Building a Web App for iPhone? Does Your App Break the Rules?

Many developers are troubled that Apple hasn’t come out with any definitive statements regarding the use of tools such as Unity, Rhodes and Appcelerator Titanium, which wrap apps which have been made using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, C, C++ and others in an Objective-C wrapper in order to be approved by the App Store.

Unity’s CEO David Helgason seems to be concerned himself, stating that “The honest answer is that there is no clarity, and I’m not aware of anyone who is in possession of clarity. When [the terms] were announced as a plan three months ago, clearly it said that a large section of games on the iPhone wouldn’t be allowed under those terms.”

Apple is trying to control the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) used by developers, with private APIs forbidden. Their reason for doing so is that when they update their own API, third party developers will have to update their private APIs in order to update their applications, while iPhone users wait. Tools such as Novell’s MonoTouch for iPhone .NET development and Unity’s Unity 3D game authoring tool have an uncertain future until Apple makes a clarification.