Disgruntled developers around the world were (at least partly) appeased today as Apple lifted the NDA on the iPhone API.

After opening the iPhone up to third-party developers, Apple has raised the ire of many a bedroom programmer by exercising what some might deem a draconian level of control over their App Store. Aside from complaints about (arguably unfairly) rejected applications, chief amongst developers' grievances is the highly restrictive NDA that effectively prevented anyone discussing the development process of their apps.

Any programmer who isn't gifted with a god-like understanding of all things technical will inevitably reach for community code samples and tutorials every now and then, so it is easy to see why this would pose a problem. Not only was developer collaboration curtailed (sacrilege in a community that abhors reinventing the wheel), but developers with rejected apps were not permitted to discuss the reasons they were given for the rejection, leaving others reluctant to even begin development for fear of their work being wasted. So frustrated were those using the API, that the site F*cking NDA was established to aggregate complaints from Twitter, along with numerous online petitions and blog entries.

In response to this, Apple placed a statement on the developer program site, announcing the removal of the gag:

Being in the midst of dabbling with the iPhone API, I was somewhat relieved to see this. Let the idea-sharing commence!