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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

#301

Post by toluju »

joubert wrote: post #253
tumult wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android requires use of the Dalvik VM. Native code cannot make API calls to create interfaces etc. WebOS is the same deal, must use JavaScript and their framework for a native interface (and WebOS is a dying platform.) Windows Mobile is garbage, maybe 7 will be better, but it's half a year away and likely Microsoft will just copy Apple blindly and ban languages other than C# and C++.

So, for iPhone/iPad development, you can use C, C++, Objective-C, or JavaScript (4 languages). But on the other platforms you are in reality limited (in practice) to one or two languages? I'm looking at you, Android and BlackBerry. (Windows and Palm don't really count, since nobody's writing for them).

This is hilarious. People have gotten Scala, Ruby, Python, Lua, and a whole host of other languages running on Android. At least check your damn facts before posting bullshit.

http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-an...

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

#302

Post by plinkplonk »

dirtyaura wrote: post #5

I find it same time amusing and hard to believe that this kind of requirement (writing apps only in C++ & Obj-C) is legally possible.

"I find it same time amusing and hard to believe that this kind of requirement (writing apps only in C++ & Obj-C) is legally possible."

Is this technically possible? If I write my app in language L and also write an L->Obj-C translator, how is Apple going to know? I don't think Apple looks through your source code before putting your app on the App Store(do they)?

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

#303

Post by glhaynes »

rortian wrote: post #214
newobj wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how could this ever be proven?

This is addressed in the original post. As of now, projects that were made other the the approved ones would have obvious file layouts characteristics. Theoretically, you could make it hard to tell the difference, but in practice its pretty easy to tell machine generated from human written code.

You don't submit your source code to Apple as part of approval.

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

#304

Post by patio11 »

city41 wrote: post #161
api wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest thing to me about ditching Mac would be that Apple is the only company capable of doing a user interface. ALL other user interfaces by ALL other vendors suck. For some reason, no human beings on the entire planet other than those that work at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino are capable of doing a UI.

Although historically I have always agreed with you, I dare say Microsoft is starting to figure it out. Slowly but surely. Win7 is almost a pleasant experience.

I just got my new laptop yesterday, and while some of this is surely due to the SSD or the New Laptop Smell, Windows 7 is EASILY the best experience I've ever had with a Microsoft product. The new taskbar looks wonderful, the design is up there with Apple, and everything is so freaking fast it is unbelievable.

I booted my other laptop to transfer some data over and waiting for Vista to load to the point where I could interact with Chrome was like pulling teeth.

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

#305

Post by zefhous »

tumult wrote: post #264
zefhous wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"your dumbass platform with kiddie languages." That's ironic. Objective-C, C, and C++ are kiddie languages? I seriously doubt that there will be any sort of exodus away from iPhone development because of this. Apple provides some awesome development tools, and they want developers to use them because they improve the quality of the applications that people write.

Have you ever written software? You'd be surprised what isn't written in C or C++. I bet this clause disqualifies the majority of serious applications in the app store. Anything with a generated parser, for example, can now be rejected. Objective-C is definitely a kiddie language, it's highly dynamic and mostly suitable for creating a OO interface to lower-level code written in C, which is how almost all of OS X and…

My main problem with your comment was that in your anger you seemed to be acting pretty immaturely about the situation. I'm sorry for being harsh.

Yes, I'm sure it sucks. Your project is collateral damage from Apple's efforts to thwart Adobe and other makeshift cross-platform efforts that generally create sub-par products.

I'm not saying Apple's development tools are perfect or that I like Objective-C, but Apple makes it pretty easy to write great apps their way.

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

#306

Post by c00p3r »

I think this decision is also about preventing the virus and trojan hell like that on Windows platform and other "unauthorized" code to be spread on millions of devices. It is much easier and cheaper to examine and control such restricted binaries before releasing them on iTunes.

About Flash, Java and other outdated WM-based crap - they are pragmatic. They don't need any WM to run apps on their hardware. Modern CPU is the only necessary WM. So, there will be much less complains about crashes, bad performance and out-of-memory issues.

Together, these two major problems sank the reputation of Windows and Apple want to avoid them.

So, there is nothing special. Apple can dictate rules which helps them to make more profit, and of course they will.

Wanna freedom - there is Android. Google trying very hard to position it as Linux (community-driven open and free platform) for smartphones.

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

#307

Post by plinkplonk »

zefhous wrote: post #229
tumult wrote: post #54

This is unsavory in the extreme. I had been writing an iPhone app in Haskell, and now I have to can it? What the fuck? Fuck you, Apple! Blowhards. Hope you guys enjoy the mass exodus of decent developers from your dumbass platform with kiddie languages.

"your dumbass platform with kiddie languages." That's ironic. Objective-C, C, and C++ are kiddie languages? I seriously doubt that there will be any sort of exodus away from iPhone development because of this. Apple provides some awesome development tools, and they want developers to use them because they improve the quality of the applications that people write.

"I seriously doubt that there will be any sort of exodus away from iPhone development because of this. "

You are right, though there maybe an impact on more developers coming into IPhone Dev. That said I would be surprised if at least some developers have had enough of Apple's high handedness and move away from it, like they did from Windows long ago because of Microsoft doing evil things.

Just an anecdotal datapoint, but I for one was toying with the idea of buying a MacBookPro (though not yet an IPhone or IPad) and learning Objective C, but not any more.

Objective C on Apple is now the programming language for Orcs, working for the fulfilment of Steveron the Dark Lord's World domination plans. What does developer unfriendliness matter if you get "teh new shiny" to play with every year?

    Ash Objective C durbatulûk, ash Objective C gimbatul,
    Ash Objective C thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

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

#308

Post by Andrey »

glhaynes wrote: post #303
rortian wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is addressed in the original post. As of now, projects that were made other the the approved ones would have obvious file layouts characteristics. Theoretically, you could make it hard to tell the difference, but in practice its pretty easy to tell machine generated from human written code.

You don't submit your source code to Apple as part of approval.

Yet! Wait for it serfs, wait for it!

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

#309

Post by moron4hire »

tzs wrote: post #137
mortenjorck wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"If the cross-platform experience is subpar, Apple should just let these apps fail in the market" Perhaps, like Nintendo, they learned the lessons from the collapse of the home video game market in 1983. When Nintendo was contemplating developing the NES, they took a deep look at what had caused the collapse. What they concluded was that the main cause of death was the market being flooded with too many crappy games.…

"The games at this time were all pretty good. A consumer could go out, buy a game based just on the information printed on the box, and go home and be pretty sure they'd have a good experience."

Rose tinted glasses. They still managed to release buggy, downright broken software. It wasn't about quality, it was about control.

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

#310

Post by johnrob »

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…

Even if they can tell the difference, C code is C code. It shouldn't matter if it was generated so long as it uses kosher API calls. Doing so would be no different than enforcing which editor I can use to write code in.
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