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Apple Drops iPhone Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

New York Times Article.

Sbrocket said:
Apple is going to place property that they don't own rights to under NDA? I think not. What you proposed that they're restricting is legally impossible. You've actually got it completely backwards - developers can discuss what they're developing, but they can't reveal details of AppStore rejections still.

Unreleased software was never under NDA. The problem was the SDK being under NDA, not developer's software. Releasing the source code for iPhone apps prior to this lifting of the NDA would have released details of the iPhone SDK, and therefore wasn't allowed.

Apple can't legally restrict developers from discussing what they were developing at any point whether or not there's an NDA in effect over the SDK. Developers simply couldn't disclose details or source for their applications that would reveal details of the SDK.

In any case, this is all completely off-base - this notice deals with Apple's software (the iPhone OS, the SDK, and such) and being able to discuss released versions of those tools. The sentence that many people are debating over was merely added to make sure that developers with access to beta, pre-release versions of these tools understood that those tools were still under NDA until they were released.
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The quote I gave was right from the Article on MacRumors. Although I believe the New York Times Article from today sums it up much better than I can.

Link and quote from Article.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/a-slice-of-glasnost-at-apple/

"Despite its Soviet style of communication, Apple is certainly signaling that it understands that needs to keep its developers—some of its most fervent advocates—from becoming so angry they will switch their efforts to Google’s Android or other projects. "
 
MacOldTimer! said:
This still leaves Apple to accept or deny apps at their own discretion.

If this is Apples attempt at throwing a bone to the iPhone developers to prevent them from moving to Android I'd call it pathetic.
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I'd call it good business. They kept THEIR SDK under NDA until they had filed any and all patents on the material they deemed neccessary to patent so that some patent troll couldn't come along, download the SDK, find something and file a patent, and then sue. Once they finished, they lift the NDA. I don't see the problem.

MacOldTimer! said:
As a developer (which I'm not) they can spend 100's of hours developing an application that Apple May or May Not Accept.
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That's the price to play the game. It works the same in almost any business model. Best case, your app gets accepted, the public want it and you make oodles of money, as we've already seen with some apps. Worst case, Apple doesn't like your app, or some of the features in it, they deny it, and you're out of luck.

MacOldTimer! said:
Why Risk it when they can develop for Android with a completely open option to share what they are developing, get help from the development community and develop ANY application that they want to.
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Android is not completely open. I've already seen an article where they've said that they will remove software they deem malicious, malware, etc. If that's the case, what's to prevent them from seeing your software as malware? Also, although a lot of companies have SAID they will support Android and release products, so far, we have only one product that isn't even on the market yet. Until there are multiple phones running Android, I wouldn't call it a success.

Since Apple have lifted the NDA on their released software, iPhone developers are now free to seek help from the iPhone development community, so your point is invalid.

Also, iPhone developers are free to develop ANY app that they care to. Apple however do not have to accept it into the official app store. If any developer is scared of being denied, they always can go the jailbroken app route and release ANY app they care to through that community.

MacOldTimer! said:
I'm sorry I don't agree with the room here but I see this as a weak attempt to hopefully get rid of a lot of bad press releases lately.
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That's your choice. No one said you had to agree. I however do not have to agree with you either.
 
firewood said:
The iPhone is not selling well due to just its hardware technology.

.
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I wish I had a product not selling as well as the iPhone! ;)

I bet Microsoft wishes they had a product not selling half as well as the iPhone!

All the other carriers most likely wish they had a product that wouldn't sell as well as the iphone either! :rolleyes:
 
Actually, I think he means the iPhone is indeed selling well but not just because of the hardware.
 
I don't understand the restrictions in the first place. Surely developers can talk about what they are creating. Surely, the can discuss the language they are writing in. So what's secret? The APIs? To "protect Apple"? Why?

How come the Mac has gotten along just fine without needing devs to enter into an NDA when developing? What's going on here?

P.S. I don't know who would vote this as "negative". It is definitely "positive", but clarification is needed.
 
New York Times Article

I don't think the New York Times agrees this is a win.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/a-slice-of-glasnost-at-apple/


A Slice of Glasnost at Apple
By SAUL HANSELL
Apple has made a core strategic tenet that it will keep information about its future plans completely obscured from public view. It was able to rewrite its entire operating system for the Intel platform in secret over several years by dividing the task up into several groups who were not allowed to communicate with each other.

But Apple’s penchant for secrecy sometimes is expressed in ridiculous extremes. For example, it made people who used its software development kit for the iPhone, which is wide release, sign non-disclosure agreements. Among other effects, this appeared to make it impossible to write a book about how to develop applications for the iPhone.

Today Apple relented a bit. It announced that it would no longer enforce its non-disclosure agreement for software it has released:

The NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success.

Software that hasn’t been released is still covered by the agreement.

That certainly sounds like a sensible distinction: Companies have a right to keep things that are secret a secret, but once the cat is out of the bag, it can’t be a secret any more.

There have been an increasing number developers complaining that Apple is making it too hard for developers, such as in this blog post on Ars Technica.

Despite its Soviet style of communication, Apple is certainly signaling that it understands that needs to keep its developers—some of its most fervent advocates—from becoming so angry they will switch their efforts to Google’s Android or other projects.

Earlier this week, Apple tweaked a few policies that had made some developers feel that the marketplace in the iTunes App store was unfair. Now you have to have bought the application to be able to review it. And a developer can’t simply make a minor modification in a program to jump to the top of the list of new applications.

At the same time, Apple still hasn’t answered in any clear way what applications it will reject because they compete with its existing business. And it hasn’t reversed its recent decision to argue that its decision to reject an application is covered by the non-disclosure agreement.

Ultimately, Apple has chosen to make its business a bit more like that of eBay: It now has to manage a diverse crew of independent entrepreneurs who rely on its ecosystem for their livelihood. Like eBay sellers, iPhone developers are going to be very vocal about all of the nuances of Apple’s program. That is very different than simply making a computer that anyone can write programs for without asking permission.

It is not clear how much of Apple’s culture of secrecy and control will really evolve to support this new aspect of its business model. But the pressure is on.
 
Apple's culture of secrecy and control is one of the reasons they are still in business. They watched Osborne destroy itself due to lack of secrecy. And heavy handed control is what kept their products from turning into something indistinguishable from everybody else's product, which leads to no profit margin. The time periods (after the II+) when they were the most open were also around the years when they had their lowest profit margins (if any) in company history.
 
"Constructive feedback" - this made me giggle a little.

I'm sure getting hammered in the press and blogosphere, and many a developer crying afoul to the tune of multiply-repeated curses and foreswearing developing on the iPhone had nothing to do with it. Indeed, it was probably a hand-written letter from Ms. Edna Smith in Anytown, Indiana whose precise cursive and delicately imploring pleas was what changed Apple's opinion.

:rolleyes:
 
About time, that NDA:

* stiffled iPhone development
* did nothing to stop competitors from getting insight into iPhone - they could download the sdk freely and investigate.

Apple was blowing smoke and making excuses.

Anyway, its good that Apple have withdrawn the NDA - now developers can talk and share ideas freely - oh, and books too.

James-RSX said:
That's the price to play the game. It works the same in almost any business model. Best case, your app gets accepted, the public want it and you make oodles of money, as we've already seen with some apps. Worst case, Apple doesn't like your app, or some of the features in it, they deny it, and you're out of luck.
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Not the case in software - rejected iPhone Apps didn't get a chance to see the light of day. If Apple reject your app, you can't go to the next publisher ( or website ) to offer your goods as you can any other smartphone O/S or operating system. So, its not the same.
 
book please

I really hope O'Reilly (anyone really) puts out a programming book ASAP.
 
Hodum said:
I really hope O'Reilly (anyone really) puts out a programming book ASAP.
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You do realize that Apple has a fairly extensive set of tutorials and examples for the developer. Most people will be able to get up and going without the need for an O'Reilly book.
 
Think of all the "How-To" books that are finished but couldn't be published...
 
Good, but a bit late. Apple just realized it couldn't get away with it, but did not do so willingly. I wonder if they'll drop the NDA on rejection notices too.
 
Stella said:
Not the case in software - rejected iPhone Apps didn't get a chance to see the light of day. If Apple reject your app, you can't go to the next publisher ( or website ) to offer your goods as you can any other smartphone O/S or operating system. So, its not the same.
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Not so. Several iPhone developers also distribute versions of their apps for WinMob and PalmOS. And there are other phone platforms besides the iPhone where the phone company is the gatekeeper for any app distribution (NGuage? Brew?).

As for the NDA being useless, you might want to read Apple's legal history, and talk to a good patent attorney before doing your own multi-million-dollar funded tech startup. (I've seen some huge legal bills related to multi-million dollar lawsuits over patents and NDAs.)


.
 
James-RSX said:
That's the price to play the game. It works the same in almost any business model.
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Not really.
For instance, as a service company in the IT industry, we compete with each others based on *proposals*. No sane client would require us to develop a full solution before it would decide to pick it or not. Such a client would never find any contractor.
What you describe might be acceptable for students or hobbyist looking for some quick cash with an investment of a few weeks of their free time. It's not acceptable for business seeking to make money by developing real applications that measures in man-months or even man-years.
That's why the current stance of Apple is artificially limiting the AppStore market to toy applications. The business model can't support real complex applications, because they take too much ressources and money to build and then the risk is too high. Best to focus on yet another torchlight or todo application...

Best case, your app gets accepted, the public want it and you make oodles of money, as we've already seen with some apps.
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Again, that's thinking at best as a freelancer. "Oodles" of money looks just like regular money for a normal sized company.

Also, iPhone developers are free to develop ANY app that they care to.
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Errrr, no, they can't. The SDK doesn't expose everything. There are some parts of the iPhone that are still off-limit, including critical parts such as the music library or the agenda. Likewise, you can't build background applications, you can't build applications that react to external network events unless they're active...
Likewise, the current Apple policy doesn't allow for some kind of applications, such as plugins (Flash), launchers (Java) or GPS (TomTom).
So, the freedom is very relative... It's like saying a prisonner is perfectly free to walk around his 3x3 cell however he fancies to. Sure, he is, but I wouldn't call that "freedom"...
 
firewood said:
Not so. Several iPhone developers also distribute versions of their apps for WinMob and PalmOS.
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There is so much difference between the iPhone and PalmOS that you can consider it a different application... The only common ground would be the idea, some design and maybe the data model. Everything else will be specific work on the iPhone. And if your application really takes advantages of the specifics of the iPhone, there will be very little work factored between these platforms.

As for the NDA being useless, you might want to read Apple's legal history, and talk to a good patent attorney before doing your own multi-million-dollar funded tech startup.
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Actually did that, the attorney answer was that patent are useless in the software world if you have a real innovation to protect, since they force you to publish internal details that are best kept hidden. Especially since software patents do not exist in part of the world. Patents are good to protect an "innovative" process, such as the single-click order (Amazon), the embedding of objects in markup language or multi-touch gestures.
 
digitalbiker said:
[Regarding reader hopes for iPhone starter books] You do realize that Apple has a fairly extensive set of tutorials and examples for the developer. Most people will be able to get up and going without the need for an O'Reilly book.
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I agree with Digital Biker on this subject. The iPhone SDK is easily one of the best and easiest platforms to grasp from the get-go that I've ever come across, and is quite amazing for something so 'new'. It easily trumps Microsoft's XNA, despite the latter's existing community and lack of NDA.

As someone already pointed out, this isn't a 100% concession from Apple, as they still hold the vague rejection policy.

So as ever, the glass is either half full, or it is too big. Woot! regardless ;)
 
vilasgn said:
Can someone who really understood this please explain how this is a big deal?

It's just non "disclosure" agreement. So now I think developers will be able to disclose 2.2 features before 2.2 is officially released to all.
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Not at all. Features of any "unreleased software" remain under NDA. No matter how limited or wide-ranging your interpretation of that "unreleased software" restriction, I think it seems fairly unquestionable that it must include versions of the iPhone OS that haven't been released yet, but have been disclosed as a preview to a select group of developers.

The previous NDA prevented me from discussing some very generic procedures such as explaining the way in which you'd go about making a dialog box with text appear on the screen, or how to react to the fact that a button on the screen had been pressed. Discussing these very basic procedures was banned because Apple said you couldn't disclose anything about Apple's intellectual property, and the SDK function calls you'd have to make use of to perform these tasks are Apple's property.

Under the new agreement, most people seem to predict (but I cannot correlate because I haven't actually seen the new agreement myself) that it will now be possible to discuss those topics, and any other topics that are covered by the currently generally released version of the SDK and its related documentation.
 
Android influence?

Seems like the folks at :apple: see the writing on the wall with Android.

Time to peel back the 'iron curtain' and let the developers compete...
 
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