Apple's always been known for its amusingly-conservative disclaimers (you can't use iTunes to "design a nuclear weapon," for example) and it looks like the products-liability team at the Fruit has had their way with the iPhone SDK agreement as well, inserting a provision specifically prohibiting developers from creating apps "marketed for real time route guidance; automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other mechanical devices; dispatch or fleet management; or emergency or life-saving purposes." Yep, that's right -- no real-time route guidance (or, uh, fleet management) allowed. That'd be a huge bummer -- except, of course, that TomTom has already come out and said that its app is
ready to go on the iPhone. Assuming TomTom used the SDK and not the jailbreak toolchain, we'd bet that Apple is just covering its ass here and that it's worked out an agreement with TomTom to pass along any liability -- you can bet Steve doesn't want to get sued when iPhone users start careening into
sandpiles and into
oncoming trains. We'll see for sure when the
App Store finally launches, though -- until then, it's all just cheap speculation.
Update: Astute commenter Austin points out that these terms are copied almost word-for-word from the
Google Maps API terms -- which means that TomTom and others are probably free to use their own maps to do real-time guidance.
[Via
BoingBoing Gadgets]
posted June 11th 2008 11:03AM
I don't agree with this kinda crap no matter who does it, but when Apple puts ridiculous restrictions and disclaimers in their licenses, it's "amusingly conservative". When MS does it, it's draconian spying.
" or emergency or life-saving purposes." Apple wants your insurance card first so they can bill your insurnace company for life saving.
Would this prevent the porting of apps like GPSnavX/MacEMC? (marine chart apps)
If so, the GPS is useless to me.. remove it and put in 802.11n...
A-GPS, assisted GPS, is not reallly meant for continuous use, is it? It uses cell towers to find GPS sattelites faster for a weaker receiver, such as a cellphone using an A-GPS chipset.
Yet Tom Tom claims to have an App using this?
This is definately a wait and see. I'm not too concerned... I'm not about to run down my battery using the iPhone for turn for turn navigation, or even use it this way while plugged into a cigarette lighter.
Gotta love the paragraph number 337, not quite 1337 :-)
Also nobody can create an app that includes a quick access button to dial the local emergency number (911, 112, etc). Seems like a bright idea :-)