thing you posted. People don't want a miniature computer looking device, they want a convergence device that looks decidedly NOT like a computer. "Internet Tablet PC"? Could you come up with a worse name?

  2. Re:no sale here either by Xyde · · Score: 1, Troll
    It's a music player. Maybe Cover Flow gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, and maybe you like to "touch", but there are plenty of other fine music players.

    Please stop dismissing the iPhone/iTouch as just a phone or a music player when you know full well it's a whole new platform, and that even in it's infancy is far more usable and with much more potential (not to mention market penetration) than any other class of device out there. It's not a music player, it's not a phone, it's a handheld OS X computer that happens to play music. Perhaps by Apple naming it an iPod, or a iPhone is the trojan horse that makes people want to buy it, as opposed to the shelves of unsold Nokia 8*0 "Internet Tablet PC" - which I'm assured by half the people in this discussion is better than Apple's offerings in every possible way.

    iTunes has destroyed my music collection, not once but several times. The iTunes user interface also has serious problems, as the many third party attempts at fixing it show.

    Well that's interesting because I've been using the same iTunes library through multiple computers and OS/iTunes upgrades for over 5 years now and i've never had a single problem. Hey look, i can post worthless anecdotes too! Also please, point me to these all these high-profile projects dedicated to fixing the gaping flaws in the iTunes UI....*crickets*