Much to the relief of frustrated iPhone software developers, Apple has announced today that they’re lifting the non-disclosure agreement on already-released software for the iPhone; note that yet-to-be released apps still fall under the incidence of the NDA “until they are released”. Although Apple still has to address the issue of their arbitrary rejections of certain software, the move will serve to alleviate at least some of the developers’ frustration, of which the NDA was a major source.

The reason why developers don’t like not being able to talk about the software they’re developing is because the way they develop software is based on learning from others. If they weren’t able to study the way other programmers make their software, learn from their mistakes, and learn from their designs, you’d see the same basic programming mistakes being made over and over. Not to mention you can’t really write a book about developing software for the iPhone when bound by something like an NDA.

Apple has finally admitted this, and the notice on their developer site reads “The NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone's success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so.”

This is a first good step, but if Apple is going to ensure good relationships with developers, which ultimately translates to the success of the iPhone itself (no devs, no apps, no customers), they’re going to have to also clearly define the rules for accepting applications before they’re already coded, lest they waste developers’ time and money, prompting them to find a less risky environment to code in.