They're undoubtedly changing the language in the developer TOS, that is of course undisputable. =)

However, when introducing the iPhone SDK, they clearly said (about XCode) "This is where you'll be developing all your apps." I'm saying you could consider this a change in legal language to more clearly adhere to the spirit of the premises of that SDK.

The fact that people have been able to use products in a grey area to sidestep this, doesn't mean that the rules have been changed, just that they haven't been enforced before. Apple never said: You can develop in any IDE you want for the iPhone, and then changed their mind again. None of these tools that are affected have been approved as developer tools by Apple before, and people using them know or should have known that.

What has happened is that Apple is starting to clearly stress that Xcode is the only approved developer tool. The major change is that unapproved tools now clearly are marked as unapproved, which in itself isn't a change from before. They've always been unapproved.

Now, as far as enforcement, that might be just the same as before, since we haven't seen any rejections based on the new policy. Most people, including me, seems to be guessing on that this will mean some kind of enforcement as well, but we're just going to have to see what's going on there. Either way, if you've been using Apple approved development tools before this change, nothing has changed, and therefore there is nothing more to worry about after than before this change in stance.

"Either way, if you've been using Apple approved development tools before this change, nothing has changed, and therefore there is nothing more to worry about after than before this change in stance."

That's one way to look at it. Of course, then the question becomes one of a permissive development platform. You are only allowed to use what they say you can, and if they don't say you can use it, you shouldn't. And even then, they've proven in the past that even this isn't reliable. You can follow their rules, and it still not matter.

This isn't the first time they've done this. Just because they say you can do something now doesn't mean they won't pull the plug later. This is a volatile situation to be in. Now, I won't argue whether they can do it legally. Nor will I suggest that other companies can't do it. But Apple seems to be rather blatant about it.

Absolutely, I do agree this question is about a permissive development platform. And that's the whole point, I think.

As for the second points, I don't recognize what you're describing. What I can say is that I don't consider letting an app through into the App store itself is a seal of approval for whatever technique or tool that app is using, but rather a sign that they're not checking for whatever it is they're doing. If other apps get rejected for stuff others have been accepted for, or even earlier versions have been accepted for, that's a refinement of the approval process to me.

And yes, to some that might feel like a volatile situation. I'm suggesting that non-controversial app development (as in using approved tools, not writing apps that are in a grey zone when it comes to what they approve, and not using private APIs) is cutting down on that volatility in a big way, wouldn't you agree?

I concede that I might have missed your point totally, but since you're not giving examples I'm looking forward to a more verbose rebuttal in that case. =)