A new statement from Apple would seem to indicate a more conciliatory and open approach to its relationship with developers of software for iOS devices. It’s great news in particular for developers who rely on cross-platform software toolkits, which seemingly ran afoul of Apple’s SDK license earlier this year.

Jim’s got (as usual) a smart take on this. But great news for cross-platform software toolkit users? I wouldn’t go that far. It’s really going to depend on the toolkit, and its usage. I think there’s more than enough ammunition in the App Store guidelines list for Apple to continue to reject (for example) any misbehaved Flash apps. They just won’t say it was for being built with Flash anymore. The same with any other toolkit.

Which is smart. If someone manages to meet all of Apple’s criteria with a Flash-built app despite the runtime, why shouldn’t it be published? But keep in mind: That’s probably not possible, except possibly for full screen games. And even they are going to be walking all over battery life.

Edit: The above looked like I was equating cross-platform software toolkits with Flash. Unintentional. Fixed.

Looked at one way, that’s a 200% estimation overflow. But more realistically, it means it was pretty small and I tackled it in the wrong way. I had to refactor some code early that I left alone for too long. I should’ve written in the right way to begin with, and I should have realized it was wrong sooner, and I should have stopped trying to make it work.

More pragmatically, maybe I should have known better. But, of course, I didn’t. And that’s okay! I know better now.

What’s my point in posting this?

Mostly, it’s this: iPhone development isn’t nearly as hard as I’ve made it out to be. Useful applications can actually be quite small and still be useful. Simple things are simple. When they’re not simple, it’s time to fix something.

I’ll post a link here when I finish the project. It’ll be a bit before I can devote another day to it. But I’m excited by its usefulness, its simplicity, and the idea of having an app in the App Store of my own.