Apple NDA kills Jesus Phone gospels

Black market inflation

By Phil Manchester • Get more from this author

Posted in Mobile, 26th September 2008 16:46 GMT

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Apple's clampdown over access to information on the iPhone's Software Development Kit (SDK) has plumbed new depths, forcing a book publisher to withdraw a programmers guide scheduled for December 2008.

Pragmatic Bookshelf announced it is pulling Phone SDK Development from its production schedule because Apple's draconian non-disclosure agreement (NDA) effectively prevents them from publishing the book.

The book - which is still listed on the O'Reilly publishing empire's site - would have revealed details of the tools and interfaces "Apple uses for its own applications" according to the blurb.

Pragmatic is not alone in being frustrated by Apple's refusal to allow details of the iPhone SDK into the public domain. The publishers of the The iPhone Developer's Cookbook are also waiting for the NDA to be lifted before they can go ahead with publication. An extensive trawl of the web failed to come up with any useful guides to building iPhone applications with the official SDK.

All is not entirely lost for aspiring iPhone developers, however. Open source advocate Jonathan Zdziarski, who under his alter ego Nervegas is attributed with cracking the iPhone, is due to release an updated version of his book iPhone Open Application Development next month.

Zdziarski said the first edition of the book had pretty much sold out by August although copies are still being advertised online and a PDF version is available from O'Reilly. Used copies for sale in the US are being listed at grossly inflated prices - as much as $300. ®

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