One of the major changes in the upcoming iPhone OS 4 is not in the software, but in its license. And that one was aimed at developers.

According to ars technica, section 3.3.1 of Apple’s (NDA-protected) developer license agreement received a major update. It now states that developers can no longer release applications if these were not coded in Objective C, C or C++. JavaScript is also fine – but has to be executed by the iPhone’s pre-installed webkit engine. This would be a major blocker for Adobe’s upcoming release of Flash CS5, which is expected to publish flash applications straight to the iPhone. Unless Adobe struck a deal with Apple before announcing this hugely anticipated feature months ago, they blindly walked into a disaster.

More importantly though, this marks an end for projects built with popular toolkits like Unity3D or Monotouch, as both use C# for coding. But why would Apple kill some very popular toolkits their developers love and use to build great applications for the iPhone platform? Just to get at Adobe? They would not. Flash is not as important as some may think, and it is not an imminent threat to Apple. Android on the other hand is.

Google’s platform becomes more attractive to customers, the Android market is growing rapidly and naturally iPhone developers will notice that, and follow. Cross-platform development toolkits enable them to do most of their work without platform-specific code. Deployment to Android – once it is supported – requires little extra effort. And when popular iPhone applications hit the Android market, they boost its popularity even more. Of course Apple would rather not see customers flirt with the standards-adopting, free software promoting hippie around the corner. Especially because that one is generally less expensive, responds to community requests and, in my humble opinion, is superior by design.

Anyway, these toolkits are not necessarily doomed. Apple may just be getting the word out they do not want developers, or any of these toolkits, to support Android. Read: »You’re my bitch, don’t fuck around«. At the same time Apple encourages developers to focus their porting ambitions on  – the iPad.

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Update:

Apparently Adobe did not strike a deal with Apple. Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch noted:

»We intend to still deliver this capability [publishing to iPhone] in CS5 and it is up to Apple whether they choose to allow or disallow applications as their rules shift over time.«

Still, they must have seen it coming. My guess is Adobe went out of options when Apple shut the door on flash player for iPhone. So this is it: Let’s throw some thousand applications at iTunes, and see what happens.

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2nd update:

It seems Steve Jobs replied to a mail and pointed to this blog post. According to that article, Apple pulled the plug on intermediary development tools to maintain platform control. That sounds about right. But Apple has been over-protecting the iPhone from its launch, why would they have allowed those toolkits in the first place?