Last time I checked, Photoshop's (for instance) installed base was something like 50% Mac. Don't know about the rest of the CS apps, but I'm willing to bet the Mac segment is vastly disproportionate to the Mac's overall market share.
No matter how gnarly Apple gets about the mobile space (and that's all it is, they've done nothing to deprecate Adobe on the desktop), Adobe simply can't afford to mess with their Mac Creative Suite apps. It would be corporate suicide.
Yes. Macs have a large marketshare but not to long ago I checked out Avid Symphony in Burbank. One of the largest Avid/FCP schoos you can go to. Anyway the vast majority of workstations are PC now. I was schocked. When I asked him why he said they were faster, cheaper, servers worked great, blaa, blaa, blaa. And that was vista not windows 7 so anything can happen, for example, when Apple came out with Logic from Emagic, adobe didn't releaseca mac release for nearly a year while the pcs got them. Not that jobs cares anyway. To him it's all consumer and iPhones, ipads and app store.
They don't even go after the prosumer musician, HUGE MARKET with a decent priced FireWire, 4-8 core mid range headless mac. Workstations were not always made out of server parts. That's just to Jack the price up. When I hear arguments on how a PC can cost more part for part compared to a mac, you can get better performance on non server faster workstations and the musician editor needs FPU AND CPU power.
Yes, it probably is less about pure Apple lock in than Apple preventing others from controlling their platform. Still, I don't see the allowance of Flash, .Net or what have you ports to significantly devalue the overall iPhone platform. There are advantages in performance and features for native apps, but shouldn't those be able to stand on their own? I would hope customers would be discerning enough to be able to pick what apps they like based on other's actual experience with them and there own experience with them rather than what underlying language they can from. If they don't like it, refunds are allowed, and since developers take the hit with Apple's app commission, if being non-native is actually costing them money, that should be a strong incentive on it's own for developers to go native. So I think the situation would be able to sort itself out on it's own. Banning non-native apps likely won't have a significant effect on the platform, but not banning them would likewise probably not have caused a freeze in interest for native apps or good quality apps.
But, as pointed out, there's no downside for Apple, and no downside for users, and plenty of Objective-C developers cranking out great apps (as well as those cranking out the not so great), so why put yourself at risk of being commiditized? Much easier, and better for everyone, to just stop it now.
Apple wants to protect the lead of its hardware platforms. Portable mobile app development that can be deployed on multiple platforms (say Android & iPhone OS) erodes the unique advantage of the app store and thus of the iPhone/iPod/iPad hardware platform where Apple makes its money.
Still, it is a countercompetitive move, not a competitive move. As such, it is overall a bad thing. It is like the runners in a track contest trying to trip each other instead of running as fast as they can. In the end, everybody is worse off.
However much I like Apple and its wondeful innovations of the last decade, this behaviour is reminiscent of Microsoft's anticompetitive behaviour like trying to kill other software platforms by starving them.
Apple should not fear cross-development. In the OS wars time, it never took off seriously because underlying platforms are different enough to make cross-development a niche player at best.
Native Cocoa apps will always be more up to date with respect to new iPhone OS features, they may behave better overall. Serious cross-developed apps will be difficult to make given the differences of the underlying platforms.
Apple: please don't become too focused on anticompetitive defensive moves!
John Gruber lists the people affected by Apple's decision to change section 331 in his excellent "Daring Fireball": http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/wh...ed_section_331 - but there are other users affected by this decision not in his list...
As an app developer, we have government clients that want to commission a mobile app, but have to make any investment multi-platform in order to comply with rules requiring tax payers money to be spent on multiple-platform software. By using one of these "cross-platforms" (not the flash or silverlight 'meta-platforms'), we can deliver mobile iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Desktop Mac, Desktop Windows and Desktop Linux compatible apps with much reduced development overheads. If we become required to use a different SDK for every platform, then the cost to our client will, at least, double - potentially making the project non viable.
If the client decides that they can invest in a single platform app, then they are likely to choose the platform with the largest user base to deliver the best value to the tax payer - which is fine whilst iPhone OS reigns supreme. BUT if/when (discuss) Android does eventually take a larger market share (even if Apple sits quite happy with a good revenue model) it then becomes only a matter of time before the pendulum of active iPhone OS developments begins to swing towards Android. Things can change fast in I.T.
Bottom line... this decision means our development costs have gone up and will have to be passed to our clients.
If we simply HAD to have a feature that was only in the official SDK, for some functionally critical reason, then, of course, we'd develop in that environment, if the client decided it was essential - so, to an extent, Apple can already load the dice. But it's wrong to prevent 'cross-platforms' that use standards compliant code to create native apps. We wouldn't use the "meta-platorms" of monotouch or Flash CS5 in our studio, because we feel they are flawed and inferior, but attacking tools based around HTML5 and CSS seems like significant collateral damage.
Gruber also states, "Cross-platform software toolkits have never ? ever ? produced top-notch native apps for Apple platforms."...
I'm not sure that this assertion bears scrutiny. It entirely depends on the developer's efforts. I'd love to see a list of apps using PhoneGap or the like - I bet there would be both good and bad in there. For example, I'm guessing, but this app, Mobile Fotos, (http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/mobil...284393206?mt=8) looks like a Titanium app to me, and I wouldn't describe it as breaking Apple's HIG... (Disclaimer - it's NOT one of ours....)
Native Cocoa apps will always be more up to date with respect to new iPhone OS features, they may behave better overall. Serious cross-developed apps will be difficult to make given the differences of the underlying platforms.
If this was 10 years ago I would agree with thats statement, but it's not. We have a lot of phones, tablets from different manufacturers running Android. Then there's potentially Microsoft to consider with Silverlight and .NET on their phone meaning thats now extended to Windows Desktop, Web, out of browser Silverlight on OS X, and phones by multiple manufacturers.
It's not like when you port an app you have to hope how its going to come out, you can do customizations after the port to make it fit what you porting for. e.g. You port a lot of back end functionality but then build the skin natively. But if apple are saying everything has to be written natively that means to have to spend time re-writing stuff that won't do anything any differently and will ultimately use up time that could have been spent writing unique features that take advantage of the device. Ultimately every project has a time budget.
Apple is guaranteeing they will not be the industry standard platform, once again. Are you kidding me? Adobe is jumping for joy. Apple just removed themselves as a real contender for vertical markets and multi-platform apps.
Really?? Place after place is removing flash and going with html5. Now if you want to just play flash games on your pc, cool. But for the rest of us, Flash was a royal pain. And the new kids on the block (that are growing faster than anyone) are moving away from flash.
With every decision like this that Apple makes they drive away dozens of good developers from the platform.
Apple's not interested in good developers - they're interested in the best of them. The best developers care about every last bit of their software, so they use Apples SDK of course.
As an app developer, we have government clients that want to commission a mobile app, but have to make any investment multi-platform in order to comply with rules requiring tax payers money to be spent on multiple-platform software. By using one of these "cross-platforms" (not the flash or silverlight 'meta-platforms'), we can deliver mobile iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Desktop Mac, Desktop Windows and Desktop Linux compatible apps with much reduced development overheads. If we become required to use a different SDK for every platform, then the cost to our client will, at least, double - potentially making the project non viable. )
Which is a great reason why html 5 is better than Flash. Apple wants open standards to rule.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timgriff84
If this was 10 years ago I would agree with thats statement, but it's not. We have a lot of phones, tablets from different manufacturers running Android. Then there's potentially Microsoft to consider with Silverlight and .NET on their phone meaning thats now extended to Windows Desktop, Web, out of browser Silverlight on OS X, and phones by multiple manufacturers.
Again, all of which favors open standards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ktappe
Many of you seem to think this is an arbitrary or monopolistic decision by Apple. Did any of you watch today's presentation? Seriously--the answer was right there. The reason for this move is that the iPhone OS now evaluates each app as it is running in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do that if the app is running within a runtime. It can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS. They can't do that if there's a DMZ (runtime shell) between them and the app.
Ding, ding, ding, ding. That's exactly the issue that everyone else seems to be missing. Apple got where it is with the iTunes ecosystem by ensuring a consistent, reliable product. With things like Flash, Apple has no control over that - and crappy things happen (even a simple Flash game shoots the CPU on my Core 2 Duo 2.3 GHz 4 GB RAM system to well over 100%--how well is that going to run on an iPhone?).
With Apple these days, it's all about user experience. If something can't guarantee a consistent, reliable user experience -- over several generations of Apple products -- it doesn't fit in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amdahl
I would think they will continue executing their current plans with 10.1 and Openscreenproject.org. They don't need to say anything about this. Let Steve throw his tantrum and dig a deeper pit. All those internal emails helped convict Microsoft.
Behind the scenes, I would be looking for somebody small to file a restraint of trade lawsuit against Apple for attempting to prevent software developers from producing software for other platforms, or from being able to buy and use the tools they choose in their development.
I would also be getting friendly with all 50 attorneys general and whichever US Attorneys might have jurisdiction..
You can get friendly with whoever you want. That doesn't change the fact that there's nothing even remotely illegal about what Apple did.
And Adobe can't just ignore it. Look at all the major sites that are dumping Flash left and right. Adobe either needs to make a serious effort to create a version of Flash that works on mobile devices (10.1 - even if they ever actually ship it - isn't enough) or start planning to drop Flash entirely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jgibson24
That is a fine sentiment and I don't disagree if that was actually what was happening. But with a lot of Apple's decisions it seems not to be about protecting the quality of their platform and the users but instead to be about protecting their lock-in at the expense of developers and users. It amazes me their position has so many defenders.
What is that allegation based on? Apple has stated specifically that their actions are driven by user experience. The performance of the iTunes ecosystem (where everything works well together 99.9% of the time) confirms that. Apple's incredible customer satisfaction scores confirms that.
Apple knows quite clearly that their success depends on customer satisfaction. So what evidence do you have that their actions are driven by more nefarious reasons?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jgibson24
The problem is that Apples' tools aren't the best in all scenarios. If a well designed apps created with Unity3d can be of higher quality than a lessor designed version written utilizing XC and OC why is it good to ban it? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to ban apps that don't meet a performance threshold rather than basing it on the tools they used?
That may be, but how do they ensure that the app will continue to work when something changes (like iPhone OS 4.0)? When Apple releases iPhone OS 4.0, if 20% of the Apps stop working, Apple will be blamed -- even of those apps failed because the developer refused to follow guidelines. THAT is why Apple is enforcing consistency.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonymouse
WIt's also worth pointing out that Gruber believes Apple's stance will be good for users, a point with which I completely agree:
And that's the real issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avidfcp
Does anyone realize what would happen if Adobe said, ya know, we are no longer making After Effects for the Mac? TV and commercials would go into a frenzy. Apple should watch out how far they keep pushing Adobes buttons. I would use a little more caution.
Adobe is free to cut their own throats if they wish. Mac users aren't all that happy with them, anyway. If they stop upgrading their Mac software, Apple will be happy to step in with better quality products.
Either this is somehow a mistake, or Apple is getting too cocky and going to cause themselves problems. I'm no programmer
...and not being a programmer kind of lessens your qualifications to comment, because this is a programming-related topic.
The reason for this move is that the iPhone OS 4 evaluates each app as it is running in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do that if the app is running within a runtime. It can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS. They can't do that if there's a DMZ (runtime shell) between them and the app.
Originally Posted by juraj;1609009 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting**************16090 09******end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Apple's not interested in good developers - they're interested in the best of them. The best developers care about every last bit of their software, so they use Apples SDK of course.
End of story
Cheers,
j.
I am really surprised that people are cheering about this horrible, restrictive move on Apple's part. Objective-C on the iPhone is already dated and is almost as bad as writing Symbian C++ (the nokia phone's language). You can't even write Objective-C 2.x which was already out when the iPhone came out.
Bad move, kills a lot of good games and companies that have strived to remove the obstacle of learning the horrible programming language that has been forced on us. Wouldn't Apple prefer to have the visions of a good game designer realized? Now they're being put on hold because they have to learn to program this aged language instead of just making everything happen with something like Unity.
Makes me really angry to see people being this blind in their worship of Steve.
This seems like a very bad move to me. I have no objection to restricting shovelware apps that have little or no value from the app store, but preventing developers using preprocessing tools that help them write the apps the way they want to is a bit dodgy. They might as well be saying "we'll only let you sell an app on the app store if you don't also sell the same or similar app on any other mobile platform", which could soon get them in hot water for being anti-competitive.
Thank you voice of reason in a sea of idiocy.
The terms specifically say the app must be originally authored in objective c, c, c++, or javascript and apple development tools must be used. Who they're really pissing off are the developers who know what the third party tools can do and don't like the apple tools. not only is it a shady move on apples part to cut out middlemen but it's also shafting the developers. If you think your iphone apps as they are right now are better than the flash apps on the web, you're way to into apple as a brand to think rationally. Flash isn't limited to banner ads, youtube videos, and splash pages. There are features in flash that wont be standards supported in html5 or browsers supporting them for another 5 years or more. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive and definitely drinking the koolaid.
Apple's not interested in good developers - they're interested in the best of them. The best developers care about every last bit of their software, so they use Apples SDK of course.
But it's wrong to prevent 'cross-platforms' that use standards compliant code to create native apps.
Exactly what standards? Objective-C, written and compiled in Xcode, is the standard for iPhone OS. What your demand amounts to is allowing others to impose standards on Apple, which only benefits those imposing the standards.
Anyone who's used Apple platforms for any length of time has seen the crappy "ports" done using, "standards compliant, cross-platform development tools." Anyone remember Microsoft Office when it basically installed it's own version of Windows to run? The list of crappy ports over the years is practically endless, all created by developers who claimed to be "supporting" Apple's platform by bringing their wonderful app to it. (And many of them may have had the best intentions.) But the result was that these crappy ports ran poorly, didn't behave properly, and, quite simply, made the Mac look bad.
There are times when in the best interests of itself, which happens to almost always coincide with the long-term best interests of its users (whether that's immediately obvious to everyone or not), Apple needs to simply take a stand, even if it causes much wailing and gnashing of teeth among those affected.
The upside of this is that if Adobe wants to leverage their Flash developer base to target the iPhone platform they will have to make Flash export to clean Objective- C which can then be opened in xcode and complied there. In this model it brings Flash programmers into the native development environment in a transitional fashion and actually leads to better code practices.
The unfortunate piece for Windows programmers is that they still need to buy a Mac to complete the project. However that is a plus for Apple. So it could be a win-win situation after all. We'll have to see what Adobe decides to do.
There?s no good reason why we Unity developers should spend tons of time and money making games people want, pay our money to Apple, and then without warning or good reason, be left in the cold.
Apple reserves the right to reject any app at any time for any reason.
You knew it was Calvin Ball when you started playing.
If you don't like the rules, then don't play the game.
This seems like a very bad move to me. I have no objection to restricting shovelware apps that have little or no value from the app store, but preventing developers using preprocessing tools that help them write the apps the way they want to is a bit dodgy.
So, you think it's less "dodgy" for Apple to apply subjective standards of quality after the fact than to impose objective guidelines, which are demonstrably, and have historically been, related to app quality, for developers to follow up front? Well, as long as you never criticize Apple for rejecting an app for having limited functionality, you may at least remain intellectually consistent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffreytgilbert
... If you think your iphone apps as they are right now are better than the flash apps on the web, you're way to into apple as a brand to think rationally.
If you think your Flash apps as they are right now are better than the Objective-C apps on the iPhone and iPad, you're way to into Adobe as a brand to think rationally.
See how I turned that around? The difference is that no one is raving about the real stuff that Flash apps allow them to do, that makes a real difference in their lives, whereas, a lot of people are raving about what their iPhones allow them to do.
The only ones who really care about Flash as a technology are Flash developers and Adobe.
Um, Android marketshare has been doubling and iphone has been flat in the latest quarter. That combined with Android devices iterating at a much faster pace and with so many more devices and carriers involved one would have to be blind not to see where things are going, no?
Android Market Gains Whopping 9,300 Apps In March
Posted by Eric Zeman, Apr 8, 2010 09:20 AM
March saw amazing growth in the Android Market, which added an amazing 9,308 new applications. What's even more interesting is that the size of the Android Market has doubled since January.
The upside of this is that if Adobe wants to leverage their Flash developer base to target the iPhone platform they will have to make Flash export to clean Objective- C which can then be opened in xcode and complied there.
Technically, that might fall foul of the agreement, which requires original development in Objective-C/C/C++, although, practically, it might be difficult to detect. Probably the vulnerable point there would be app resources created in Interface Builder vs. some other tool. So, all app resources would probably need to be created programmatically -- i.e., in Objective-C code -- which certainly complicates the code generation, and the absence of these resources might end up being something of a red flag in and of itself.
Comments
Last time I checked, Photoshop's (for instance) installed base was something like 50% Mac. Don't know about the rest of the CS apps, but I'm willing to bet the Mac segment is vastly disproportionate to the Mac's overall market share.
No matter how gnarly Apple gets about the mobile space (and that's all it is, they've done nothing to deprecate Adobe on the desktop), Adobe simply can't afford to mess with their Mac Creative Suite apps. It would be corporate suicide.
Yes. Macs have a large marketshare but not to long ago I checked out Avid Symphony in Burbank. One of the largest Avid/FCP schoos you can go to. Anyway the vast majority of workstations are PC now. I was schocked. When I asked him why he said they were faster, cheaper, servers worked great, blaa, blaa, blaa. And that was vista not windows 7 so anything can happen, for example, when Apple came out with Logic from Emagic, adobe didn't releaseca mac release for nearly a year while the pcs got them. Not that jobs cares anyway. To him it's all consumer and iPhones, ipads and app store.
They don't even go after the prosumer musician, HUGE MARKET with a decent priced FireWire, 4-8 core mid range headless mac. Workstations were not always made out of server parts. That's just to Jack the price up. When I hear arguments on how a PC can cost more part for part compared to a mac, you can get better performance on non server faster workstations and the musician editor needs FPU AND CPU power.
To each his own.
Yes, it probably is less about pure Apple lock in than Apple preventing others from controlling their platform. Still, I don't see the allowance of Flash, .Net or what have you ports to significantly devalue the overall iPhone platform. There are advantages in performance and features for native apps, but shouldn't those be able to stand on their own? I would hope customers would be discerning enough to be able to pick what apps they like based on other's actual experience with them and there own experience with them rather than what underlying language they can from. If they don't like it, refunds are allowed, and since developers take the hit with Apple's app commission, if being non-native is actually costing them money, that should be a strong incentive on it's own for developers to go native. So I think the situation would be able to sort itself out on it's own. Banning non-native apps likely won't have a significant effect on the platform, but not banning them would likewise probably not have caused a freeze in interest for native apps or good quality apps.
But, as pointed out, there's no downside for Apple, and no downside for users, and plenty of Objective-C developers cranking out great apps (as well as those cranking out the not so great), so why put yourself at risk of being commiditized? Much easier, and better for everyone, to just stop it now.
Still, it is a countercompetitive move, not a competitive move. As such, it is overall a bad thing. It is like the runners in a track contest trying to trip each other instead of running as fast as they can. In the end, everybody is worse off.
However much I like Apple and its wondeful innovations of the last decade, this behaviour is reminiscent of Microsoft's anticompetitive behaviour like trying to kill other software platforms by starving them.
Apple should not fear cross-development. In the OS wars time, it never took off seriously because underlying platforms are different enough to make cross-development a niche player at best.
Native Cocoa apps will always be more up to date with respect to new iPhone OS features, they may behave better overall. Serious cross-developed apps will be difficult to make given the differences of the underlying platforms.
Apple: please don't become too focused on anticompetitive defensive moves!
As an app developer, we have government clients that want to commission a mobile app, but have to make any investment multi-platform in order to comply with rules requiring tax payers money to be spent on multiple-platform software. By using one of these "cross-platforms" (not the flash or silverlight 'meta-platforms'), we can deliver mobile iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Desktop Mac, Desktop Windows and Desktop Linux compatible apps with much reduced development overheads. If we become required to use a different SDK for every platform, then the cost to our client will, at least, double - potentially making the project non viable.
If the client decides that they can invest in a single platform app, then they are likely to choose the platform with the largest user base to deliver the best value to the tax payer - which is fine whilst iPhone OS reigns supreme. BUT if/when (discuss) Android does eventually take a larger market share (even if Apple sits quite happy with a good revenue model) it then becomes only a matter of time before the pendulum of active iPhone OS developments begins to swing towards Android. Things can change fast in I.T.
Bottom line... this decision means our development costs have gone up and will have to be passed to our clients.
If we simply HAD to have a feature that was only in the official SDK, for some functionally critical reason, then, of course, we'd develop in that environment, if the client decided it was essential - so, to an extent, Apple can already load the dice. But it's wrong to prevent 'cross-platforms' that use standards compliant code to create native apps. We wouldn't use the "meta-platorms" of monotouch or Flash CS5 in our studio, because we feel they are flawed and inferior, but attacking tools based around HTML5 and CSS seems like significant collateral damage.
Gruber also states, "Cross-platform software toolkits have never ? ever ? produced top-notch native apps for Apple platforms."...
I'm not sure that this assertion bears scrutiny. It entirely depends on the developer's efforts. I'd love to see a list of apps using PhoneGap or the like - I bet there would be both good and bad in there. For example, I'm guessing, but this app, Mobile Fotos, (http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/mobil...284393206?mt=8) looks like a Titanium app to me, and I wouldn't describe it as breaking Apple's HIG... (Disclaimer - it's NOT one of ours....)
Native Cocoa apps will always be more up to date with respect to new iPhone OS features, they may behave better overall. Serious cross-developed apps will be difficult to make given the differences of the underlying platforms.
If this was 10 years ago I would agree with thats statement, but it's not. We have a lot of phones, tablets from different manufacturers running Android. Then there's potentially Microsoft to consider with Silverlight and .NET on their phone meaning thats now extended to Windows Desktop, Web, out of browser Silverlight on OS X, and phones by multiple manufacturers.
It's not like when you port an app you have to hope how its going to come out, you can do customizations after the port to make it fit what you porting for. e.g. You port a lot of back end functionality but then build the skin natively. But if apple are saying everything has to be written natively that means to have to spend time re-writing stuff that won't do anything any differently and will ultimately use up time that could have been spent writing unique features that take advantage of the device. Ultimately every project has a time budget.
Apple is guaranteeing they will not be the industry standard platform, once again. Are you kidding me? Adobe is jumping for joy. Apple just removed themselves as a real contender for vertical markets and multi-platform apps.
Really?? Place after place is removing flash and going with html5. Now if you want to just play flash games on your pc, cool. But for the rest of us, Flash was a royal pain. And the new kids on the block (that are growing faster than anyone) are moving away from flash.
Mac
iPod
iPhone
iPad
Just a thought here.
en
With every decision like this that Apple makes they drive away dozens of good developers from the platform.
Apple's not interested in good developers - they're interested in the best of them. The best developers care about every last bit of their software, so they use Apples SDK of course.
End of story
Cheers,
j.
As an app developer, we have government clients that want to commission a mobile app, but have to make any investment multi-platform in order to comply with rules requiring tax payers money to be spent on multiple-platform software. By using one of these "cross-platforms" (not the flash or silverlight 'meta-platforms'), we can deliver mobile iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Desktop Mac, Desktop Windows and Desktop Linux compatible apps with much reduced development overheads. If we become required to use a different SDK for every platform, then the cost to our client will, at least, double - potentially making the project non viable. )
Which is a great reason why html 5 is better than Flash. Apple wants open standards to rule.
If this was 10 years ago I would agree with thats statement, but it's not. We have a lot of phones, tablets from different manufacturers running Android. Then there's potentially Microsoft to consider with Silverlight and .NET on their phone meaning thats now extended to Windows Desktop, Web, out of browser Silverlight on OS X, and phones by multiple manufacturers.
Again, all of which favors open standards.
Many of you seem to think this is an arbitrary or monopolistic decision by Apple. Did any of you watch today's presentation? Seriously--the answer was right there. The reason for this move is that the iPhone OS now evaluates each app as it is running in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do that if the app is running within a runtime. It can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS. They can't do that if there's a DMZ (runtime shell) between them and the app.
Ding, ding, ding, ding. That's exactly the issue that everyone else seems to be missing. Apple got where it is with the iTunes ecosystem by ensuring a consistent, reliable product. With things like Flash, Apple has no control over that - and crappy things happen (even a simple Flash game shoots the CPU on my Core 2 Duo 2.3 GHz 4 GB RAM system to well over 100%--how well is that going to run on an iPhone?).
With Apple these days, it's all about user experience. If something can't guarantee a consistent, reliable user experience -- over several generations of Apple products -- it doesn't fit in.
I would think they will continue executing their current plans with 10.1 and Openscreenproject.org. They don't need to say anything about this. Let Steve throw his tantrum and dig a deeper pit. All those internal emails helped convict Microsoft.
Behind the scenes, I would be looking for somebody small to file a restraint of trade lawsuit against Apple for attempting to prevent software developers from producing software for other platforms, or from being able to buy and use the tools they choose in their development.
I would also be getting friendly with all 50 attorneys general and whichever US Attorneys might have jurisdiction..
You can get friendly with whoever you want. That doesn't change the fact that there's nothing even remotely illegal about what Apple did.
And Adobe can't just ignore it. Look at all the major sites that are dumping Flash left and right. Adobe either needs to make a serious effort to create a version of Flash that works on mobile devices (10.1 - even if they ever actually ship it - isn't enough) or start planning to drop Flash entirely.
That is a fine sentiment and I don't disagree if that was actually what was happening. But with a lot of Apple's decisions it seems not to be about protecting the quality of their platform and the users but instead to be about protecting their lock-in at the expense of developers and users. It amazes me their position has so many defenders.
What is that allegation based on? Apple has stated specifically that their actions are driven by user experience. The performance of the iTunes ecosystem (where everything works well together 99.9% of the time) confirms that. Apple's incredible customer satisfaction scores confirms that.
Apple knows quite clearly that their success depends on customer satisfaction. So what evidence do you have that their actions are driven by more nefarious reasons?
The problem is that Apples' tools aren't the best in all scenarios. If a well designed apps created with Unity3d can be of higher quality than a lessor designed version written utilizing XC and OC why is it good to ban it? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to ban apps that don't meet a performance threshold rather than basing it on the tools they used?
That may be, but how do they ensure that the app will continue to work when something changes (like iPhone OS 4.0)? When Apple releases iPhone OS 4.0, if 20% of the Apps stop working, Apple will be blamed -- even of those apps failed because the developer refused to follow guidelines. THAT is why Apple is enforcing consistency.
WIt's also worth pointing out that Gruber believes Apple's stance will be good for users, a point with which I completely agree:
And that's the real issue.
Does anyone realize what would happen if Adobe said, ya know, we are no longer making After Effects for the Mac? TV and commercials would go into a frenzy. Apple should watch out how far they keep pushing Adobes buttons. I would use a little more caution.
Adobe is free to cut their own throats if they wish. Mac users aren't all that happy with them, anyway. If they stop upgrading their Mac software, Apple will be happy to step in with better quality products.
Either this is somehow a mistake, or Apple is getting too cocky and going to cause themselves problems. I'm no programmer
...and not being a programmer kind of lessens your qualifications to comment, because this is a programming-related topic.
The reason for this move is that the iPhone OS 4 evaluates each app as it is running in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do that if the app is running within a runtime. It can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS. They can't do that if there's a DMZ (runtime shell) between them and the app.
Apple's not interested in good developers - they're interested in the best of them. The best developers care about every last bit of their software, so they use Apples SDK of course.
End of story
Cheers,
j.
I am really surprised that people are cheering about this horrible, restrictive move on Apple's part. Objective-C on the iPhone is already dated and is almost as bad as writing Symbian C++ (the nokia phone's language). You can't even write Objective-C 2.x which was already out when the iPhone came out.
Bad move, kills a lot of good games and companies that have strived to remove the obstacle of learning the horrible programming language that has been forced on us. Wouldn't Apple prefer to have the visions of a good game designer realized? Now they're being put on hold because they have to learn to program this aged language instead of just making everything happen with something like Unity.
Makes me really angry to see people being this blind in their worship of Steve.
Cheers,
- iPhone developer with Objective-C and Unity -
This seems like a very bad move to me. I have no objection to restricting shovelware apps that have little or no value from the app store, but preventing developers using preprocessing tools that help them write the apps the way they want to is a bit dodgy. They might as well be saying "we'll only let you sell an app on the app store if you don't also sell the same or similar app on any other mobile platform", which could soon get them in hot water for being anti-competitive.
Thank you voice of reason in a sea of idiocy.
The terms specifically say the app must be originally authored in objective c, c, c++, or javascript and apple development tools must be used. Who they're really pissing off are the developers who know what the third party tools can do and don't like the apple tools. not only is it a shady move on apples part to cut out middlemen but it's also shafting the developers. If you think your iphone apps as they are right now are better than the flash apps on the web, you're way to into apple as a brand to think rationally. Flash isn't limited to banner ads, youtube videos, and splash pages. There are features in flash that wont be standards supported in html5 or browsers supporting them for another 5 years or more. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive and definitely drinking the koolaid.
Apple's not interested in good developers - they're interested in the best of them. The best developers care about every last bit of their software, so they use Apples SDK of course.
End of story
Cheers,
j.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
The news should come as a crushing blow to Adobe
Good.
Adobe finally has been crushed.
Apple has won. Again!
But it's wrong to prevent 'cross-platforms' that use standards compliant code to create native apps.
Exactly what standards? Objective-C, written and compiled in Xcode, is the standard for iPhone OS. What your demand amounts to is allowing others to impose standards on Apple, which only benefits those imposing the standards.
Anyone who's used Apple platforms for any length of time has seen the crappy "ports" done using, "standards compliant, cross-platform development tools." Anyone remember Microsoft Office when it basically installed it's own version of Windows to run? The list of crappy ports over the years is practically endless, all created by developers who claimed to be "supporting" Apple's platform by bringing their wonderful app to it. (And many of them may have had the best intentions.) But the result was that these crappy ports ran poorly, didn't behave properly, and, quite simply, made the Mac look bad.
There are times when in the best interests of itself, which happens to almost always coincide with the long-term best interests of its users (whether that's immediately obvious to everyone or not), Apple needs to simply take a stand, even if it causes much wailing and gnashing of teeth among those affected.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Says the guy that thinks native iPhone apps can't possibly compete with "Flash apps on the web."
Kinda irritating to have someone gobbling on about koolaid drinkers and idiots when they spout gibberish.
The unfortunate piece for Windows programmers is that they still need to buy a Mac to complete the project. However that is a plus for Apple. So it could be a win-win situation after all. We'll have to see what Adobe decides to do.
There?s no good reason why we Unity developers should spend tons of time and money making games people want, pay our money to Apple, and then without warning or good reason, be left in the cold.
Apple reserves the right to reject any app at any time for any reason.
You knew it was Calvin Ball when you started playing.
If you don't like the rules, then don't play the game.
This seems like a very bad move to me. I have no objection to restricting shovelware apps that have little or no value from the app store, but preventing developers using preprocessing tools that help them write the apps the way they want to is a bit dodgy.
So, you think it's less "dodgy" for Apple to apply subjective standards of quality after the fact than to impose objective guidelines, which are demonstrably, and have historically been, related to app quality, for developers to follow up front? Well, as long as you never criticize Apple for rejecting an app for having limited functionality, you may at least remain intellectually consistent.
... If you think your iphone apps as they are right now are better than the flash apps on the web, you're way to into apple as a brand to think rationally.
If you think your Flash apps as they are right now are better than the Objective-C apps on the iPhone and iPad, you're way to into Adobe as a brand to think rationally.
See how I turned that around? The difference is that no one is raving about the real stuff that Flash apps allow them to do, that makes a real difference in their lives, whereas, a lot of people are raving about what their iPhones allow them to do.
The only ones who really care about Flash as a technology are Flash developers and Adobe.
Um, Android marketshare has been doubling and iphone has been flat in the latest quarter. That combined with Android devices iterating at a much faster pace and with so many more devices and carriers involved one would have to be blind not to see where things are going, no?
Android Market Gains Whopping 9,300 Apps In March
Posted by Eric Zeman, Apr 8, 2010 09:20 AM
March saw amazing growth in the Android Market, which added an amazing 9,308 new applications. What's even more interesting is that the size of the Android Market has doubled since January.
The upside of this is that if Adobe wants to leverage their Flash developer base to target the iPhone platform they will have to make Flash export to clean Objective- C which can then be opened in xcode and complied there.
Technically, that might fall foul of the agreement, which requires original development in Objective-C/C/C++, although, practically, it might be difficult to detect. Probably the vulnerable point there would be app resources created in Interface Builder vs. some other tool. So, all app resources would probably need to be created programmatically -- i.e., in Objective-C code -- which certainly complicates the code generation, and the absence of these resources might end up being something of a red flag in and of itself.