Apple moves to ban the use of third party compilers and tools

The war between Steve Jobs and Adobe has heated up. Apple has now put wording into the SDK for iPhone OS 4.0 that prohibits the use of third party compilers or code translators. This means the new iPhone OS packager that Adobe plans to release in Creative Suite 5 will not be allowed in applications submitted to the App Store.

"3.3.1 - 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)."

However, while this is only more evidence that Jobs is on a mission to steal consumer choice and fair usage the new wording has zero effect on Apple products that are jailbroken. What Apple has effectively done is to push more developers to repositories like Cydia and Rock. By using these they will be able to provide apps that are developed using tools they have invested in heavily. But Adobe is not the only ones out in the cold, Novel and their Mono Touch is also being left out now.

We contacted Adobe to ask them how they felt and received this reply

"We are aware of the new SDK language and are looking into it. We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5"

I for one hope that someone can legally do something about this move by Apple that is extremely anti-competitive and monopolistic.