Apple Opens Door For Adobe Will Allow Third Party App Developers

Apple has begun to backslide on their restrictions for App development and inclusion into the App Store. The company officially announced today that it is backing off previous statements and restirctions of not allowing third party development tools.

The changes are big news for devs that don't want to be limited to a set standard of tools. The announcement didn't specifically mention Adobe or the new CS5 Adobe Packager but many view this as a direct inclusion of the new tools. By lifting the restrictions Apple has essential said you can use Flash to develop your apps, and then compile them to work on the iPhone and iPad utilizing the Adobe Packager tool-set.

We should make one thing clear, the inclusion of the new third party dev tools does not mean that Flash is coming to iOS as a plugin: You still won’t be able to view Flash content on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. This change in Apple’s policy just means developers can use third-party tools such as Flash to create apps sold through the App Store.

The second part of Apple’s announcement may be even less expected. Apple plans to provide a more open set of guidelines for developers to follow to get their apps included into the app store.

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

In the past Apple has singularly denied or removed Apps for no apparent reason and in some cases with little to no cause. By publishing the guidelines developers will know what they can and can’t get add to their apps versus, say, an Android application. Third-party programmers will have a clearer sense of whether or not to invest time and money in developing an app, whereas before they were subject to rejection without knowing what they weren’t allowed to do.

Apple’s seven-page list of guidelines divides reasons for app rejections into 11 categories with several different sub-categories. Reasons for rejection are still the basics and objectionable material such as nudity, vulgarity, discrimination ect. There are also several new technical offenses: Apps that crash will be rejected, any thing that majorly changes the UI or potentially harms the device for example. More details can be seen via PDF thanks to Wired.com.

This new stance and approach Apple is taking is not only great news for developers but for consumers alike. Having a clearer understanding of which Apps may be accepted means more developers can and will work on cross platform apps, which in turn means more apps for everyone.

Read More: Statement by Apple on App Store Review Guidelines