I really don't understand why Apple has an NDA on its essentially public developer program. There are so many iPhone developers that all the standard rules and agreements will be made public almost instantly no matter what.
No, part of the privilege of being a registered iPhone developer is you get access to beta SDKs and information that the public does not. The idea is to give iPhone developers who are in their program a head start. The fear of getting booted from Apple's program is usually sufficient to bite your tongue before you saying something in public that should not be discussed.
As an example: now that the iPad SDK is no longer under NDA: one of the most interesting APIs in iPhone OS 3.2 (iPad) is MPMoviePlayerController gaining the backgroundView and view properties. Basically, it opened up a whole arena of interactive video applications that overlay graphics on top of live or recorded video (think
watching baseball game on iPad and pulling up player's on-base stats by clicking on magic button hovering near base, true interactive TV, interactive remote control with show previews...)
And part of the problem is what we see here, which is that potentially incorrect information cannot be authoritatively debunked, perhaps for months. This gives plenty of time for the wrong "facts" to get lodged in people's heads, so even when the truth comes out people will carry on with false beliefs.
