OnRails.org: iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]

iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]

Daniel Wanja — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

UPDATE: today (10/01/2008) Apple lifted the iPhone NDA. New agreement will come out in a week (or so).

Until now I wasn’t concerned about the iPhone NDA as the iPhone is really cool, there are nice apps appearing on the App Store and face it, this platform is there to stay, the iPhone is just impressively useful and versatile. But recent news on applications being rejected by Apple for undefined reasons and the fact that the pragmatic programmers book on iPhone was pulled due to the NDA, ticked me off. That’s what the “Prag’s” released in their news: “It now appears that Apple does not intend to lift the NDA any time soon. Regrettably, this means we are pulling our iPhone book out of production.”

Damn that! That was THE book I was waiting for. I am a developer, did Objective-C development on NeXTSTEP 15 years ago and follow closely what’s going on with the iPhone. I was one of the first admitted to the iPhone developer program and I am certainly bound by NDA beyond my comprehension, but I was also really hoping that the platform would open up. Early on it made sense as Apple wants to have the “Wow” factor when they first announce their product, and that’s worth millions to them. But now that the phone is out for quite a while, that all Apple competitors have access to all the beta SDKs, let me ask you this:

WHY?

Why does Apple keeps this NDA…I just doesn’t make sense. Let the development community go crazy, share the knowledge, create something unique beyond what you have. Apple, you are making your development community ANGRY.

I tried to find a good reasons why there is still this NDA in place, but there is just no reason. What did I miss? What has Apple to gain? What can we do?

Please leave your thought as comment here after.

Daniel.

"iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]" by Daniel Wanja.

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:55:41 +0000

Cool the NDA was just lifted. Thanks for listening Apple. That’s the message from Apple:

“To Our Developers We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.”

This said an NDA isn’t necessarily the right mechanisms for protecting intellectual property.

"iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]" by Daniel Wanja

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:28:05 +0000

Hey John, for me it’s not badmouthing other companies it’s rather that Apple had always nice development tools which it was giving away for free as it realized that it needs good developers for their platform. The APIs are cool and powerful. But now they start pushing the developers uncomfortably and alienating their base and unfortunately the iPhone is such a compelling platform that many developers will take the risk to develop and more importantly they will take the crap of Apple controlling the AppStore for competitive reasons, which is ultimately wrong. The NDA is also not necessary anymore but gives them control to tied down developers. They need to revert that “bad feeling” which is building up about them, although they are in a strong position right now and don’t really care I believe. Someone at Apple show me wrong.

"iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]" by John

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:14:58 +0000

For me, the saving grace is having to watch all of the mac fanboys who for years have badmouthed microsoft with every waking breath, now forced into defending the new evil Apple$oft behemoth. I’d like to see the ‘I’m a Mac’ guy defend this crap.

"iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]" by Giles

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:27:30 +0000

I’ve been following Aaron Hillegass’s great Cocoa developer book and I would love something similar for the iPhone.

In fact, I’m surprised anyone is allowed to do an iPhone developer course (Aaron’s Big Nerd Ranch runs one). But I guess it pays to have a close working relationship with Apple.

This is the first platform (Mac/iPhone) I have felt inspired to develop for since the Amiga. I downloaded all the tools and tried to develop for Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian but found their documentation and toolsets poor (with the exception of Windows mobile). I love XCode and experimenting with the Mac SDK. I just would like a book on the iPhone SDK to read when I’m away from my Macbook pro and to follow.

Lose the NDA!!!!!

"iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]" by Dillon

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:17:04 +0000

I’m a new developer to Apple, and it’s easily been the worst and most difficult development experience of my life.

Locking down developers from being able to communicate and grow from and with each other is incredibly stupid – and the platform will suffer from it more (and possibly irreparably so) with each day it continues.

"iPhone NDA - Call for arms [Update: NDA lifted :-)]" by some dude

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:15:36 +0000

I wonder what the advantage is for Apple to still keep the NDA. They should treat their developers as good as Microsoft is treating theirs.