It's hardly EA Mobile or Gameloft, but iPhone developer (and blog and training provider) Mobile Orchard has announced it's halting iPhone development.

"I'm a principled person. Apple's offended my principles. Consequently, I've decided to abandon iPhone development. I won't work in this ask-permission environment any longer," said Dan Grigsby in his last iPhone blog post.

He argues Apple's new developer terms of service (as seen in the iPhone 4.0 SDK), which state applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript, are the final straw in terms of how the company is restricting what developers can do.

This has already angered other developers, while Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow told Apple to go screw itself.

Even Unity Technologies' CEO David Helgason has been forced to say that although he doesn't think its middleware engine is affected, he has no assurance from Apple that's the case.

Stamping on creatives

As for Grigsby, he's making a philosophical point

"Ask-permission environments crush creativity and innovation," he states. "I've always worked at the edge; it's where the interesting opportunities live. None of the startup I've created would have been possible in an ask-permission environment."

Of course, the fact that Grigsby won't be making any more iPhone apps is hardly going to bother Apple, no matter how talented he is.

But it does demonstrate that a certain group of developers isn't happy with Apple's benevolent dictatorship, particularly in a situation where it seems to be shifting its attitude towards dictatorship and away from benevolence.