"What if Ben writes a Flash app, shows it to Amy, who codes it up in Objective-C, compiles it and submits it to Apple? Should it be rejected since it was not 'originally written' in Objective-C? If you think Apple’s answer would be 'no' — a good guess — then substitute Adobe’s iPhone Packager for Amy. Now should it be rejected according to the rules? What, at the end of the day, makes Amy different from a machine translation tool?"
Apple's rule creates all kinds of ambiguities. What if you mocked it up first in Ruby because that's where you're most comfortable? What if you used psuedocode? What if you just drew a diagram? What if you just thought about it? How do you determine what the app was "originally written" in?
More importantly, how does Apple determine it and why should they care?