Amid reports of the significant growth of the Android OS, Apple has released a statement about some new App Store review guidelines and news on relaxed app development restrictions. Now, one may have nothing to do with the other, but it shows that Apple believes they need to allow some changes to their previously rigid requirements to continue to keep a hold on the majority of the market.

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

The statement went on to clarify saying that developers could now use third-party tools as long as the app doesn’t download any code. This seemingly opens the door to allowing the use of Flash development tools which Apple seemed to have specifically targeted before in section 3.3.1, stating that:

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs

Apple also said that they are now providing more transparency with regards to how they approve App Store submissions. They will now, for the first time, publish the App Store Review Guidelines, giving developers a clear idea of the process.

These are two welcomed changes to the Apple policy. I personally do like the moderated App Store over the wild-wild-west Android Market as the consumers get a cleaner store and higher-quality applications (on average) and changes like this will only help it become stronger.

Next change – Flash in the iOS browser, please…