Today, in a rather surprising press release, Apple announced that it would be “relaxing some restrictions put in place earlier this year” for iOS developers. The company writes:

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 […] In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need. In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

There you have it. What do you think? Is this a case of Apple taking developer feedback seriously, or are they feeling pressure from a certain, unnamed competitor?

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