Today with the official release of iOS 4.1 Apple made a some extra major announcements for developers. Those being a change in policy on developer tools, and a statement demanding higher quality apps – directly noting that “Fart Apps” would no longer be allowed.
First off, it looks like the announcement that Apple is lessening restrictions placed on developer tools will pave the way for third parties like Adobe with Flash CS5 to continue working on their development tools. From what I understand none of these apps were ever blocked simply because one of these tools were used, but for developers using these tools that is one less thing to worry about.
Apple has also added new rhetoric to the developer agreement regarding app quality (perhaps in anticipation of a flood of crappy Flash made apps coming in). In the new policy apple has gone into greater detail specifically as to what types of apps will be rejected outright (many had been rejected for sometime – often leaving developers wondering why) – even mentioning Fart Apps directly. If you’re a member of the developer program you can read the new policy in detail here. In the new policy Apple has specifically used words such as “fart apps” and “amateur hour”.
What does this really mean?
In the end this will be a boon to anyone who was using or wanted to use development tools such as Flash CS5 to create apps. For the consumer it will probably mean many great looking, but simple apps hitting the app store (unless Apple really gets restrictive). Ultimately, if you were using a third-party tool and worried about your app being banned because of it (I know some Unity developers who were) this should alleviate most of your worries. Marketers who had been flooding the app store en masse with silly, simple novelty apps could have something to worry about. We will see if things really tighten up or if it is just talk.
Thanks for reading, please share this using the buttons below!
©2010 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.
Share and Enjoy:
