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New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

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Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#81

Post by ibsulon »

ptomato wrote: post #30
ezy wrote: post #12

Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss. The corporate pissing matches have started in earnest... When Alan Kay said Apple would take over the world with an iPad, I don't think he realized that eToys or anything like eToys would never be allowed to run on the device and that a majority of the apps will probably have commercial spots embedded within them. Actually it reminds me of "educational" tv all over aga…

"a majority of the apps will probably have commercial spots embedded within them" The majority of apps on the app store already do . Free apps, ad-supported. Apple just wants the ads to not suck so much, but hey, nobody has to use iAds.

...until Apple changes its mind.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#82

Post by dfj225 »

paulsmith wrote: post #39

Putting aside the intention of this agreement which does seem targeted at the Flash-to-iPhone compiler, this just seems overly broad and silly from a "how things work" point of view. Let's say I write an iPhone app originally in Scheme (like this guy did: http://jlongster.com/blog/2009/06/17/write-apps-iphone-schem... ), and compile it down to C, which is then compiled to object code and linked against the iPhone lib…

I had the same thought and wondered, if a developer did follow such a path, how would Apple identify that they did? I'm not sure Apple could detect that such a method was used. Although, I suppose they could ban an app even if they only suspected that it had been developed in such a fashion.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#83

Post by Zak »

icey wrote: post #66
raganwald wrote: post #46

Getting away from the frenzied rhetoric, my opinion is that what Apple really wants to prevent is people releasing multi-platform compilers. So taking Flash as just one example, if I can build one app and the compiler can make me an iPhone executable, an Android executable, and so forth, Apple don't want that. In my experience so far with such "cross platform compatibility layers," they always produce results that wa…

This change doesn't just cover Flash though; it also hits all of the Mono cross-compilers (and Scheme, and everything else that happens to cross-compile). I can't see any way that this turns out as remotely positive for developers.

Apple has consistently demonstrated that they don't care about what developers want. They seem to believe, and have so far been shown to be correct that if they can get the consumers, developers will follow. The only way I can see this changing is if a killer app that consumers want becomes available on another platform and not iPhone OS due to Apple's restrictions.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#84

Post by rimantas »

Adobe will not be happy about this, which makes me think: given how events unfolded recently in Adobe-Apple relationship and given that Photoshop is getting crappier and crappier in its OS X incarnation—has Apple some Photoshop/CS analog in the works?

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#85

Post by wvenable »

axod wrote: post #70
abstractbill wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom to have no access to the camera or microphone, for example?

It'll get there... You can already have access to the multi-touch stuff via javascript. idk, I've never thought the appstore was anything but a stop gap personally, and developing for it a crazy risk.

It won't get there before the iPhone is obsolete. You really think that web apps are ever going to get access the microphone or the camera?

Also, a stop gap? I think there's an app for that.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#86

Post by midnightmonster »

icey wrote: post #8

I don't really have a politically correct way to say this: What a horseshit maneuver by Apple.

With much deliberation, I had got to where I could accept the ipad--window on the future of computing--being a walled (and barbed-wired, and guarded) garden. I was planning to get a 3G iPad if I have any money left after taxes, and a WiFi one for my wife soon. But this... I think this is farther than I'm willing to go. And even if they were to back down on this requirement (as they did on the original NDA)... I'm rambling, but I feel hurt by this.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#87

Post by tumult »

ptomato wrote: post #52

Problems with it aside, and I certainly don't like it anymore then anyone else here (I was still hoping to get a lisp working for iPhone development), I think it would be wrong to attribute the decision to malice. Apple's doing this for the exact same reason they do EVERYTHING else controversial that they do on iPhone OS: because the primary (only?) thing they care about is the end user experience being as good as po…

No, they're clearly doing this to lock people down and prevent strong innovation on their platform. They want tons of toy apps, but nothing threatening. They don't want people abstracting over their platform. They are deliberately restricting developer freedom. If they wanted to avoid crap apps, they would just reject crap apps. They don't care about that. They want to prevent developers from innovating on top of them, so they cripple the tools that developers may use, hobbling us so that we may only produce small cute toys which they can use to promote their platform.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#88

Post by AndrewO »

While Adobe is going to bear the brunt of this, this looks like a calculated move against Android as well. By precluding things like PhoneGap (if it turns out that it's "an intermediary translation or compatibility layer"), they're forcing developers that can only afford to write an application once to choose one platform. Right now, iPhone is the easy choice for a lot of developers, just based on market.

The end result being fewer apps for Android and a less vibrant software ecosystem.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#89

Post by archgrove »

I can think of only two (tenuously) justifiable reasons for this.

1 - Perhaps, during the beta, they want code written in C (and derivatives) to aid in debugging framework bugs. Rather than "My App doesn't WORK!!!!! (Using MonoTouch Vxxyy)", they can get a repro using a stack they know and control top to bottom. In this case, I can see it as justified.

2 - If it's specifically to target cross-compilers as a business decision, to ensure that iPhone only gets "exclusives", then I suppose it's their prerogative. It will probably backfire long-term, as their market share isn't that dominant. "Browser, Palm, Android + all else" or "iPhone" makes the iPhone a secondary port target versus a first class platform.

If it's any other reason, it is ridiculous. It makes me seriously question my upcoming Mac Pro & iPad purchases. Even though I currently develop for Mac and iPhone using only Obj-C, I can't build a development strategy around a schizophrenic "partner". What's next - documentation not written in Pages? Failure to use Steve's favourite colour in the background? It's getting... bizarre.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#90

Post by die_sekte »

aheilbut wrote: post #43
spolsky wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the wording says "Applications must be ORIGINALLY written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript"

It seems absurd and unenforcable; I mean, applications are originally written in my head.

Next up: Only non-sentient developers allowed.
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