Apple Eases Up on Restrictions on Interpreted Code in iPhone Developer Agreement

[igirlca]

Apple Outsider's Matt Drance reports on another change made to Apple's iPhone developer terms earlier this week that should please certain developers, a change which allows game developers in particular to continue to use interpreted languages such as Lua in their App Store applications.

The change eases up on restrictions implemented along with Apple's more highly-publicized prohibition against Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone compiler as part of Apple's broader effort to keep third-party meta-platforms from eroding the user experience and stifling innovation as developers become reliant upon them to roll out support for new features introduced by Apple. Drance notes:The change comes alongside Apple's further modifications of its iOS developer terms that again allow for limited analytics data collection to aid advertisers and developers, but appear to shut out non-independent companies such as Google's AdMob from receiving the data.

Article Link: Apple Eases Up on Restrictions on Interpreted Code in iPhone Developer Agreement

maybe you guys can help, i'm a tad confused. i've been a loyal apple customer for over 10 years now. over the last 2 years i've become increasingly upset with the company and how it is being managed, in the terms of open community, specifically the iphone platform. i've defended my phone from all of my friends for years and well, until recently i believed rightfully so.

last month my boyfriend bought a nexus one, android. after all the 'android is fragmented and a mess, it's too hard to use' stuff i've read on apple blogs for the last year i made fun of him. he finally convinced me to use it for a weekend and see what i thought. frankly, now my iphone feels archaic.

and well...i'm upset. not because android is awesome or anything. i'm upset because all of this stuff apple has been propagating is false. theres nothing wrong with android. honestly over the weekend i've learned a lot about android and it's quite an amazing experience. i could install apps from small developer sites, multi task, change the OS from custom sounds in every application, to notifications, to even the stock OS launcher GUI, the GUI IS REPLACEABLE.

this was 2 weeks ago. i thought for sure apple was going to blow my mind with an answer to android at WWDC. that didn't happen, i figured well at least i can tout 720p video recording at my boyfriend. within days of apple announcing 720p video for ios4 people wrote software to enable it on the nexus one. seriously.

with mobileme still costing $100/year and google offering identical/comarable/arguably better, features for free, apple not opening the app store, android tethering for free; stock, i can watch flash content and play flash games, as well as watch hulu directly from my browser if i get android. i'm left wondering.

is it time for me to leave. i'm so in love with apple's OS but the nexus one relates just fine for that, in fact all my settings and apps are backed up remotely so theres no real reason to worry about that.

i'm torn. i actually can't picture myself buying a new iphone now. there's not a bone in my body or a cell in my brain that after using android, think's apple has the superior product.

anyone else at this point?

i highlighted the sentence in the article in red because i think that sums up my frustrations. apples users are smart enough to make their phones behave in ways outside of what apple approves, the end.

 

[nagromme]

Good news for the platform. Apple made the right call here. Unity and MonoTouch still seem to be out in the cold, though. Baby steps, I guess.

Apple never stopped approving Unity games, and the Unity folks (who are extremely responsive and honest with their customers) never stopped touting iPhone and iPad deployment. That made me cautiously optimistic about my game-in-progress... but still nervous! This wording makes that much MORE optimistic. I’ll be watching Unity’s blog for comments!

A lot of people try to paint these issues in overly-simple, emotional terms. But these issues, and Apple’s motivations, are NOT simple. Apple has very good reasons for limiting non-Xcode development (and not the reasons people keep spouting). At the same time, there are very good reasons why games, specifically, need middleware! I want my Unity game to see the light of day—and I also want Apple to advance their platform without someone like Adobe holding back innovation from the outside. I’d love to have a simple, satisfying black-and-white take on this issue, but that’s just not reality. So here in the unpleasant gray area, the best I can hope for is for Apple to be flexible and responsive to game developers. They have been before (though they seldom get credit for it) and this looks like another encouraging example.

 

[nagromme]

i'm torn. i actually can't picture myself buying a new iphone now. there's not a bone in my body or a cell in my brain that after using android, think's apple has the superior product.

You should use what’s best for you, so best of luck in Android land! But I’d research further, I’d try out iOS4 and iPhone 4, and I’d investigate battery life on Android phones. There’s a lot of misinformation going around about Apple, Apple policies, and iOS vs. Android issues. Just be sure you have the real facts, and not Google’s corporate talking points (which the “open” community loves to parrot, even though ultimately Apple supports many of their goals even better than Google). I have more friends using Android phones than iPhones, and they have no END of aggravation. (It really seems a lot like PC vs. Mac in that regard.) Really simple stuff that “just works” for me is a pain for them. Meanwhile, their “open” system gives them LESS choice of apps, not more—and when/if they gain Flash (the one thing my iPhone won’t ever have), it won’t work well, and I won’t be jealous. I’ll be using non-Flash alternatives to those same apps, and my battery won’t be draining away! True, they may have Hulu (performing badly and killing the battery) while I have to wait for some future Hulu apps. But what does that really mean? That neither of us has USABLE, practical Hulu yet. (Or whatever fill-in-the-blank Flash-only service, of which there are fewer and fewer.)

 

[Eric5h5]

apple does NOT think it's to their advantage to make development easy.

why do you think that might be?

Could be that they just don't quite get it, and like pretty much all companies, they're not good at 100% of everything. They're good at a lot of things obviously, but some areas could use improvement. (Which isn't necessarily even a bad thing--if there's nothing left to improve, the only way to go is down....)

--Eric

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Okay. Name one. What other scripting language is interpreted in the browser without the use of a plug-in?

Nice change in context. Javascript is built into all browsers, not because the browser can't find another scripting language, but because Netscape created it in their browser and it slowly became an adopted solution.

PHP Trunk with Unicode support or Python 3.1.2 an obvious choice to replaced Javascript.

The next version of Ruby is a solid choice also.

 

[Max(IT)]

You should use what’s best for you, so best of luck in Android land! But I’d research further, I’d try out iOS4 and iPhone 4, and I’d investigate battery life on Android phones. There’s a lot of misinformation going around about Apple, Apple policies, and iOS vs. Android issues. Just be sure you have the real facts, and not Google’s corporate talking points (which the “open” community loves to parrot, even though ultimately Apple supports many of their goals even better than Google). I have more friends using Android phones than iPhones, and they have no END of aggravation. (It really seems a lot like PC vs. Mac in that regard.) Really simple stuff that “just works” for me is a pain for them. Meanwhile, their “open” system gives them LESS choice of apps, not more—and when/if they gain Flash (the one thing my iPhone won’t ever have), it won’t work well, and I won’t be jealous. I’ll be using non-Flash alternatives to those same apps, and my battery won’t be draining away! True, they may have Hulu (performing badly and killing the battery) while I have to wait for some future Hulu apps. But what does that really mean? That neither of us has USABLE, practical Hulu yet. (Or whatever fill-in-the-blank Flash-only service, of which there are fewer and fewer.)

Absolutely right. If you are a "geek", looking for deep customization, than Android is your os.
But there are people here that don't need to change GUI to use a smartphone. People who just want the phone to work flawlessly and don't just look at tech specs to judge a phone. Who cares about Hulu (a very limited service for US only, btw) if it drains the battery in one hour? I used a Nexus One for three weeks: a very good smartphone . But really a mess compared to my iPhone. I'm not saying I don't like it. I'm just saying I don't need it, while there is the iPhone on the market.

 

[macsmurf]

Apple never stopped approving Unity games, and the Unity folks (who are extremely responsive and honest with their customers) never stopped touting iPhone and iPad deployment. That made me cautiously optimistic about my game-in-progress... but still nervous! This wording makes that much MORE optimistic. I’ll be watching Unity’s blog for comments!

Unity are of course hoping that Apple will give them the thumbs up but Apple has not been forthcoming and Unity don't really know anything.

A lot of people try to paint these issues in overly-simple, emotional terms. But these issues, and Apple’s motivations, are NOT simple. Apple has very good reasons for limiting non-Xcode development (and not the reasons people keep spouting).

Interesting. What reasons are those? How is an IDE important?

At the same time, there are very good reasons why games, specifically, need middleware! I want my Unity game to see the light of day—and I also want Apple to advance their platform without someone like Adobe holding back innovation from the outside. I’d love to have a simple, satisfying black-and-white take on this issue, but that’s just not reality. So here in the unpleasant gray area, the best I can hope for is for Apple to be flexible and responsive to game developers. They have been before (though they seldom get credit for it) and this looks like another encouraging example.

It does? Up until now, Apple have been decidedly unresponsive. At what point, as a Unity customer, would you be prepared to actually criticize Apple for their unresponsiveness?

 

[Lord Vader]

Absolutely right. If you are a "geek", looking for deep customization, than Android is your os.
But there are people here that don't need to change GUI to use a smartphone. People who just want the phone to work flawlessly and don't just look at tech specs to judge a phone. Who cares about Hulu (a very limited service for US only, btw) if it drains the battery in one hour? I used a Nexus One for three weeks: a very good smartphone . But really a mess compared to my iPhone. I'm not saying I don't like it. I'm just saying I don't need it, while there is the iPhone on the market.

Same here.

 

[emulator]

Who cares flash sucks and HTML5 is the future anyway. For those of you don't think so, check out the fact that freakin google made Quake2 run in HTML5. Can flash do that?

Why's that? In every thread flash is mentioned, some random idiot with no ***** clue about html5 or what it does tells it's the future. Oh wait, is that you, Jobs?

 

[locust76]

Why's that? In every thread flash is mentioned, some random idiot with no ***** clue about html5 or what it does tells it's the future. Oh wait, is that you, Jobs?

He probably thinks HTML is a programming language.

 

[JackAxe]

Absolutely right. If you are a "geek", looking for deep customization, than Android is your os.
But there are people here that don't need to change GUI to use a smartphone. People who just want the phone to work flawlessly and don't just look at tech specs to judge a phone. Who cares about Hulu (a very limited service for US only, btw) if it drains the battery in one hour? I used a Nexus One for three weeks: a very good smartphone . But really a mess compared to my iPhone. I'm not saying I don't like it. I'm just saying I don't need it, while there is the iPhone on the market.

I've had my Nexus One for 2 weeks now running Froyo 2.2 It's hardly a mess coming from the iOS -- I can't speak for earlier version of Android though -- but what you're saying to me sounds like an exaggeration. I wanted a phone that works *flawlessly* and that's what I got. I also wanted a really good phone and going by reviews, the Nexus One was rated higher than Apple's current iPhones when being just a phone.

The only thing Apple has on Android IMO and not by much, is esthetics, which of course is highly subjective. I prefer the much greater functionality and choice that Android offers at this time. Whch I can ramble about.

Yeah, who cares about Hulu... I live in the US. Just so you guys know, Hulu is blocked on mobile devices. There was a workaround, but it only lasted for a day. I hope they reconsider. It's actually quite useable on a device like the Nexus One.

On the battery. My Nexus One's battery has lasted me all day an night when I was messing around with it seeing what it could do. I use it to browse full sites -- not the mobile bleh I was subjected to under iOS -- and I have Flash enabled. Now compare this to my 2G Touch, which lacks Flash, but only lasts a few hours when browsing the web -- which most of the time was served up in a mobile version.

Anyways, regardless of choice and needs, I like that Apple and Google are keeping each other on their toes for obvious reasons. I just found that what I needed and wanted, was not doable or allowed on Apple's iDevices.

 

[Ries]

Who cares flash sucks and HTML5 is the future anyway. For those of you don't think so, check out the fact that freakin google made Quake2 run in HTML5. Can flash do that?

Yeah, it does....

http://hxquake.appspot.com/html/images.html

 

[kernkraft]

Who cares flash sucks and HTML5 is the future anyway. For those of you don't think so, check out the fact that freakin google made Quake2 run in HTML5. Can flash do that?

Who the hell cares about running Quake2 in HTML5?!

The statistics show that the overwhelming majority of the web users visit pages that employ Flash.

Enjoy full HTML in 2014... if you'll live that long. Today, even Apple and Macrumors use Flash for certain tasks. Until a few weeks ago, MobileMe's iPhone locating page used Flash.

This whole Flash-hatred is just so lame. Try multimedia content on any other platform and it will use resources. HTML5 will be just as abused as Flash is, so don't put your expectations too high. Although, I got the sense that it won't be a problem.

 

[macsmurf]

IMO, script code has it's place but the OP has a valid point. I have seen my share of Visual Basic code grown out of control into a crappy, schlepped foobar that should be taken out in to the public square and beheaded.

The problem is most "professionals" don't know when to stop coding in scripts and start coding native based on the complexity of the project. Script code gives you a quick return but that diminishes as features start going in these projects. Both Visual Basic and Flash are good examples of this.

At times, management -- epically if they never wrote code in their career -- cannot see beyond the "Does it work?" mindset. From that, dumping scripts to native code is a hard sell I have been in the middle of a lot. If you code native right, your maintenance cost does not go out of control like script code as the project matures.

I have seen many "five pounds in a one pound box" of script code grind development to a halt when new features can fit in the code base anymore.

Yes, I'm sure there are good OO guys out there that can do script code but they are few and far between. Not to mention they undersell themselves since they "just do scripts."

You can write Fortran in any language. When it comes to readability, I prefer sensible Ruby to sensible Objective C. The Objective C syntax is atrocious.

http://kuwamoto.org/2008/07/02/objective-c-readability-and-language-design/

 

[TMay]

maybe you guys can help, i'm a tad confused. i've been a loyal apple customer for over 10 years now. over the last 2 years i've become increasingly upset with the company and how it is being managed, in the terms of open community, specifically the iphone platform. i've defended my phone from all of my friends for years and well, until recently i believed rightfully so.

Thanks for your very first post.

I can tell just from the above paragraph that you hang with geeks and techies. They tend to be ardent about open source and freedom and all that. Good for them, but they aren't part of Apple's demographic, and I'm happy that Android is available for them.

I also find that your lament coming two weeks prior to the release of the iphone 4G is a bit odd, especially as you would almost certainly be aware that Apple updates iphone hardware only once a year.

Apple adds a couple of nice feature with the 4G, 720P video and videochat (Facetime) both of which were certainly available on Android earlier. I doubt though that Android has made either feature as easy to use and as ubiquitous.

Android IS fragmented, and eventually the platform will consolidate to two or three major Android players. After that, the losers will have to adopt yet another platform.

Meanwhile, Apple stays its course, refining its iOS and hardware, and diversifying into various other consumer products, all noted for quality and ease of use.

Two different business models; Apple's a walled garden and Android's open with elements of divergence and chaos.

You chose Android. Good for your.

I'm choosing the 4G. Good for me.

 

[Lord Vader]

Who the hell cares about running Quake2 in HTML5?!

The statistics show that the overwhelming majority of the web users visit pages that employ Flash.

Enjoy full HTML in 2014... if you'll live that long. Today, even Apple and Macrumors use Flash for certain tasks. Until a few weeks ago, MobileMe's iPhone locating page used Flash.

This whole Flash-hatred is just so lame. Try multimedia content on any other platform and it will use resources. HTML5 will be just as abused as Flash is, so don't put your expectations too high. Although, I got the sense that it won't be a problem.

So why do you care at all if it's true?

 

[alexbasson]

Hopefully Apple will allow for BASIC, LOGO, LISP and other fun languages as well as emulators for ancient computers like Sorcerer, Amiga, Tandy, Macintosh and the like. There are tons of great software out there in addition to the simple historical fun of those old machines.

+1 for this. Also, it would make possible apps geared towards teaching/learning programming. Imagine reading through Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs with a built-in Scheme interpreter, or How to Think Like A Computer Scientist with a built-in Python interpreter! the iPad has such educational potential, but as far as CS is concerned, it's hampered by its inability to interpret and execute user-inputed code.

 

[kalsta]

Can't anyone else smell the troll?

maybe you guys can help, i'm a tad confused. i've been a loyal apple customer for over 10 years now. over the last 2 years i've become increasingly upset…

This is bait. Damsel in distress asks 'guys' for 'help'. Puh-lease.

after all the 'android is fragmented and a mess, it's too hard to use' stuff i've read on apple blogs for the last year i made fun of him. he finally convinced me to use it for a weekend and see what i thought. frankly, now my iphone feels archaic.

Uh huh. I've played with an Android phone too (albeit briefly), and I kept thinking, 'Am I missing something?' But okay, tell us what it is you didn't know you were missing until you saw the Android light…

honestly over the weekend i've learned a lot about android and it's quite an amazing experience. i could install apps from small developer sites, multi task, change the OS from custom sounds in every application, to notifications, to even the stock OS launcher GUI, the GUI IS REPLACEABLE.

Wow. So… you enjoyed searching for your apps amongst a multitude of unverified sites instead of having them all pretested and in one place, running all these apps at the same time (just because you can), changing all the sounds and replacing the GUI (presumably because you didn't like the GUI it came with, or… just because you can). Sounds like you had an exciting weekend!

this was 2 weeks ago. i thought for sure apple was going to blow my mind with an answer to android at WWDC. that didn't happen

Well you got your multi-tasking, no? What were you expecting? Steve to announce that his 'one more thing' was the ability to replace Apple's slick GUI with something resembling Windows on a bad hair day?

i'm torn. i actually can't picture myself buying a new iphone now. there's not a bone in my body or a cell in my brain that after using android, think's apple has the superior product.

Now I'm confused… Either you're 'torn', or you prefer Android with every bone in your body and cell in your brain?

 

[chris200x9]

Can't anyone else smell the troll?

LOL successful troll is successful

 

[Jason S.]

I didn't change my context. The point I was trying to get across to the person who said "Can Flash do that?" was that it can, and that the HTML 5 Quake is not purely just HTML 5. A lot of people have this misconception that solely HTML 5 can do all these great things, but if it were not for Javascript it wouldn't work with just HTML 5. Obviously I did not mean that if it were not for just Javascript, it wouldn't exists, because in that same post I said that it could be done in ActionScript, too. I used Javascript because that is the scripting language used today and the one people know. Not everyone is a Computer Scientist, and sometimes you have to explain things in ways that the average person is going to understand, but since you're not the "average person" I can see how you would read more into it than I was actually trying to say.

A little more up this page, locust76 said "He probably thinks HTML is a programming language." That is what I wanted to get across to the poster of the Quake 2 post; that HTML 5 is not a programming language, it is a mark up language, and all the other work is done by something else.

Nice change in context. Javascript is built into all browsers, not because the browser can't find another scripting language, but because Netscape created it in their browser and it slowly became an adopted solution.

PHP Trunk with Unicode support or Python 3.1.2 an obvious choice to replaced Javascript.

The next version of Ruby is a solid choice also.

 

[Max(IT)]

Who the hell cares about running Quake2 in HTML5?!

I DO care !
A lot of Apple haters around here keep saying that "you can't do complex things with HTML5+CSS+Javascript, you need flash !". That's plain FALSE !

The statistics show that the overwhelming majority of the web users visit pages that employ Flash.

show us that "statistics", then ...

Flash is used for thousands ADS, who the hell cares about viewing ads ???
I'm using Click2Flash on my Macs since its launch, and iPhone + iPod touch since 2008.
I don't miss ANYTHING about Flash.

Enjoy full HTML in 2014... if you'll live that long. Today, even Apple and Macrumors use Flash for certain tasks. Until a few weeks ago, MobileMe's iPhone locating page used Flash.

if it was for people like you, maybe ...
But things are changing, and day after day we are going to have ALTERNATIVES to Flash, and we could have a www "Flash free" in the next future ...

This whole Flash-hatred is just so lame. Try multimedia content on any other platform and it will use resources. HTML5 will be just as abused as Flash is, so don't put your expectations too high. Although, I got the sense that it won't be a problem.

Not at all. The lame are people keep defending Flash just because SJ's words. I know, it is "cool" in this forum to blame Apple for everything, but there is NO REASON for users not to hope for a future without Flash.

 

[Lord Vader]

I DO care !
A lot of Apple haters around here keep saying that "you can't do complex things with HTML5+CSS+Javascript, you need flash !". That's plain FALSE !


show us that "statistics", then ...

Flash is used for thousands ADS, who the hell cares about viewing ads ???
I'm using Click2Flash on my Macs since its launch, and iPhone + iPod touch since 2008.
I don't miss ANYTHING about Flash.



if it was for people like you, maybe ...
But things are changing, and day after day we are going to have ALTERNATIVES to Flash, and we could have a www "Flash free" in the next future ...


Not at all. The lame are people keep defending Flash just because SJ's words. I know, it is "cool" in this forum to blame Apple for everything, but there is NO REASON for users not to hope for a future without Flash.

Just ignore those trolls. Life will be much simpler.

 

[Surreal]

maybe you guys can help ... <long post>

as i see it, here is the thing; People are different.

i had the privilege of providing personal training to a multitude of people and found that 'most' people NEED their hand held. they don't even want it, the require it on a fundamental level. but, you say, "you were working with people who admitted that they needed help so of course they needed help!" yes and no. mostly no. this was a pretty inexpensive program, so i got more variation than that and, as an added 'perk,' i had plenty of opportunity to provide support outside of that environment when people found out what i did for a living.

computer literate folks can use most coherent GUIs without too much issue. you sound computer literate; so there is not much surprise to be had at the fact that you found the nexus workable. You can deal with one program having fundamentally different logic than another.

so can i, but i would rather not. and that is the heart of it for me; taste. i like a degree of artificial consistency because USUALLY (not invariably) leads to a smoother time for me.

 

[Max(IT)]

Just ignore those trolls. Life will be much simpler.

you could be right ...

 

[rumplestiltskin]

So let me get this straight. The reason Apple doesn't want to allow meta-platforms is because so many developers would use them that the meta-platform would control the iPhone/iPad eco-system?

Doesn't that actually mean that Apple's tools are sub-standard from a user interface and usability perspective?

Apple once had a development interface that was so easy even non-alpha-geeks could use it. It was called HyperCard.