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Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

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Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#71

Post by wallflower »

I applaud this. Yes, it might have been in reaction to the potential US Government anti-trust type probe. Yes, it effectively lowers the billable rate and billable hours of many iPhone developers. Yes, it makes it possible for almost anyone (using Titanium and tools-yet-to-come [wake up, Adobe!]) to make mobile apps.

However, I think its good because it allows developers to further differentiate themselves from the pack. What apps get featured? People bemoan the fact there is so many apps competing. But I believe that if you write a compelling app that stands out from the hum-drum tab-bar apps and, yes, glut of physics-based games, your reviewer at Apple will notice. They probably even get some kind of bonus for identifying the diamonds in the coal.

Thank you and muchos gracias, Apple. I believe that apps that push the limit of what an iPhone current generation can do - and do it beautifully - that is what will win in the marketplace. Uzu, that addictive slice a shape in half game, the render a photo like an oil painting. All require secret sauce - in development time, graphics, rendering.

Titanium mobile won't for a very long time be able to make a Uzu-type game. Or even a well-designed app. I hope...

Prepare to be flooded with ports of Flash games (I assume this makes Adobe's compile to Flash in CS5 feature a go, now)

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#72

Post by jrockway »

loewenskind wrote: post #55
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Target the Dalvik VM and Google doesn't care what you do, what language you do it in, or what tools you use to build it. Sure there are some parts of the system that you can't access without root privileges, but that's an entirely different issue.

But it's their platform. Maybe they don't care today but how do you know they, or the carriers wont care tomorrow? That risk seems at least as big as Apple going back on today's announcement (for the record, I would view both small).

What if the world ends tomorrow and you spent your last hours doing nothing but debating hypotheticals? That would be a shame, so you should just stop now.

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#73

Post by jrockway »

ra88it wrote: post #33
umjames wrote: post #9

Wait, so does this mean Apple doesn't have a problem with a 3rd-party framework becoming the preferred API for iOS development? How does not allowing apps that download code prevent this? Also, does this mean you can't download JavaScript from an external web page in your app?

Apparently Javascript is given an explicit exception.

What about, say, Haskell compiled to JavaScript?

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#74

Post by GavinB »

jacquesm wrote: post #29
lurch_mojoff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is most of the complaining about this was not the constructive "hey, Apple have you considered so-and-so", but rather the whiny "waaaa... Apple are Nazis" kind. And as you point out there is no evidence that it is the complaining that made Apple reconsider. It could very well be something entirely different, e.g. the FTC probe.

Plenty of it was very constructive, it pointed out why the choice of tools should be left to the developer and how not relaxing this restriction would make it easier for people to develop for android than for the Iphone. If the FTC probe (or the rise of android) has anything to do with it then I doubt we'll ever know, but I'm all for taking this on face value and believing them when they publicly admit to listening t…

The FTC probe may well have been prompted by all of the complaining. They don't exist in a vacuum, even if it sometimes seems that way.

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#75

Post by loire280 »

ben1040 wrote: post #51
jakewalker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid... You need to be an iOS Developer to login. Unclear if it's under NDA or not, but I'm sure this document will leak out eventually. There are 22 categories of potential violations, and most rules end in "will be rejected."

You know, while Apple's rejections seemed to be arbitrary at times, I was surprised that my reaction to reading this was that the vast majority of these rules are pretty sensible. A lot of them come down to "your app must not crash or be full of bugs, it must do what it says it does, and it cannot be malicious." For all the hoopla, I expected this list would read like a crazy list of charges handed down by a kangaroo…

I expect the idea behind that is for the user experience. A non-Apple mail client, for example, won't have the level of integration into the system (send mail from apps/camera/etc., notifications, background process that never quits) that Apple's will, and they seem unwilling to expose that level of functionality to developers. There's plenty of things wrong with that kind of thinking, but it's consistent with Apple's philosophy about core functionality.

It's also beneficial for things like the browser and email client to be consistent, so that services targeting iPhone have an easy testing platform. As a web developer I like knowing that every iPhone is using Safari and renders HTML email using the mail app. I already have enough platforms (4 versions of IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, WinMo) without the mobile platforms becoming fragmented.

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#77

Post by woodrow »

No one has mentioned what seems to be one of other most seemingly positive developments of this -- the App Review Board [1]:

"We’ve created the App Review Board to provide you the opportunity to appeal the rejection of an application if you believe that the functionality or technical implementation was misunderstood. You will be able to submit details that the App Review Board will use to determine if the rejection of your app should be reconsidered."

Of course it's unclear if this will actually work, but at least there's a seeming opportunity to make an argument compared to the previous "just resubmit it to the App Store" approach. Hopefully these decisions/adjudications won't be under NDA so we can see if this process actually works.

[1] http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#78

Post by loewenskind »

jrockway wrote: post #72
loewenskind wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's their platform. Maybe they don't care today but how do you know they, or the carriers wont care tomorrow? That risk seems at least as big as Apple going back on today's announcement (for the record, I would view both small).

What if the world ends tomorrow and you spent your last hours doing nothing but debating hypotheticals? That would be a shame, so you should just stop now.

Your reply would fit even better to the person I originally responded to.

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#79

Post by vaporstun »

mcobrien wrote: post #16

If you're a registered developer, you can read the just-published App Store Guidelines here: http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guide... For those who aren't registered developers, it's basically a list of 189 rules, most in the form of "Apps that ... will be rejected"

For those non-registered developers, here is a link to a pdf posted by Engadget:

http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guide...

Re: Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

#80

Post by loewenskind »

city41 wrote: post #62
loewenskind wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you develop for? Don't say Android unless you mean rooted Android. In which case you could also develop for jail-broken iOS. EDIT: As explained below, my point isn't that Android isn't open today but that it's their (or the carrier's) platform.

The fact remains that releasing an app for iOS has its risks. Sure, the chance that Apple will reject your app are slim, but that chance is still there. There are real developers out there who have found themselves quite screwed because this very slim risk happened to him them. Releasing a Windows, OSX, Un*x or webapp does not have this risk at all. At the expense of losing out the benefits the app store gives a deve…

My comment was based on the assumption that the OP thought the picture was different on Android. I know there are platforms where you can release without being so dependent on others (e.g. the web).
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