Apple iPhone 4 SDK Blocks Flash, Java, Mono Apps – Good News For Android

The developer license for iPhone 4 SDK now includes prohibitions on developing iPhone apps in other languages or in other development environments that are then translated or cross-compiled into native iPhone apps.

Clause reads “Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).”

This change will stop developers from coding with Flash, Java or C#/.NET and then just cross-compiling them into iPhone apps using a “translation or compatibility layer.”

Restrictive Apple policies are likely to lead to further increase in developer interest in the open & free Android platform from Google. Android is anyway seeing lots of interest & action from mobile application developers and has also become popular among end users in a short time.

So if the actual iPhone device sees a drop in popularity amongst end users, it is likely that developers will be quick to drop iPhone development and choose to develop for other platforms that have easier & more open policies.