Apple Opens App Store To “Other” Development Platforms, Publishes Review Guidelines

Thursday, 09 September 2010 15:08

Apple Opens App Store To “Other” Development Platforms, Publishes Review Guidelines

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The black box that is the Apple review process is creaking open. In a very brief release, Apple has essentially relaxed the requirement that developers use Apple’s own development tools “as long as the resulting apps do not download any code.” They’ve also published some review guidelines, allowing programmers to understand just what will go

on behind the curtains in Cupertino.

What does this mean? Well, in the updated SDK license, circa April of this year, a number of paragraphs essentially banned outside development tools including systems that ported Flash, Silverlight, Java, and other platforms to the iPhone. Now, presumably, any app that runs on the iPhone, regardless of source, will be considered. The language is so mushy that it’s still unclear what this actually means.