In a surprising move, Apple Inc. on Thursday unveiled a sweeping set of changes to the way it handles submissions to the App Store. The move is a clear effort to address many of the criticisms that have been levied against the company since it launched the iOS developer program.
Some of these changes appear to reverse a ban Apple began enforcing earlier this year on the use of third-party tools to develop apps for the App Store. Many interpreted the ban as a blatant knock against Adobe’s Flash platform, which Apple had shut out of its iOS platform both as a browser plug-in and as a development environment for building apps. But, with the policy apparently reversed, the only remaining restriction is that apps must be self-contained and not download external code (with the exception of JavaScript code executed using Apple’s own Web-rendering engine, based on the open-source project WebKit).
This new board should help address the accusations often made about the arbitrariness of the app approval process by providing developers with a way to formally ask Apple to review a rejection, based on criteria that may not have been anticipated by the approval guidelines; that’s often been the source of embarrassment for the company.
