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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

#81

Post by jacquesm »

GavinB wrote: post #74
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's hard to resist the temptation to follow that line of thinking, but given a complete absence of evidence and a very public acknowledgement that they listened to their developers I think that's the prudent option for now.

It certainly looks like they are sincere about it, and if they are not this will hollow out their position in the future quite a bit and they did not have to give any reason at all.

Listening to your developers is not such a bad thing, after all.

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

#82

Post by maxjg »

jrockway wrote: post #63
lurch_mojoff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it looked plenty for very small values of plenty, from where I stand. There were some very well reasoned arguments against the restriction - arguments like the fact that many libraries and game engines require the flexibility that scripting allows; or like the fact that there are languages and environments that are more conducive of tackling certain types of problems. Those, however were drowned in a sea of pet…

Those, however were drowned in a sea of petty complaints like "I know language XYZ and now Apple are making me learn their sucky ObjC" or "Apple just want to prevent you from porting your app to a competing platform, them Nazis" Uh, what? These seem like perfectly legitimate complaints to me. Why shouldn't you be allowed to use the tools you already know how to use? Why shouldn't you be allowed to write once and run…

I've got nothing against your point on using the tools you know, but I can at least see where Apple is coming from with disallowing write once, run everywhere, especially regarding UI (think Java apps on OS X).

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

#84

Post by thwarted »

vaporstun wrote: post #79
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...

2.11 Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them

I wonder how quality of the current apps vs quality of the new app applies here.

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

#85

Post by glhaynes »

jrockway wrote: post #73
ra88it wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Javascript is given an explicit exception.

What about, say, Haskell compiled to JavaScript?

If it runs on their JavaScript engine outputting to their HTML component, it's fine.

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

#87

Post by smackfu »

wheaties wrote: post #18

So does this mean they'll actually follow their own review guidelines or is it going to mean you can read them but @#$%!, you're still at the whim of whomever gets your app?

Yes, it will be interesting to see if they restrict themselves to these guidelines. In theory, rejections now can just say: You violated 2.1 and 2.3.

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

#88

Post by gcheong »

jacquesm wrote: post #21

So, how about all those people that were supporting apples' right to run their app store the way they see fit and who said that there is no point complaining about it? I think this proves that complaining about stuff like this is well worth the effort, assuming that that - and not some backroom pressure - is what caused them to back off. They mention it in their release so I figure it must have been a major factor. e…

Periodically Apple sends a survey out to iPhone developers asking for feedback on various aspects of the developer program and App Store. This latest move by Apple gives me some hope that they aren't just round-filing the feedback.

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

#89

Post by JeffJenkins »

This is great news! I just bought an iPad yesterday, and I would like to do some development for it. Since I stopped paying attention to them when Apple added the restrictions, what are all of the tools which are now usable that were in a grey zone before? The Adobe one is the only one I remember.

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

#90

Post by sourc3 »

kylechafin wrote: post #53

Now that MonoTouch appears to be in the clear on iOS... It sounds like C# is going to be a viable language for 3 major mobile platforms this Fall. Windows Phone 7 supports C# by default. MonoTouch brings it to iOS and MonoDroid takes it to Android. It sounds like there will be some really neat opportunities to reuse C# libraries across all three platforms, while dropping a native platform UI on top of them.

Having programmed in C, C++, C#, Java and JS (if scripting counts) I applaud this. I have tried to get used to Objective-C but after using C# for the past 4 years or so, it just seems uncomfortable with me (probably a personal bias that cannot be generalized). I was considering developing my startup's first mobile app in Android since I did not want to touch Objective-C and go with an iPhone Web Page.

Considering the number of developers on the .NET/C# bandwagon I think we will be seeing another Gold Rush to the app-store. I really hope the app-review board can filter out the ugly, form and buttons type of applications that will come as part of this rush. Otherwise, AppStore will be the next Tucows.

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