Apple today announced that it is making several changes to its App Store developer policies and procedures, with one of the most significant changes being an easing of its earlier move to ban third-party compilers such as Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone compiler it had built into Flash Professional CS5. Under the new policies, such third-party tools will be permitted as long as the apps generated by them do not download any code.

This is a good move that potentially opens app store development to a much larger community and should help get regulators off of Apple’s back.  I’m excited to see some of the potential tools that could arise, but I am still skeptical as to how Apple will handle this loss in control of the app development process.

Notes

• Apple’s Press Release

When an AT&T representative suggested to one of Jobs’ deputies that the Apple CEO wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s board of directors, he was told, “We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”

…OSU is really interested in how their students will go about using them. The results should be intriguing, not only for the lucky college kids who get to use iPads all semester but also for Apple and for other schools that are formulating plans over how to share and use technology. It certainly seems like having an iPad at college would be helpful in the traditional ways (you could read textbooks or take notes on it), but it’s cool that OSU is thinking about new ways to use it as well, such as apps for tests or connections across local Wi-Fi for networked learning.

The program will start with a mere 125 students among a 20,000-plus student body. The iPad is thought of by many as a potential game-changer for education. So it will be interesting to see what the OSU experiment finds.

On a side note, my unconfirmed, completely fictitious sources say that following Microsoft’s time, Adobe will be allotted 30 seconds during which CEO Shantanu Narayen, already fuming from the Microsoft announcement, will receive a swift kick in the crotch by Jobs.

Update:  Microsoft has apparently shot this rumor down via its Twitter feed:

Steve Ballmer not speaking at Apple Dev Conf. Nor appearing on Dancing with the Stars. Nor riding in the Belmont. Just FYI.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.  – Steve Jobs

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber points out how the detail of the letter gives Adobe “little wiggle room” to respond.  Michael Gartenburg (via Daring Fireball) makes the equally good point that Adobe’s only real play here is to respond with a version of Flash that runs favorably in a mobile touch environment.

A lot of talk from the blogs is about how this hinders developer’s choice when developing for the iPhone OS.  This type of commentary drives me crazy.  Developers can choose whether or not to developer for a given platform.  If they don’t like the ground-rules, they can go play somewhere else.  Logic dictates that if Apple drives away developers, fewer apps will be published, which makes the platform less attractive for consumers.  The power of choice is still there.

The “problem” for developers is that the iPhone OS and it’s associated devices are the most sexy from a consumer perspective.  So as a developer, here is your choice:  do you stand on your principles (or lack of ability to evolve as a developer) and miss the market, or do you challenge yourself to learn something new?  In the end, if lack of Flash is why you choose not to create an iPhone OS app or iPhone/iPod/iPad optimized experience in the browser, you probably weren’t committed enough the platform to make a great app in the first place.

To be fair, I don’t know the complete business model for digital music well enough to say whether music publishers are or are not getting screwed.  I do know if these folks are going to get paid more, it’s coming out of our pockets, and as the article points out, the outcry is just now starting to settle from Apple’s move a few months ago to implement the first iTunes Music Store price increase.

The kicker to me is that they want to come after other music “sources” in iTunes as well.  These include music in movies and TV shows, streaming radio, and even the 30-second previews for songs in the the store.  This just seems a bit greedy to me.

“In the U.S. while we do get paid a mechanical (licensing fee) from ITunes [sic], we are not getting any performance income from Apple yet,” David Renzer, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, said in interview late last month with entertainment-industry publication, Encore. “(On iTunes) you can stream radio, and you can preview (tracks), things that we should be getting paid performance income for.

“Also, if you download a film or TV show,” Renzer continued, “there’s no performance (payment) and typically there’s no mechanical (payment) either.”  (from cnet)

It might be true that they don’t get paid for these things, but I really don’t think they should come digging around the digital consumer for money.  Talk to the studios about the movie and TV show issue.  Talk to the radio stations about streaming radio.  As for the 30-second previews, just give it up.  We are already paying up to $1.29 per track.  Keep pushing this agenda and a lot of people will fall back on much cheaper ways to acquire music, TV shows, and movies, which result in zero royalties.

Oh, and they are so upset that they are going to ask congress to intercede.  Good thing congress doesn’t have anything on its plate right now.

Why: Consumers who use Android, the Google-developed operating system for wireless devices, can’t use Skype, a leading Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. A pioneer in free Internet calling, Skype allows you to talk as long as you want without draining cellphone minutes.

Android users get Skype Lite, a watered-down version of the original that routes calls over traditional phone networks — not the Internet. As a result, long-distance calls are still cheap or free, but cellphone minutes are gobbled up every time a Skype Lite call is made…

…Google’s explanation would seem to suggest that T-Mobile requested the block on Skype, but the carrier says that’s not the case. “T-Mobile has not asked Google to block that service,” says spokesman Joe Farren, referring to original Skype [sic]. – USA Today

In both of these cases, it is clear that neither the carriers nor OS providers want to take the blame.  Maybe the FCC can break this problem open and make progress, but as stated before, “consider me skeptical.”

UPDATE: Apple says it acted alone in rejecting the app.  Something still smells fishy here, but if this is the case, bad Apple!

Steve Jobs hates the App Store for the same reasons I do: development for the iPhone platform is a distraction. It’s taking our eyes off the ball, and ignoring the bigger shift that’s happening beneath our feet. Developing iPhone apps now means postponing a better and more capable web until later, because so much energy is fixated on the cool whiz-bang effects in the iPhone platform that just haven’t been implemented in browsers… yet. We’ll look at this period as a great Dark Age that preceded the real next leap in computing — the age when we moved away from the stale metaphor of applications and moved to a world of ad-hoc connected identity agents living and feeding on a mesh of interwoven open data.

In letters sent late Friday to the three companies, the FCC asked why Apple rejected the Google Voice application for the iPhone and removed related “third-party applications” from its store.

The letter also seeks information on how AT&T was consulted in the decision, if at all.

According to the article, this is part of a broader investigation of the telecom industry that is looking at AT&T and Verizon specifically for potential anti-competitive behavior.

Hopefully some real answers and positive change will come out of this, but consider me skeptical.