From my perspective, if you are a developer for Apple's iPhone/iPad platform and are disturbed by this new clause in the contract, let Apple know. Let them know by voting with you feet, and moving to a different platform. There are other touchscreen devices out there, give them your support. The reason Apple has been successful isn't just that they have nice hardware, its because of you. If they are going to disrespect you in this manner, you should feel no obligation to continue to create application for their platform. Vote with your feet: don't create iPhone/iPad apps.
What would be your estimate, how many out of 185 000 apps in App Store were developed using Scheme, Closure, etc.? Also it would be interesting how many are built using Unity3d and likes.
The reason Apple has been successful isn't just that they
have nice hardware, its because of you.
True, but let's not forget: there were no "you" when iPhone was released, but there were the reasons why it was a success. That success brought users, and users made platform interesting for developers when SDK came out. Users are here to stay, and most of the devs too. Heck, iPhone OS 4 and iPad will bring them in droves. Then we have another opportunity opening up: development of HTML5 ads for iAd.
My (maybe incorrect) assumption is, that all this noise on HN is not really representative of the thinking among iPhone developers—I will even go as far as assume that the most vocal ones never did anything for iPhone and were not going to–and will have a little if any effect on general public and their opinion about iPhone/iPad and Apple.
They should, but ultimately they go where the money is. Like the guy at the top of this, who describes the situation as a totalitarian state, but says he'll continue and just try to keep his head down
