New iPhone Dev Agreement Bans the Use of Third-Party Analytics and Services

This is just not fair to developers.<p>Apple is changing the rules half way through the game, to the benefit of nobody.<p>I can't think of a developer OR end user who will be better off as a result of this decision. It's an innovation stifler and I can't understand why they are doing it.<p>This kills location aware 3rd party advertising.<p>As the article also says, looks like this will wipe out SimpleGeo. A sad day.

Good for the first one: I don't want joe's random app sending tracking data on me to ned's random service provider to sell to anyone with 50 cents.<p>The second one doesn't prevent analytics. <i>Device Data</i> is a keyword in the contract…<p><i>"Device Data" means data or information regarding the characteristics or usage of a particular device, including but not limited to UDID, crash logs, OS version, carrier name, hardware model, installed applications and application usage data.</i><p>… so you can't provide a vector for a third party, not bound by your agreement to respect the user's privacy, to loot the device of useful information. Good! You are allowed to collect and use this data, you just have to respect applicable privacy laws and handle notice and consent according to the contract.<p>The key is, you can't bind some random analytics firm. If you include code that dumps that out to a third party firm they are free to do whatever they want.<p>So create a UUID the first time you run, send only that to the analytics firm. Leave the <i>Device Data</i> alone. I suspect this would pass, though it is possible it would fail under the "application usage data" section.<p>One could imagine some extreme interpretation where Apple is trying to prevent any information about which apps are installed being divulged to anyone, but there are so many unaddressed vectors (e.g. loading an ad from an ad server) that it seems unlikely.

I was (if not sympathetic, at least) understanding until this.<p>At what point do all these restrictions start becoming truly anti-competitive? Locking out 3rd party tools and services in favor of in-house products, and this one now including the actual revenue-generating ones.<p>If you start to view the App Store as a collection of <i>markets</i> (e.g. for development tools, application niches, ancillary services like ads, analytics, web services, etc), rather than just a vendor-specific platform, where Apple's own products compete with other vendors', the analogies to Microsoft are becoming clearer:<p>- <i>iPhone OS/App Store =&#62; Windows</i><p>Markets analogous to Internet Explorer vs. Opera/Firefox:<p>- iAd vs AdMob<p>- iBooks vs Kindle (an example where they're actually allowing competition!)<p>- Phone.app vs Google Voice<p>- MobileSafari vs Opera/FF<p>- ObjC runtime vs Flash runtime (this one stretches it a bit, but not that far)<p>Whereas MS's anti-competitive actions involved threatening OEMs, Apple is exercising actual contractual control over what Apps/services can participate in the market, Period. That should certainly qualify as anti-competitive behavior.

I understand the angst that this is causing, considering the news from yesterday, but really, who wants their location data sold to some 3rd party for the purpose of ad targeting? Not me! I think this is a good move for consumers, despite the negative impact it may have on some application developers (ad networks).

That's pretty unambiguous. The subtext there is "Thou shalt not use anything except iAd" (since companies like AdMob are as much analytics as they are ads). Gonna be really interesting to see how this shakes out.

What's funny here is that in many respects, Apple is treating App Developers as if they are full on Apple employees, and yet without any of the actual benefits of employment.

<i>Good</i>. The alternative is a managerie of different ad networks all collecting sensitive data about me. I'm unambiguously in favor of Apple not allowing new location-aware ad tracking networks.

So, does this mean that I can't use something like MixPanel to track activities users make in my apps? I'm not so fluent in legalese... What if I don't track any "user-specific" data... just tracking aggregate events like "how many people clicked this button in this part of the app today"?

This just keeps getting better. Although it's worth noting that none of these policy changes actually make a practical difference; Apple has always reserved the right to reject your app for any or no reason. They're now just making it obvious that they intend to do so for blatantly anticompetitive purposes, as opposed to purposes that could plausibly be defended as benefitting users.

Is Apple just trying to regain control over every possible facet of the app store? Banning all third-party analytics from apps sounds huge, so if I am missing something then please enlighten me. I thought the location-based data verbiage was just one example of something not allowed.<p>This would affect far more than just ad companies, right? I understand that's probably a motivating factor, but wouldn't this incorporate an even larger subset of third party analytics companies (like Flurry / Pinch Media for example)? The purpose of those companies is not the same purpose as the app itself which rules them out. It could depend on the definition of "User Data" and "Device Data" in the agreement, I suppose.<p>Third party gaming tools would seem to be safe at least.

<i>the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited</i><p>I guess this is the Admob killer clause? Goes along nicely with the Adobe Flash killer clause...

"You think you're going to buy AdMob, eh? Well, I've got good news and bad news."

It sounds like someone should create a self-hosted iPhone analytics software package. Perhaps one of the existing companies will release their software as open source.

I think Jobs is one paranoid mofo. If analytics is stored on 3rd party servers then Google might decide to buy that company and their data and gain some insight into the Apple app ecosystem. Launching Apple's own ad network and I hope their own analytics system keeps all the data in their walled gardens. I don't really care as long as I have some kind of app analytics.

Wouldn't this also ban OpenFeint as the leading competitor to apple's new Game Center?

Oh, Apple, your transformation is complete.<p>How long until Apple disbands the senate and declares martial law?

hm, so this might be why apple hasn't approved my flurry analytics app yet...