If you want to develop for the iPhone, your only target is the iPhone.
Are you pulling my leg here? If you're being genuine, then I'm sorry, but you don't have the faintest idea about what it takes to develop for the iPhone or any other platform for which you can compile C or C++.
In addition, Apple has decided to contractually prevent you from using any technology that would allow you to be able to recoup your development costs.
Wow, completely disingenuous from where I sit. First and foremost, the iPhone is the primary platform which would enable any developer to recoup their development costs. It currently features the healthiest marketplace. Secondly, see the first point above this quote. There are a lot of developers out there who would disagree with you.
Their intention is for you to find it to be too much effort to develop for a second platform.
Like the Mac right?
It's vendor lock-in, very straightforwardly, and is exactly what the term "open systems" was popularized to be in opposition to.
Like the Mac here too right?
So I'm not saying that Flash is really any better.
But you are saying it's not closed, are you not? Develop with Flash and you have... A Flash applet. That's not generally real software. It's a bloody script. BUt of course that's besides the point. It's closed because despite what's on paper, there is no one outside of Adobe that can (or does) support Flash at this moment in time. You're not comparing the right things here. You need to compare Flash to C. C is open. Flash is not. C is a standard. Flash is not. C can be used for multiple targets, Flash cannot.
Java would make more sense
As another language comparison, yes it would make more sense. But Java does offer more than just the language, along with it controls. An ugly heap.
Write your business/back-end logic so it's portable. Write your front-end code for the platform. The iPhone is no more difficult to port to than any other platform. Many people would argue that it's far easier in fact.
But at the end of the day, I'm finding way too many debates and arguments when I come here and that's not what draws me to this forum in the first place. So I'll agree that the iPhone does not match up with your definition of Open nor will it line up with the Free Software Foundation's definition of the same likely. But, anyone is free to develop for it using languages and compilers that are available on countless systems (C, C++, gcc) albeit via Apple's Xcode IDE. And code can be ported from and to other systems. I hope you can agree with that too.
Previous Topic
Index
