Developers and designers drooled when they heard that Adobe Flash Pro CS5 would be able to package applications for the iphone straight from Flash.

What a sore disappointment when Apple decided not only to exclude flash support from their mobile devices but disallow the use of third party development environments in making apps.

Apparently due to the imminent threat Google’s Android OS poses, Apple has chosen to relent. Yay Yay! Freedom for developers! No more worries about how you build your app impacting its reception by Apple! Right?

Honestly, I’m still a little afraid to trust them.

Don’t get me wrong. I have been using Apple products since I was eight years old. I love them. Apple Software is intuitive, beautiful and normally has just the right number of features.

But with what’s gone down in recent months, I am afraid to trust them and specifically afraid to develop for them. It’s not an issue of what their current posture on developer restrictions is at any given moment. The issue is that they have set up restrictions in the past and I have no reason to think they won’t in the future.

Referring back to their initial “Thoughts on Flash” statement, we see Jobs talking about how their software is open and Adobe’s (at least Flash) isn’t. Good points to some extent but my question is this: Are you going to deal with “closed” (exclusive plugin-requiring) software and content in an open or closed manner?

So will I stick with Apple? In a manner of speaking. As long as Apple happens lead the market in technology I will buy and develop for their products. But if a better alternative to Apple shows up, I’d switch.

I’m not sure what it will take for the company to earn my trust back. It’s certainly a start to take back the restrictions. Better would be if they kept their exclusive mindset just for their marketing.