Apple To Publish Guidelines For App Approval

Apple will publish the guidelines it uses to determine which programs can be sold in its App Store.

The move follows more than two years of complaints from software developers about the company's secret and seemingly capricious rules, which block some programs from the store. Developers have had little guidance from Apple, meaning they often had to complete their programs only to find them blocked by the company. The company has been known to block applications because of sexual content, because they contain political satire, and because they just don't do much. Apple will lift restrictions imposed earlier this year on using third-party development tools that "translate" code written for another platform. That means developers who work in Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash or Oracle Corp.'s Java language can convert their programs into iPhone apps without rewriting them.