Steve Jobs defends Apple's changes to iPhone developer agreement - Page 6

Yes, that's all true in software development theory. However, it's very important, particularly on an embedded or mobile system, to consider all the requirements, not just the developers'. IF your IDE/compiler tool has a good optimizer to reduce those layers of abstraction (and I'm all for them) down to efficient code, terrific. If not, or if your customer (in this case Apple), has other conflicting requirements, you either request a waiver or yield to their requirement.

And only 36% of internet access on mobile devices uses anything other than Apple devices. And 99.9% of smartphones do not use a full version of Flash. So what's your point?


Which tech gurus would that be? I'll be sure to put them on the list of people to listen to when I need a lugh.


Unity says they don't think they have a problem. Next strawman, please.


No, thanks. I prefer good quality apps. Flash is bad enough in its native form on mobile devices. Adding another layer between it and the hardware can not possibly help.

Apple's SDK is built from the point of view of allowing you to build data-driven apps. Games are media driven apps, which benefit more from visual tools like shader network tools and real-time scripting languages.


Exactly right. Some programs are written in scripting languages entirely and then ported to a lower-level language for performance. That's pretty much what Unity does.


Objective-C on the Mac is only used because of the frameworks, which aren't available on Windows. Without the frameworks, nobody would bother with Objective-C because it's an alien language to most devs who use C, C++, PHP, Java, Javascript, Actionscript (pretty much every language that's not Objective-C).


One big issue Apple has to deal with is communication. They are great at generating hype and interest but also concern when something seems to be wrong and there's no information.


I don't think that's the case with the iPhone same as it is on the Mac. When Photoshop crashes, people don't blame the Mac but Photoshop.


Apple is hardly the poster-child for consistency. Look at their decisions in the App Store.

Everything you want, just no interpreted languages
No wait, scratch that, no apps that upset the carriers too
Oh yeah and no politically inflammatory apps
Oh and no apps that do the same thing as apps we make
Also, no apps that monitor P2P transfers, we think they're illegal
And anything that gives you access to words like boob, say a dictionary gets an 18 rating
No explicit apps either, except Playboy, Penthouse - the smut peddlers we trust

The problem is the world isn't clear cut and rules need exceptions. Apple can reject or accept code translations based on whether or not the platform has proven itself useful and the difficulty involved in porting it otherwise.

Rather than block everyone under the same rules, what's the harm in coming clean? Just tell Adobe their Flash platform sucks and just block it. This problem has all been caused by Flash.

Steve: no Flash on the iPhone
Adobe: m'kay well we'll try making Flash properly for the iPhone
Steve: nope, still sucks
Adobe: Screw you, we'll do native translation from Flash.
Steve: No deal, blocked
Adobe: Okay well we added a copy/paste feature to convert Flash to HTML 5
Steve: Hmm, nope you wear shoes. All developers from now on to be approved must have worn sneakers during the development process.


It's a downloadable app that you can play and see the quality of the software. High quality graphics, smooth gameplay and stable. The developers at the company have no such belief their IDE is safe, they just hope it's the case, all the while knowing that their tools do not comply with the rule as they do exactly what Adobe's does.


100% markup, 50% Gross profit, whatever. The semantics are irrelevant, given that the figures are there you can figure out the meaning. You don't amass $40 billion in cash reserves without being profit-driven. The iPad is an example of Apple trying to reduce their margins but still expensive in its class. Apple takes the highest revenue of any company in mobile devices and computers.


Adobe's translation to assembler isn't adding another layer of abstraction at run-time though, just compile-time and it's not quite right to call the conversion another layer just as it isn't right to say that about any compile-time process. This process can actually make it more stable as they don't have to allow for variations in the interpreter. They even use Apple's tools to do it - the LLVM:

"We created a new compiler front end that allowed LLVM [Low Level Virtual Machine] to understand ActionScript 3 and used its existing ARM back end to output native ARM assembly code," explains Adobe senior product manager Aditya Bansod in a blog post. "...When you build your application for the iPhone, there is no interpreted code and no runtime in your final binary. Your application is truly a native iPhone app.""

The choice to reject this has nothing to do with quality control as it uses the LLVM that Apple built themselves to optimize code in the best way.

"don't think" and "have an official statement from Apple saying they are clear" are two very different things. This is still very early, Apple could change licensing agreement as the beta progresses.


My understanding is that Adobe's Flash tools were going to bypass XCode altogether and compile directly to executables. That's something Apple wants to keep from happening, and I can see their point. But tools that use XCode for compiling ought to be OK. All this speculation and bru-ha-ha is because the license terms could be read that if you don't type the code yourself, you can't use it. An admittedly harsh reading, but well within a reasonable interpretation.

I expect we'll get more clarification from Apple in time.

- Jasen.

Face it. Adobe et al. are just upset that Apple is banning mail-order spouse services, and instead, is requiring suitors to move here and learn our language, customs, and laws before courting anyone.

Real mail-order spouse services depend on a combination of factors. First, they need many economically-deprived people looking for a way to escape their situations. Second, they need many economically-endowed people looking overseas for a mate. The second condition happens when there are not enough desirable mates locally available, and present company excluded, it is usually the undesirable ones who are looking overseas.

I fail to believe that developers are so economically-deprived that they are like unto would-be mail-order brides. Do they really need a mail-order spouse service to peddle them? Can they not afford to simply go where the desirable mates are, and do what's necessary there to court them?

I also fail to believe that desirable mates (read: iPhone/iPod/iPad users) are having such a hard time finding suitors that they will miss out on the courtship of their true love, should mail-order spouse services be banned by iPhone OS 4. Rather, Apple is gambling, their users would prefer that potential suitors take the trouble to pretty themselves up and learn the language, customs, and laws of the land before attempting courtship. That way they are more likely to end up in a relationship that works the way it should.

What I do believe is that Adobe was hoping to make a new kind of mail-order bride service, and call it something else, since its existing one was already banned. And now they are foiled again, and everyone is complaining that love itself is now at risk of perishing. But that's not the kind of love anyone really wants, is it? Apple's betting there's a better love, and its platform is sexy enough to deserve it.

Now, the question is, am I wrong in my beliefs? Are developers really that hammered that they can't be bothered to write native iPhone OS apps? Are there not enough hours in the day for them to learn the ways of Apple, such that they are likely to fail at life if they take the time to learn to write programs for the iPhone? Are iPhone OS users faced with such a meager, limited selection of software that they are seeking out mail-order spouse services, desperate to find someone -- anyone?

I don't think I'm wrong. I know that I, the iPhone/iPad user, and my posse of fellow iPhone/iPad users, are a sexy enough crowd that I should not have to go online to find a mate. They should be lining up outside our town, filling out applications to move in and court us. Further, there are already so many hot suitors crowding the streets of my town that I can't even go outside without wanting too many of them at the same time.

Adobe, seeing the streets full of hot potential mates in Appletown, is really trying to export them OUT of Appletown by saying, hey, use our mail-order-bride service and then you'll not only have Appletown at your disposal, but Androidopolis and Preville and Samsungistan and everywhere else too! Now, Appletown residents: do you really want your succulent spouse potentials to be sucked away to serve at the sides of many mates and stop learning your language, laws, and customs? Of course you don't, and Apple thinks you deserve better.

You know it, everyone knows it, Apple knows it, Adobe knows it... why get mad? Really.

It's not like Apple's preventing any of these potential suitors from joining a mail-order spouse service, in case they think they can also find someone outside of Appletown. But apparently some people think that's just too much work to expect modern-day singles to go through... it will mean the death of love. Now, no one will "feel like it" anymore, gray skies will come, rain, sleet, etc. We'll see a land bereft of flowers, with no happiness. The end. ... Really?

I'm not a fan of decline-and-fall narratives. Learn Apple's platform if you wanna develop for it. Otherwise it's your loss. If that's a problem to anyone, then who cares? I don't.

After all, I'd rather marry someone (wherever they are from) who has taken the time to move to my town, learn my country's customs and laws, and learn my culture enough that we can relate to one another pleasurably.

It's that simple.

BUT I STILL WANT FREAKING USB PORTS ON MY IPAD AND I STILL WANT FREAKING ACCESS TO MY ******FILE SYSTEM AND I STILL WANT YOU TO STOP MAKING EXCUSES ABOUT HOW IT'S A PHONE CUS IT'S NOT, IT'S A FREAKING IPAD IT SHOULD BE OPEN, THANK YOU, I STILL WANT AN SD CARD SLOT BUILT IN, I STILL WANT TO PRINT, I STILL WANT TO BROWSE MY LAN, ARRRRGH!

There's a lot of assumptions by non-programmers about cross compilation and compatibility bridging. This is also known as "code portability" which is something any educated programmer has been encouraged to do. If done right, the application isn't slower, buggy or any worse than something built from the ground up for the platform.

Regardless, Apple already has quality control standards. If an app is performant, stable and useful/enjoyable, why should it be denied for being developed with portable coding techniques?

Because their performance and multitasking features are very code-dependent, and pre-compiled binaries just aren't going to be optimal for that, as I understand it. It's like writing instructions for someone to follow, then using Google Translate to translate it into their language.

See, Apple's gone to great lengths to create all these nice high-level APIs so that app developers can port code from other platforms. The logical controller code (your intellectual property) can be easily brought in and then you just make all the interface stuff for the iPhone using Apple's APIs. It does mean you have to actually LEARN stuff, but it's not like they don't have all the training videos online, it's not like they don't have developer.apple.com, it's not like they don't hold the WWDC.

Apple WANTS you to code your stuff with portability in mind, but if you do that, then it really won't be a problem to develop it using their own development package, because it's designed with code portability in mind.

Embellished for clarity.

That's sorta nebulous. What would it take some people to say "that's not right?"\

For some, it would be when they named their company "Apple"
For some, it would be when they used more than one color in their logo.
For some, it would be when they changed and used only one color in their logo.
For some, it would be when they ended development for OS9.
For some, it would be when they started making music players.
For some, it would be when they started making phones.
For some, it would be when the Air was introduced.
For some, it would be.... and so on.

I was entertained by and I agree with the reply. I know enough to have an opinion one way or the other, but also clearly understand that it matters to very few, even at it's worst.

Well the bottom line is, Jobs was at the front-end of the market, Apple II rocked, Mac was unique, he acted like a baby, the company messed up, he got fired, started NeXT and could not do anything, tried desperately to unload Pixar, got lucky-no buyers, brought back to Apple, went back to Mac model (ala iMac), hit gold with iPod, found a cute interface with iPhone/iTouch (did not invent it like mouse, Graphical UI, etc, but acclaim the inventor nonetheless) but did a wonderful job of packaging and marketing it...but he has never written a line of code, designed a circuit, or made anything but rudimentary docs, ppt or anything else...

So now he is his usual self, lashing out at people and this time he hopes to have the last word. By god, now people will pay, NO FLASH, I am the commander in chief. Really pitiful if you know him. Gates buried him and he now is back to show the world. But ultimately going down the same path. Pitiful in the end. Genius, perhaps, Engineer, No. Program manager, maybe, Evangelist, yes. Jerk, Yes.

Nothing there for me but bad memories of a very haunted and ultimately bad human being.

Yes, certainly some of those would be questionable, but many are simply internal company decisions that don't have an effect on on people's livelihood. The colour of their logo or product line creation are not really actions that would negatively impact their partners, devs and users.

Their usage the name Apple was obviously questionable, hence their 20 year legal wrangling with Apple in the UK.

Of you list, this decision is probably most similar to the decision to kill OS9 and move to OS X. It affected millions, many negatively. But, they had to do it for the survival of their company, even if it meant some people were very negatively affected or felt they would be.

In the end, I tend to agree with this decision. I really take issue with people that attempt to shut down any disagreement or dissent with the decision. People will have their opinions. To rage against them as anti-apple or apple haters or lazy or whiners or complainers or to tell them they should leave the Apple community because they don't agree with all of Apple's actions is just closed minded and short sighted. It reminds me of some political conventions where the common refrains are "if you don't like it you aren't a patriot" or "take it or leave it".

For people that rely on Jobs to think for them, it is odd, since he instructed them that the religious wars were over a decade ago.

Why would one expect that he was an engineer or programmer? Atari certainly felt he had some ability, otherwise they wouldn't have tasked him with a circuitboard redesign (regardless of Woz ending up doing the work). No one has ever claimed his technical acumen was the reason for his success. His ability to see ahead of the current prodyct landscape, his need for perfection, his willingness to jettison the past and his ability to convey his vision and convince others to buy into his vision are why he is seen as a genius.

Apple doesn't claim to have invented the mouse or the GUI. There is no denying that they were completely responsible for introducing them to the market at large and popularizing them. Gates buried Apple, after Jobs left. Scully buried Jobs and forced him into the wilderness. If he is back to show the world, damn has he been successful at doing so.

Sure he has personality traits that are over the top and maybe even bad. Don't we all? That doesn't make him a bad human being.

For those that don't care about the logo color and MacBook Air, it's of no consequence. For those that do, the users, both were a big deal to them. It was probably as important to them as this decision is to developers but, in both cases, there were large numbers of people that won't understand why. It makes it no less important to those small groups, but it puts it in perspective.



The point I'm trying to make is that they're all similar in that there was a group of people that were impacted that felt the decision was enough to say "that's not right".


If I would ever make the suggestion that anyone should leave the Apple community, it would be if they have defined a situation that exists within the community which they express intolerance for. If all indicators show that this situation is unlikely to change, then they can either change themselves (near impossible if their intolerance is high enough) or remove themselves from the situation that is causing them the grief. My suggestion would be to remove themselves from the situation, IF their intolerance was sincere (if there is such a thing )

What appears to be happening here is that many people blow their "intolerance" up beyond where it really is just to make a point (Trolling) or to evoke the response they want to see. Those people will switch to whatever platform Apple requires, will buy the next iWhatever, and are salivating over the new Macbook Pro's. Through the anonymity of the internet, we'll never know

The percentage of users that jail-break is very low, and most of them are only doing it to pirate their apps or get apps from other places. Jail-breaking may not be supported by Apple, but it is still your legal right as the end-user so technically Apple isn't limiting the end-user at all, just what they choose to support.

The number of purely end-users that care about Apple's iPhone ban on translation layers is a LOT closer to zero than you seem to think it is. Apple's statement is you can still get what you want without "Mix & Match". "Mix & Match" is incredibly buggy, error prone, and usually ends up pissing off users in the end. On a PC-type platform, this is expected (to a point) by the user. On a mobile platform they tend to be a lot less tolerant of bugs. That is the problem Jobs is trying to solve. To grow his platform he needs to woo/coerce more developers to develop their apps natively in ObjC using the iPhone SDK. This should also make the approval process marginally quicker since Apple now only has to support their own platform, and not all the platforms supported by their rivals.

WHo is everyone?
Anyone with an iPod or iPhone or iPod touch would be unhappy.
They would bitch at Apple because websites are slow as hell and their device gets extremely hot.
Not that anyone would care it's Flash causing the problem. It's an Apple product so it must be Apple's fault.

You are forgetting the third alternative--Apple may have no choice. To allow Safari to run on the largest range of Windows resonantly possible Apple may have to use a API that is not well suited for what they want to do.

Despite all the improvement Windows 7 adoption is still slow (its still below Vista ) leaving XP as defacto king of the Widows marketshare mountain. To put that in a Mac prospective, it would be akin to having to write a program that could run on Puma (10.1) as well as Snow Leopard (10.6).

No sane Mac programmer would want that kind of headache but thanks to the botched way Microsoft handed Windows you have about two thirds of the Windows community running on an OS that dates all the way back to same time as Puma (2001) with Service packs updates being used to keep what has effectively become the undead OS that will not die lurching along.

Developers CAN still use Objective-C for other platforms though. Just because they don't want to doesn't mean they can't. Despite how alien and verbose it seems, to me there is a certain aspect of readability that makes it kind of pleasant when working with someone else's code. If devs want to develop on the iPhone they'll just have to suck it up and use it in some capacity. And most mobile developers will want to develop for iPhone because of the size of the user base. Besides, Objective-C interacts with C and C++, so it is minimally required for anything under the hood.

Please don't get me wrong, I love higher level languages too. It doesn't thrill me that I have to stick to these languages primarily when something like MacRuby shows so much promise, but it ain't my platform. I want to make money with it and I understand that I have to work for that money and adhere to the rules in the process, end of story. If others think they can do better elsewhere then good luck to them.



Maybe not when an application crashes, but when things just run poorly (slow, unresponsive, etc) a typical user isn't necessarily going to know if the phone or the application is causing the problem. If a deluge of applications were to flood the market with the same problems due to some awful tool that was used to build them, I'll bet you dollars to donuts less technical people would blame the phone for the performance. Some of them might research the problem to try and figure it out, some will piss and moan until their contract is up and then switch handsets. It's worse with iPhones because they are currently more trendy and thus people from all walks of life are attracted to them.

It doesn't include the full runtime in the sense that it cannot do JIT compilation and has no bytecode interpreter, but some version of the runtime is included in the application as a library. I read about it in a PowerPoint presentation given by Adobe very recently (more recent than the quote provided, which was from last Fall I believe).

While you nailed it perfectly, you have ignored one simple thing, Adobe have no right to tell Apple anything in regards what type of tools in the development of apps Apple wants on it's products and ecosystem. You see, if you complained that you don't want Steve Jobs to tell you what apps to put on your Apple products that you purchased, then don't be surprise that Steve Jobs and Apple are doing the same thing to Adobe in a corporate level. It's about ownership, Sue denim, Apple owned the whole lot . Adobe can whine, Adobe can bluster, Adobe can demand until the cows come home, Adobe don't own Apple's iPhone OS and it's ecosystem and Apple being a for profit company can change the rules anytime they want when they think that it will be good for the company in the long run.

Apple does not care if Adobe's employees, developers and customers get hurt or lost their job due to Apple's refusal to use Flash and I could say same the same thing to Adobe not caring for Apple employees, it's developers and clients for Adobe's refusal to fix their bloated software on the Mac platform. It's business, grow a spine and moved on. Apple does not care about you as long as you buy their products, Adobe doesn't care about you as long you buy their products. It's a tough world.