Developers who want to write software for the iPhone are finding that Apple's mind numbing rules are stifling their creativity.

However yesterday Apple Messiah CEO Steve Jobs announced myriad another batch of red tape which will make matters even worse. The changes affect the so-called developer’s agreement required to access tools for building apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. They add significant new restrictions to software makers hoping to create products for Apple’s mobile devices.

Software developers are furious at the new rules one of which bars any app built using “intermediary translation” tools, such as those made by Adobe, from running on its various mobile devices. Instead, apps must be written directly in Objective-C and other approved languages. Losers under the new rules are providers of software that translates applications built originally for other platforms to run natively on the iPhone OS. It seems that one of the main software losers will be Adobe’s Packager for iPhone. The tool lets people build apps using the company’s Flash development tool, then export those apps to an iPhone-native format so they can run on Apple’s mobile devices, which don’t support Flash.

Jobs has made it clear that he does not want users to run Flash and he hates Adobe. The Packager for iPhone is in public beta now, but will be a part of Adobe Creative Suite 5 when it’s released later this spring. This could move could kill off attempts by Adobe to use its Creative Suite to publish iPad and iPhone versions of magazines, newspapers and games using Adobe’s tools. Given that the publishing industry has been backing Jobs' iPad folly this move is a kick in the nuts.