I wanted to provide everyone an update on the issues related to the iPhone 4.0 Terms of Service. While we have yet to receive any formal word from Apple as it relates to Titanium, this morning, Steve Jobs posted some thoughts on why Apple is banning Flash on the iPhone/iPad. The focus of the article is on making two important arguments: how to ensure a high-quality iPhone experience and the importance of using open technologies. Based on his piece, we have a few followup points as this news relates to Appcelerator Titanium.

- If there was any doubt, Apple’s specific target is Adobe Flash.

- At the crux of every one of Jobs’ points is one overriding theme: ensuring application quality. More specifically, Apple wants to make sure that applications written for the iPhone/iPad are developed using all the great features in the iPhone SDK and that they should not be developed using a lowest common denominator approach. We couldn’t agree more. Split views, popovers, cover flow views, native table views, native maps, native tab bars… There are over 2,000 methods and properties available to Titanium developers to customize their applications with almost every native Apple UI or feature imaginable. And if something isn’t in there that you need, it’s easy to extend the platform by building a native Titanium module. This extensible, native architecture is probably the reason you chose Titanium in the first place. One of the most common statements we hear about Titanium: “You built *that app* in Javascript. Wow!”.

- As it relates to adoption of new iPhone capabilities, we rev our product very quickly. In fact, next week, we’ll introduce support for iPhone 4.0 application development with Titanium 1.3.0. And we’ll continue to add new APIs as Apple finalizes the 4.0 OS. This has always been the case with our stance on updates to the underlying operating systems that we support. In all cases, we are working with Apple APIs under NDA before they’re finally available to the public and we’ll continue to do that as normal.

- Apple has a clear preference for open technologies, specifically HTML5, CSS, and Javascript. Here too, we are in alignment. Titanium developers code in Javascript as executed by the Webkit engine (eg: the kind that Apple prefers in its ToS), and web content can easily be displayed using HTML5 and CSS through a web view. We’re big supporters in these technologies and ourselves have contributed to WebKit (Martin Robinson, one of our desktop engineers, is a WebKit committer).

- We’ve had over 50 applications approved for the App Store over the past 3 weeks under the new terms (which every developer now needs to agree to). Not a single one has been rejected for being built on Titanium. We even updated our own test app, Snapost, after accepting the new terms.

In summary, Apple is targeting Flash (mission accomplished) and Apple wants to push their platform forward by having only high-quality, native applications in the App Store.

We couldn’t agree more. Native application development with open technologies is in our DNA and our continued vision for Appcelerator.

- Jeff

It’s our belief that we are fully in compliance with iPhone OS 4.0 ToS as we interpret them.

We agree with others that the intent behind the language is probably aimed at Adobe and preventing Flash from landing on an iPhone/iPad and bypassing or otherwise circumventing the iPhone SDK.

As a pre-requisite to using Titanium, developers must install the Apple iPhone SDK and Apple XCode development toolchain. They must install Titanium on a Macintosh and they must have a valid Apple Developer membership before they are even able to create a Titanium-based iPhone/iPad application.

Titanium produces a valid XCode project at application creation, generates Objective-C (and sometimes C/C++) and executes the xcodebuild to compile your XCode project into a native application using Apple’s published APIs. We launch the Apple’s iPhone simulator to test your application, create the correct Apple binary for integration to iTunes when testing your signed application on device and use all the certified Apple tools for signing to create the final distribution. The developer must obtain their own Apple signing certificate for creating applications with Titanium and Xcode and the developer uses their own Apple iTunes Connect membership and login to upload the package to Apple for submission.

We believe Titanium adds value to the Apple Development ecosystem and enhances the Apple platform for many thousands of developers around the world. As we always have, we will continue to work with Apple to ensure we stay in compliance with their terms of service.