In a Wednesday statement, which is addressed to the developer community, Apple has put an end to the nondisclosure agreements (NDA) that come with the software that has already been released for the iPhone. These agreements are meant to prevent the parties involved to talk about any information covered by the NDA to anyone but Apple. In other words nothing regarding any details of the iPhone development is permitted to be discussed in public. Apple had originally inserted the NDA to protect the company’s intellectual property.

But Apple is known for its secrecy and this frustrates developers as they depend on sharing this information in order figure out how to write their software for new platforms.

According to the company, in a statement released today, it "put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before." The NDA "created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success."

Instead Apple decided developers should receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within the next week, but was quick to note that all unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

As mentioned before, this particular NDA for released software was often criticized as a barrier that prevented fluent communication among developers. While this NDA should promote more discussion among developers, there is no reason to believe that Apple will loosen its general focus on NDA anytime soon.

The competition where touch-screen devices are concerned is getting heftier as we speak, so Apple clearly needed to lift restrictions that would otherwise have sent software developers to rival devices such as Nokia.

The revised NDA allows developers to publicly comment on the reasons their application was accepted or declined, and it allows developers to state that they've submitted a certain application for consideration.

Moreover it seems that Apple is now telling developers that the information included in their application rejection letters is covered under NDA. "If you get a rejection letter from Apple saying your app doesn't qualify, you can't even talk about that for fear of persecution. This whole gag order thing that Apple's throwing at people is a load of crap," Chuck Toporek, Senior Acquisitions Editor, Addison-Wesley, told Ars.

Regarding the App Store, Apple made some changes that occurred during the weekend as well. Applications will now be categorized by their release date by default and reviews can only come from users who have purchased or downloaded a certain program. This potentially stops shady developers from propping up their applications with fake reviews, as well as keep users who haven't tried it from posting negative reviews. Apple exclusively determines which programs get into its store, and some are criticizing the company for not being more tolerant in this process.

In other words, is Apple’s image facing a personality problem?