I wonder how much of this comes out of Steve's experience at NeXT. The 90's was full of attempts at cross platform solutions and cross architecture attempts, including things NeXT was driving, along with Sun and so forth. They all failed for the most part, sabotaged by companies like Microsoft (Java vs J++) and the general rise of Windows as the "standard".

*sigh*
And counterproductively, it's exactly this sort of petulance from Apple that makes it such a good idea to develop for Iphone by actually developing a cross-platform application using some kind of "intermediary translation or compatibility layer" -- even if merely a home-grown one -- as that means, if and when Steve goes "waah, waah" and throws you out of his pram, you haven't lost the whole project.

Peter

I wonder if this means it's "illegal" to use GLib, or some other convienience library. After all, it's an intermediary translation layer. For that matter, so is every function or method that you might write in XCode. And loops; loops are translation layers.

I expect somebody like Adobe to go out of their way to generate apps that, to an iTunes auditor, appear to be native. This will require generating a peculiar sort of "native" code, and may well perform quite well.

I wish Adobe luck with that. I don't, for a second, believe they can pull it off. I would in fact not expect them to try. That would simply be an obvious attempt to defy the letter and spirit of the licensing agreement. It would also be irresponsible of them to advocate that developers also break the licensing agreement by trying to publish the resulting programs.

For what it's worth:


May explain why this agreement is only for the 4.0 SDK, and not in the agreement for any of the 3.x releases. Apple could have made this apply to 3.x as well long ago.

That's, IMNSHO, bullshit.

Doesn't sound plausible to me either. Sounds like a "PR" reason, but not at what would have been discussed between the higher ups before this was pushed down into the agreement.

Quite. If you want to do deep inspection of the program to figure out what it's doing, surely you're better off starting with some sort of managed or byte-compiled code (e.g. .NET, Java, Flash, etc.)?

True, though with Cocoa's message passing structure Apple can spy on what the app is up to in a way that they couldn't do with your average bit of native compiled code.

Well, it looks like Jobs is revealing why:
http://gizmodo.com/5514300/steve-jobs-weighs-in-on-developer-agreement-drama

How long until Apple outlaws intermediate layers on MacOS?

Also, it's still a bullshit response; there are huge numbers of crappy apps on the iPhone already.

If they open their own app store, they can do whatever they want.

This all comes down to Adobe's actions and the hornet's nest they disturbed because Apple didn't want to ship flash on the iPhone. While Apple are being pretty heavy handed and inconsistent with regards to app approval and the like, this whole bruhaha over Flash and automatic app makers is 100% due to Adobe's childish and unprofessional actions. They've been hurting their customers for years and seem to have no plans to stop doing so.

And then how long until they decide that I can't install anything on my MacBook that doesn't come from there?


Which are?

Seems to me that Jobs is the one throwing a tantrum.

Adobe poked the bear. Now they're going to get the wrath.

You don't recall Adobe calling out Apple at every turn about Flash not being on the iPhone? It's not even been much of a back and forth, as primarily it's always just been Adobe doing the trash talking.

I don't agree with Apple's position regarding their SDK nor their approval process for their store. I'd be perfectly fine with them going over every program with a fine toothed comb if the App Store was only one way to get content onto your device - and not the only way.

But...

I agree with not having Flash on the platform. I've said it before, I hope it never comes to the platform in any way shape or form so long as Flash remains a proprietary technology. It's absolutely not needed for video and I'm glad the web presence of Mobile Safari is causing web publishers to examine how they're serving their visitors.

Adobe needs to jump ahead of the curve here and stop pushing an outdated technology and instead concentrate on creating new tools to support Flash-less web.

Adobe considers Flash to be an important product. Adobe spent time developing a version of Flash for the iPhone (and other mobile devices), something that consumers requested, frequently. Apple arbitrarily decided that they wouldn't allow it.

Consumers want Flash on their iPhones. Is it not right for Adobe to place the blame where it lies?

I fail to see how that's childish or unprofessional.

Jon Johansen (DVD Jon) responds. Amusing, at best.

iTunes for Windows actually is substandard, though, so it's not much of an ironic counterargument.

Do you seriously believe they would do this? They may want to, and are doing so on their new platform. But I don't think Apple is that stupid to shoot themselves in the foot with their computing platform. I accepted it on my mobile phone due to the advantages the iPhone has had, and I knew what it would mean when I bought the device. If they do the same on the computers though, I'd dump the platform along with a good portion of the rest of their users.


Adobe actually didn't consider Flash important until they found themselves on the losing side of the web battle against Macromedia. Adobe played a big part in trying to bring things like SVG to the web, but lacked the power to do so. Microsoft was asleep at the wheel after illegally capturing the majority of the web browser market, and showed no interest in pushing it forward. Adobe's answer was to buy Macromedia and have a change of heart about the best way to advance the web, helping to move the line back towards the proprietary and closed side. Apple may not be a saint here, but neither is Adobe.

As far as Apple's rejection of Flash, it wasn't arbitrary. They were clear from day one that no web plugins would be accepted on the platform. No Flash, no Shockwave, no Silverlight, no Quake Live plugin and so on. The Google Voice "not rejected but not accepted" issue was arbitrary.


This actually proves Job's point quite well too. iTunes feels like a slow, crappy piece of software on Windows. And it does on OS X as well, because it's hindered by trying to stay compatible on both platforms instead of taking advantage of newer improvements on both sides. iTunes for me on a Mac Pro can't handle playing back a video and an iPhone being connected. Quicktime X has no problems playing back many videos, while transcoding others.

I think irony is in the fact that being "sub-standard" should* not be a valid reason to prevent an application from existing on a specific platform, when instead it is the market that should* decide so.

*clearly this is what many - Apple for example - would disagree with.

Sadly enough - in my opinion - Microsoft seems to be planning to do the same with Windows Phone 7.

What Steve actually said, was:

The only important and relevant part of that, is the final phrase:

hinders the progress of the platform.

I'm familiar with that phrase already, from the Linux world. What it means, is that Steve wants native apps, where the iGadget is a full citizen target, rather than something written for some other system and then ported over.

I have apps on my Palm like that (ported over), and they stink.

But most importantly, Steve wants people developing for the iGadget, not merely porting generic apps from some other platform.

If the iGadget isn't the primary platform, then it becomes commoditized, and that's not something a hardware company looks forward to. Witness the IBM PC.

For better or worse, that's the issue here.

Cheers

They did? I wonder how it works when you can't install plugins for Mobile Safari.

Maybe Adobe should have spent time writing their own browser, using the built-in web kit, and stuff Flash into that? I think that would have had a more realistic shot at being approved. Crying because another vendor's app isn't designed to support your app is childish and unprofessional. So too is the way about which they did it.



Yes, we can see that by how poorly the iPhone and elated products have been selling. Consumers don't even know what Flash is, let alone "want" it. The only people that "want" flash are the people who need it as something to bitch, moan and whine about. Flash is irrelevant on the web. 95% of what it's used for can be done simpler and cleaner without it. I keep Flash off by default on my main systems. And I'm sending notice to news sites that still use it that they're going to lose a visitor if they don't stop posting content with it.

Mobile Safari does support plugins. You just can't get it installed without having a jailbroken or developer device. Somebody wrote one years ago that allowed you to download files to the local filesystem. The settings screen for Safari still has a toggle for plugins as well.

Flash is omnipresent in certain categories of products. Try visiting any car manufacturer's web site and it's a giant pile of Flash. Similar things happen on other luxury goods' manufacturer web sites (e.g., try looking around at nice Swiss watches).

Flash is also widely used in small but significant ways. Gmail uses Flash to implement it's file uploader. Gmail works fine without Flash, but it's better with Flash.

HTML5 is on its way to obsoleting Flash and I'll be the first one to bid it adieu, but Flash will still be around for several years, at a minimum.

(Grumpy old-timer rant: Java could well have served this purpose, but Flash was, for whatever reason, something that Microsoft has no problem with its becoming ubiquitous, and Flash had a decent graphics and rendering system when Java's was a bad joke. Would we be griping about Flash today if we replaced the word "Flash" with "Java" everywhere? Unclear.)

I think that's perfectly reasonable, or making an application that does nothing but play Flash applets.

But do you really think that Apple would approve that? They issued an edict that standalone apps made with Flash are "illegal". I can understand wanting to make sure that the available apps for your platform are good, especially since, since they're the only distributor of those apps, they bear Apple's imprimatur. But, (1) there are shitty iPhone apps now, and (2) why not decide on the basis of the app itself instead of some arbitrary precursor that has no real bearing? The only viable answer is that Apple doesn't really care about the things they've publicly stated; they just have a hard on for hating on Flash.

(Not that there isn't a reason to hate on Flash. It largely sucks. But, so far, all of the HTML5 implementations I've seen suck harder. At least it's an open standard.)


To my knowledge, they haven't done any such thing. They have complained that Apple has made an arbitrary decision to not allow any Flash-related anything on the iPhone.


Again, which way is that?

You don't need HTML5 to replace a large amount of Flash being used today. Simple HTML4, XHTML 1 and CSS can cover much of it. Javascript will cover more.

You want examples of what Adobe did? Use Google and find them. Adobe struck first.

Do you think for a second that Adobe didn't know Apple didn't want cross-developed apps on their app store? Adobe knew long before they ever tested Flash-anything on the iPhone that Apple wasn't going to ship it. They knew why Apple wasn't going to ship it. Apple and Adobe talk a lot. Adobe took it public to try and swing public favor in their own direction, trying to shame or otherwise push Apple.

I'm not trying to defend Apple's licensing agreement, I've already stated that the biggest motivator (and reason for maintaining this level of control) is MONEY. Talking about anything else, including sinister plots, jealousy or contempt for Adobe, etc. is just a complete waste of time. It's pure fantasy.

By the way, why hasn't Adobe release any version of Flash for any other mobile platform? Is Apple cock-blocking them there too? Why haven't they released a version of Flash for Mac OS (or Windows for that matter) that doesn't completely suck? Why can't they standardize the UI, including keyboard control between the apps that make up their Creative Suite? I mean, the apps have been shipping together in a bundle for over 6 years and it's still impossible to use them together seamlessly.

No developer is allowed to distribute ubiquitous system-level software for the iPhone. Adobe should get a pass on this? You have to know that if it was tied specifically to the browser the next complaint would be why other apps can't access it. They've had three years to release something stand-alone and instead they've done nothing. They've had three years to show Apple Flash running on another mobile platform. Instead... Nothing.

Apple is not the shiny example of the most moral or ethical company in the world, but Adobe isn't exactly blemish free either. Everything they've got has come through acquisition. And in many cases, the technologies were those they were trying to kill at one time (Flash being the most recent example).

Here, read this, it's decent: http://www.devwhy.com/blog/2010/4/12/its-all-about-the-framework.html




I steer clear of sites that rely on Flash. They're generally shite. The exact same story repeated - the same sites that likely required IE 4,5 and then 6 at one point in time.

If I were in an influential position at Apple, I would make sure the next version of Mac OS leaves out Flash by default as well. People would always be able to install it of course.


On a side note, looks like Palm is up for sale. Since their OS is completely browser-powered from a UI stand point, Adobe should just snap them up and release their own handsets where Flash is front and center. And the phones have 30 minutes of run time.

True, yet people are not clamoring for those flash applications. Dan's example of luxury brands' web sites is a good one, but that's not what people want.

People want Hulu, and the games over in the Timewasters thread, and other things, that require either Flash or HTML5 (or something beyond what Ajax can do).

Note that I'm not defending Flash; I still think it largely sucks. I'd rather see it disappear in favor of HTML5. And it will, eventually, as HTML5 support becomes ubiquitous on the desktop.

I think Apple's licensing terms are ridiculous, punitive, and overreaching. I think they deserve to be excoriated for it. Adobe also deserves to be excoriated for failing to make Flash consume huge amounts of memory for even the most trivial task, not opening the standard before they did and not opening it as much as it should be even now, and not being bothered to develop a mobile Flash until now.


No, it's not. If Apple doesn't want to allow direct access to private APIs, make them private. It should be easy enough to automate a tool to detect unauthorized access to those functions in a binary, and reject them if they do. That's perfectly reasonable. There are far more logical ways to do what Apple is claiming they want to do, but they don't want to do that. They want to block Flash. That guy is probably correct that they're far from sad about disabling the other cross-platform tools. But they didn't mind about them until Adobe was on the verge of releasing their tools.

You know what, though? I really don't care. I don't have an iPhone, nor am I likely to get one or develop for it. It's your inaccurate and relativist arguments that irritate me. I guarantee you that if Google had decided the exact same thing, you would claim that it was the worst possible move they could make and that it would destroy the company. In addition, I don't care about Apple's motivations. I care that it limits competition and innovation, and your apologia for it is equally as morally bankrupt.

Bitt, every time you have posted in the past few days you've failed to acknowledge what I've actually written. You take snippets out of context and you've tried to twist what I mean and have been saying all along. Further, you refer back to the link I posted, but show you've either not read the article or for some other reason want to misrepresent what it says.

Apple does have tools to identify private API calls BTW. What does that have to do with this discussion?

I've already stated more times than I can count that I do not agree with what Apple is doing with its licensing agreement. Why have you been trying to twist this around to say I'm apologizing for them? I've also already stated over and over (again) that I don't agree with how they've been handling the app approval process. Again, something you're trying to twist around. I think you're hell-bent on simply disagreeing with me, regardless of what I write. When it seems we're in agreement on some point, you try and tell me that I'm saying something different.

What pisses me off is Adobe and its employees acting with a smug air of entitlement that they deserve more than any other developer on that platform.

Had Google decided to not support Flash you'd have seen me support that decision. If Google had been running an app approval process with developer licensing agreements similar to Apple's, you'd have seen me criticize them, as I have Apple.

If you don't care about the platform, then why do you care that its lack of Flash, run-time interpreters and cross-compiled code "limits competition and innovation?" It seems to me that there already exists tremendous amount of competition on the iPhone platform as well as innovation. More so than on any other mobile platform to date in fact.

I'll ask again, why isn't there a huge uproar over the lack of Flash on every other mobile platform? Where are all the innovative interpreted and cross-compiled applications for other platforms? How are they defining and making those platforms the top of their classes?

At the end of the day, you know who will care about this? The people who enjoy debating it in the forums. 90+ percent of the iPhone buying public won't give a rat's ass and 90% of those people won't even know about this whole issue.

For the record, my opinion is:

Lack of Flash on iPhone: Good.
4.0 SDK licensing agreement: Bad.
Apple App approval process: Bad.

I'm going to clear this part up:


From that article:

If they're concerned about developers using private APIs, make sure that developers don't use private APIs; simple enough. Again, restricting compatibility layers because they might lead to poor apps is equivalent to outlawing hammers because you might kill someone with them. It's ridiculous and absurd, and most importantly, completely disingenuous. What happens when Adobe releases a product that takes Flash source as input and then produces XCode-compatible code as output?

But, beyond that, I'm done. You seem to be far more interested in business practices than technology or ethics, where as I couldn't care less. You're probably right that we're talking at cross purposes. I just can't fathom why anyone is interested in speculating about this MBA horse shit.

It seems you misunderstood what the article was referring to. Apple does police submitted apps for this stuff. Any such apps or app updates are denied if found to be using private APIs and frameworks. What the author was referring to are people who say Apple should allow developers to make calls through private channels and support those programs by not breaking them in future software updates (through changes to their private frameworks).



I'm not arguing this point. I've already said it's a dick move on their part and is definitely about their bottom line, not about the PR-cleansed reasons they've been giving. Apart of course from the private API/framework stuff, but that's only just been bought up because it was mentioned in that article I linked.



I'm interested in all of it. The least of which has anything to do with MBAs. While I don't agree with Apple in the SDK case, I don't believe it to be unethical. I do believe Adobe has acted unethically by trying to play the consumer against Apple in their spat.