The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted some troubling highlights from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.
More than 100,000 app developers have agreed to this agreement but are prohibited from making any "public statements regarding this Agreement, its terms and conditions, or the relationship of the parties without Apple's express prior written approval." To obtain a copy the EFF used the Freedom of Information to ask NASA for the copy they signed when releasing their iPhone application.
Troubling Highlights: - Ban on Public Statements- - App Store Only - Ban on Reverse Engineering - No Tinkering with Any Apple Products: - Kill Your App Any Time - We Never Owe You More than Fifty Bucks
"Overall, the Agreement is a very one-sided contract, favoring Apple at every turn. That's not unusual where end-user license agreements are concerned (and not all the terms may ultimately be enforceable), but it's a bit of a surprise as applied to the more than 100,000 developers for the iPhone, including many large public companies. How can Apple get away with it? Because it is the sole gateway to the more than 40 million iPhones that have been sold."
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Comments (2)
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DNA - March 10, 2010 at 12:29am
Let's hope open phones like the Android take off then.
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AppIe - March 9, 2010 at 4:53pm
"sole gateway". I hope consumers will refuse to purchase closed devices such as iPhone and kindle. iPad will no doubt be jailbroken, but it shouldn't have to be.. Apple has turned it's back on those adults who would have liked an OSX tablet. There's more money in selling media to kids through iTunes.