New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by grinich » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:05 PM UTC

api wrote: post #167

mjgoins wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Starling Netbook from system76. Nothing to write home about, but I've had few, if any real problems with it. It's a little flimsy, physically. And I am a proud free software zealot, so I moved it to debian.

Hmm... if it's flimsy I probably wouldn't like it. One thing I don't like about Apple hardware is how you have to treat it like a family heirloom or it turns into a scratched up mess. Anything less hardy than that would be unusable. Toughbooks are also promising, but they're light on the specs... could someone please make a durable and well-specced laptop?

IBM?

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

#182

Post by mechanical_fish » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:05 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #76

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…

If the cross-platform experience is subpar, Apple should just let these apps fail in the market.

Apple is letting them fail in the market. On their competitors' devices.

Don't worry, if you savor the cross-platform software experience there will be plenty of options for you. At bargain prices, in fact.

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

#183

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:05 PM UTC

dgallagher wrote: post #131

sshumaker wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't submit your source code to Apple. Why should this matter?

You raise an interesting question. Perhaps they'll require source-code to be submitted in the future?

It would greatly surprise me if they did so, not least because every new piece of Apple software might get hit with speculative IP lawsuits if they had any features that bore even the most remote similarity to an iPhone app for which the developer had submitted code...even a company as wealthy as Apple would weep at the compliance costs.

But the indirect effect would be to shut people up. Rather than spending much or any effort on peeking inside iPhone apps looking for signature traces of cross-compilation, Apple would benefit because people would stop talking in public about which 3rd-party development platforms they had used for their cool new app, out of fear that mentioning anything besides C, C++ or Obj. C might result in their app being taken off sale - so without Apple doing a single thing different at the technical level, this license provision would have a chilling effect on discussion about competitors' development tools.

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

#184

Post by MutantSushi » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:05 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #143

andreyf wrote: post #37

Looking forward to Adobe's response. Going to wager it'll be in the form of a lawsuit, and that the FCC will get involved. Whip out the marshmallows, this should be interesting :)

Going to wager it'll be in the form of a lawsuit, and that the FCC will get involved. On what basis?

If Apple was judged a monopoly alot of this type of behavior, along with AppStore monopoly, would likely be barred. Until they are judged a monopoly, this is legit from a legal POV.

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

#185

Post by MichaelGG » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:05 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #139

pg wrote: post #14

I don't like this at all. Maybe they only meant to hit Flash, and maybe not, but as written this is in direct opposition to one of the most important principles of software development. Apple themselves must have benefited countless times from writing software in layers. But no layer above their layers is permitted? I wonder if the open source world can successfully fight back, by making compilers that generate code…

I wonder if the open source world can successfully fight back, by making compilers that generate code the app store police can't tell from hand written. I think the answer is definitely yes. Apple's software engineering is not that great. There is always some hole in Safari that allows root access to the entire device. They can't get atomic syscalls working in OS X. Does anyone really think they can recruit and affor…

I am not sure that it'll be exceedingly difficult to determine if an app was compiled using another tool, and not written in Objective-C.

I'd expect many languages and frameworks are going to have many very signature functions and patterns of code. If Apple decides to enforce this, they won't have a hard time.

On top of that, if they miss it, and let a bunch of apps in, then later on determine those apps were crosscompiled, they can revoke the current versions and block that developer...

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

#186

Post by rmc » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:06 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #76

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…

If the cross-platform experience is subpar, Apple should just let these apps fail in the market.

Apple don't believe in a free market / free competition. If they did, then they wouldn't have an App Store.

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

#187

Post by scdlbx » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:06 PM UTC

api wrote: post #167

mjgoins wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Starling Netbook from system76. Nothing to write home about, but I've had few, if any real problems with it. It's a little flimsy, physically. And I am a proud free software zealot, so I moved it to debian.

Hmm... if it's flimsy I probably wouldn't like it. One thing I don't like about Apple hardware is how you have to treat it like a family heirloom or it turns into a scratched up mess. Anything less hardy than that would be unusable. Toughbooks are also promising, but they're light on the specs... could someone please make a durable and well-specced laptop?

I wasn't particularly gentle with my MacBook Pro and it never got scratched or damaged.

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

#188

Post by symphy » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:06 PM UTC

There is no longer any debate as to who the "bad guy" is in this story -- Apple has proven themselves to be anti-competition, anti-developer, and anti-consumer.

Just created a new "I'm with Adobe" Facebook Group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=113492765344092

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

#189

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:06 PM UTC

aheilbut wrote: post #126

funxed wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Apple completely controls the App Store and reserves the right to refuse any app for any reason (and have shown time and again they are willing to exercise that right), how could this possibly be unenforceable? It is their way or the highway. What is or isn't enforceable is entirely up to them. Note: I am in no way saying that Apple's stance on this situation is a good one or not, in face, absurd. The iPhone 3G…

Unless they start auditing source code and everyone's entire development process, there are lots of ways in which such a rule could be violated that would be completely undetectable (and some cases that would be easily detectable too).

Quite, but would you admit publicly to having done so?

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

#190

Post by tshawkins » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 11:07 PM UTC

I think Apple could have done with some explanation on this, despite all the anti-compertative conspiracy theories, this has probably got more to do with weeding out apps that wont be able to multi-task on the new OS 4 platform, than being another salvo in an apple-adobe wars. Thats why the Rule change has been couched more in terms of how you can write apps (objective-c, api's etc), and not in terms of how you cant which is pure conjecture at the moment.