The actual license agreement (§3.3.2) provides an exception for scripts executed by JavascriptCore or WebKit. (The summary document that was quoted above doesn't appear to mention that exception.)
That said, it can be really fuzzy where the line is between code and data (e.g. spreadsheet formulas).
As far as mobile web browsers go, they're required to use WebKit, so they'd get a pass. (E.g., Chrome uses UIWebKit, but has its own network layer, which made it immune to a bug in iOS's networking layer that cached POST requests.)
“According to Apple, formulas in Numbers and functions in PCalc are OK. So is JavaScript, as many apps embed a Web view or communicate with a server component via JSON. But reading XML files and executing Python code are not OK. Landon Fuller points out the absurdity and wonders about executing Python via JavaScriptCore.”
But after reading chkuendig’s comment (which makes sense), I’m wondering if the above interpretation is completely accurate.
That isn't the case. There are a whole host of tools, like Reactive Native and Appcelerator Titanium that interpret and execute JS on the device outside of UIWebView.
but they are not downloading the JS from the net right? You can interpret python, JS, whatever as long as all the source for these scripts is present in the bundle at build time...
Doesn't seem like they are super-consistent. We're talking mobile web browsers here. Doesn't javascript fit this description?