Apple's new Developer Agreement is Anti-Competitive

Apples latest change to their iPhone Developer Agreement is anti-competitive, plain and simple.

Apple wants to take steps to ensure that the level of quality among the apps offered remains high. That makes sense. But to argue that banning the use of cross-compilers or other 3rd party developer tools is necessary to make this happen makes no sense at all.

OK, OK, I get it. That's not really it. We admit it, yes, it's really flash apps we don't want. We said no flash, and we meant it. By any means necessary. It appears that there is no length to which Steve Jobs will not go to kill flash. Flash is not perfect, and there's no doubt that some hideous things have been done with it. Yes, it can be slow on a Mac, and can grind Safari to a halt. Fine, send a message to Adobe, we will not pre-install flash support on the iPhone/iPad, etc. and here is why. Lay out the ground rules, that seems fair. But to actively take steps to make it impossible for end users to install it on their own, or worse to write it into the terms-of-service and developer agreements? Really?

Never mind, I see, it's not really flash per se, but rather a question of control. A world in which developers, God forbid, write to a single framework and cross-compile to the constantly growing list of mobile devices and application environments, is not in Apple's interest. We want developers to take advantage of our differentiating features, UI, etc. No, not want, demand. We demand that developers... Really?

Even if it is a matter of control, Apple should lay out the ground rules. Here is what we require in an application. Period. How you get there? That's up to you. This is the environment that lends itself to a level playing field and to innovation. That's really how we all win, isn't it?