No Apple did Not drop the NDA on Iphone Development

For those who haven't been following the Iphone development saga, Apple's been pulling some really rotten tricks with it. Long story short, developers who work on the Iphone platform have to sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement. Developers whose applications are rejected from the Iphone store can not talk about the rejections under the NDA. The result was a huge backlash among Apple Fans, as chronicled on MacRumors. So, Apple has reportedly dropped the NDA on Iphone development according to many news sites. Only, Apple hasn't. I'm going to post the message from Apple, with a couple lines bolded.

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We 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. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, 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. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Apple uses the term released quite often in the announcement. Released software is software that is sold on the Iphone market. Unreleased software is software that has been rejected from the Iphone store. Which is what the complaints were about to begin with.

So, Apple's done absolutely nothing to address the complaints from Apple Fans, has not listened to constructive feedback, and thinks they can get away with it. Instead, all I can see the new announcement causing is more developers fleeing to Google Android.