And man, it sucks to spend all that time writing a book, find a happy publisher, and then not be able to release it cause of this.
Seriously? You get some technology, sign an NDA saying you an't publish a book, write a book any ways, and then it sucks that nothing has changed? What exactly sucks other than the business plan of investing time and energy in the hope that someone else changes their mind about an agreement you signed?
Any artificial barrier that cuts down on developer freedom and productivity will keep developers away from a platform.
Yes, the author made the assumption that Apple understood that a level of openness is required take a platform's popularity to the next level.
This is a point I see over and over again. People who are not Apple managers telling Apple what Apple ought to do to run their business successfully.
I appreciate you are being sincere, but as a long-time Apple watcher, I also recall people saying much the same thing about clones, about running Windows, about sticking with OS9, about supporting Java on iPhone, about being bought by Sun, and a great number of other things that Apple chose not to do, or chose to do later, or chose to do and undo and not redo.
You may be right that in some alternate universe Apple would be more successful if you called the shots instead of Steve Jobs.
But if we can return to the point of the post, it is that Steve Jobs is the CEO, Apple is doing what it does rather than what you or I want it to do, and it is foolish to make bets that Apple will reverse one of their positions just because you or I think they ought to do so.
However, I believe Apple is harming their platform in this matter. It is possible that I am wrong and Apple will be better off with this decision.
In any case, some developers and authors are being due to their assumption that the platform would be more open. This will lead to many developers deciding to spend their work effort developing for other platforms.
However, I stand by my assertion that given Apple's history and given the fact that there was an NDA in place when the book project was begun, there is no sympathy to give out here, nor is there any surprising "Who would have thought Apple would do this?" news.
In fact, nothing has changed since the NDA was first revealed. I say again, it will be newsworthy when the restrictions are lifted. Until then, it is like telling the world that Steve Jobs is tyrannical and abusive to his employees.
The abnormal part is not lifting the NDA even after the launch of the second major version of your product.