Gruber Breaks Down Today’s Big App Store Changes

September 9, 2010

The new developer agreement and App Store Guidelines are now live on Apple's developer portal. In short: third-party developer tools are fine (but using private APIs still isn't), interpreted code is fine (but downloading it at runtime isn't), and analytics are fine (so long as the user consents, and the data is used to either support the app's purpose or to serve ads).

The review guidelines, meanwhile, read like they were written by Steve Jobs himself (at least the intro), and Apple has been very thorough in codifying rules in a way that'll help developers navigate the review process more easily. (For example, this is an actual rule: "In general, the more expensive your app, the more thoroughly we will review it.")