I'm surprised ADBE isn't going down: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ADBE#chart1:symbol=adbe;r...
New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
41–50 of 495 posts
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#42Is there a legitimate reason for this, or is Apple just thumbing their noses at Adobe (and everyone else)? Is Apple primarily annoyed that Adobe's app and MonoTouch aren't doing it the "Apple" way? Or do they not like that those frameworks present non-standard UI's (I haven't used MonoTouch, so I don't even know if that's the case here)?
Apple might say the rationale is to allow easier inspection of apps for policy compliance. (Even though other languages compiled-to-approved-languages will be the same for automated analysis, it's more likely the code will be inscrutable to human reviewers.)
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#43In principle, couldn't any of these translation layers be converted to code generators that would produce compiled Obj-C that would fall within the rules? Surely they aren't saying that all code has to be entirely hand-written? If so, then is running search-and-replace on a source file not allowed?
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.
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#44Isn't MacRuby sponsored by Apple? There's been discussion re: writing iPhone apps with MacRuby, AOT compilation. I wonder how that project will be affected? http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2010-Jan...
Yeah, the would be shooting themselves in the foot if they banned MacRuby.
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#45I 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, the policy is going to be a strong deterrent from using those tools. One would rather be less efficient than risk getting caught and being rejected (maybe even blacklisted?) from the App Store.
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#46Getting 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 water down each platform's individual strengths and differentiations. And of course, instead of the developer being locked into the phone platform, they are locked into the compatibility layer's platform.
Adobe's Flash compiler is a classic maneuver to "commoditize your complements," as Joel put it so well. Apple don't want to be commoditized, especially if it means having apps that don't take advantage of the iPhone's strengths.
Adobe want to lock developers into Flash and commoditize everything else as Flash-delivery devices. Apple want to commoditize applications and lock developers into their APIs.
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in the phone market.
How is "market" defined, legally? They certainly have a monopoly over the "iPhone" or "iPhone App Store apps" markets. Of course, that reasoning could get absurd pretty quickly, so I'm sure it must be defined at a pretty generic, high level.
It's a gray area. One of the issues in the Microsoft antitrust suits was: what is the "market" in which Windows operates? Obviously, operating-system software of some sort, but which platforms count in the total? Microsoft was arguing that they make basically "an OS for computers", and so their market share should be computed after including Unix workstations, Mac desktops, maybe even Unix servers and IBM mainframes in the totals. Netscape were arguing that the relevant market was the OS market for IBM-compatible home-and-office PCs, in which Microsoft had a much higher dominance.
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#48Would Adobe have a valid antitrust case with this?
Nope. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in the phone market.
"Nope. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in the phone market"
It's a common misconception that you have to have a monopoly to run afoul of antitrust law. You don't. It also goes the other way--having a monopoly is not necessarily a violation of antitrust.
For instance, mergers have been shot down on antitrust grounds even when the merged companies would have had under 50% of the market.
Antitrust is more about the effects of actions on competition, rather than market share, although there tends to be a correlation between the two.
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#49This could mean instant death for MonoTouch. What developer would choose to write an iphone/ipad app in MonoTouch with the risk of having to re-write their app if apple drops the hammer.
What developer would choose to write an iPhone/iPad app with the risk of having to re-write or trash their app if apple drops the hammer.
Thats very true, but other app store policies aside, if your going to write a new app this might be enough FUD to completely rule out MonoTouch (which I was considering).
Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
#50Say 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.
but hey, nobody has to use iAds
Yet.