Well, let's find out just how true this is. As someone else remarked, if you want to hack, get the dev kit and start hacking (yes, $99/year; think of it as the

Well, let's find out just how true this is. As someone else remarked, if you want to hack, get the dev kit and start hacking (yes, $99/year; think of it as the tinkerer's software upgrade; we've already hashed that out elsewhere on HN). I also think some of us should start submitting things like Squeak ports (with suitable UI upgrades for touch) as educational apps. I'll bet Apple would let 'em through, because they're no threat to the ecosystem. I know there are simple programming languages out there on the App Store (e.g., some calculators allow Fortran-like expressions, etc.), so there's not really a ban on programming environments. In fact, I think the ban in place on scripting language is precisely and exactly to keep Flash off the machine, and I don't blame Apple for wanting to keep that barrier high. Anything else is unlikely to get stopped. Yes, yes, it's sad that we have to go through the gatekeeper, etc. We've hashed that out as well. But I think in the end that tinkerers can win on this machine if they're determined enough, even without jailbreaking.