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Apple has pulled a somewhat unexpected move, announcing suddenly that they will be dropping their controversial non-disclosure agreement for iPhone software. The NDA has been one of the biggest hurdles developers face when writing software for the iPhone, and many felt that Apple was artificially stifling people with it. Dropping the NDA will certainly make many developers feel more comfortable.

There are still numerous open complaints about Apple's development environment, not the least of which is Apple openly admitting to removing programs from the iPhone store that compete with existing Apple products.

Is Apple scared of Android? That's certainly something you could take from this move. Android is a much more open platform, which is exactly what Google was going for, and many developers have been spurned by Apple in the past. This seems like an obvious attempt from Apple to nip this problem in the bud, hoping to prevent a swarm of developers from abandoning the iPhone in favor of phones based on Android.