D. JonesRotten Apples? New Developer Rules Puts Flash In Crosshairs!
April 12th 2010 08:44
Now that a beta version of iPhone OS 4.0 and the corresponding developer tools have been released to iPhone developers, there’s a new developer license agreement to go along with them (Didn't see THAT coming, did ya?) John Gruber of Daring Fireball noticed a drastic change to section 3.3.1 of that agreement, which originally forbid the use of private frameworks, or application programming interfaces (APIs), and discouraged developers from using documented, public APIs in manner not approved by Apple. Now, it reads as follows:
3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C , or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C , and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited). With this change, Apple has amended its agreement so that software approved for the App Store has to be written in one of a select few, Apple-approved programming languages, all of which are supported by its Xcode developer tools.
In simpler terms yet, Apple's saying, "Do it our way, or don't do it at all," in an even more extreme fashion than it's ever said it before (It's MY way or the highway!) Apple's iPhone license change would cause numerous apps known to iPhone and iPad users to be outlawed (Wanted dead or alive?) Among the highest profile victims are programs created with Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone compiler, some of the iPad-friendly magazine implementations we've been hearing about for months revolve around that technology.
That new agreement seems to put the forthcoming Adobe Flash CS5 square in the crosshairs. Flash CS5’s Flash Packager for iPhone promised that developers could write applications in Flash and then build them for use on the iPhone OS. This wasn’t just a feature in Flash CS5, this was the flagship feature, Adobe’s foot in the door, to enable its wide stable of customers to create content on an extremely successful platform (I think it would have been a great partnership!) It would have helped turn Flash into a cross-platform development environment for iPhone software and other platforms, assuming it’s actually capable of producing apps that are as snappy and responsive as Xcode’s (Maybe Apple is afraid Adobe's Apps will look like crap! These are Apple's Apps...I think they are cute!)
Additionally, the agreement forces developers to write high-quality applications that look and feel like Apple software. After all, Apple doesn’t want the iPad to look like any other tablet, or the iPhone to look like any other phone (and what company would?) and it certainly doesn’t want its customers to believe that its own products perform poorly as a result of third-party software or tools (That all makes perfect sense to me! This is how Apple can keep a quality product!)
So why is Apple revising its rules in such a restrictive way? There's no shortage of theories. Some say it's a bold new attack in Apple's ongoing battle against Adobe (I believe this one!) Others insist it's all part of Apple's mission to create the best possible user experience (Possibility?) The response from Apple's most loyal defenders tends to be that Apple does these things so it can maintain a smooth and seamless user experience.
This raises the question, what if it had been Microsoft making this same move? (Can you say "Monopoly?") Declaring that developers could write programs for Windows using only its proprietary toolkit? Prohibiting all noncompliant creations (including, yes, Apple's own iTunes) from running on its systems? (Apple is thinking, "it's just collateral damage!")
This raises another question, did Adobe expect this to play out any other way? Even media giant Condé Nast saw the writing on the wall: though it has been developing a Flash Packager version of Wired for iPad, the evident friction between Apple and Adobe made them decide to develop a version using Apple’s methods as well (Smart move!) Adobe is a tools company, so it has to respect the platform. Instead, it decided to work against Apple’s interests. For better or for worse, Apple now appears to have totally locked Flash out of the iPhone (Um, yeah, I would say so, from that cold response Jobs gave when asked about flash...A simple "NO!") As a result, developers may not see a viable alternative to Xcode or HTML5 for a very, very long time.
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