As far as I know, none of these platforms forbid you from using other programming languages than specific ones. And historically, I know some if not many major game developers had, or still have, in-house meta-languages they use for game development.
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Apple Facing Antitrust Inquiry Over Flash-to-iPhone Compiler Ban?
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Now, lets do it differently. Let's define the market for mobile apps. Not just any apps but those that are not free (free apps are mostly irrelevant for software development businesses). All of a sudden Apple owns 95% of this market. We'll see which defintion prevail
Wow, fabulous copy&paste! I know I should't ask this of a bot, but do you have anything original to contribute?
Wow, fabulous copy&paste! I know I should't ask this of a bot, but do you have anything original to contribute?
Just someone else's very reasonable view on the matter, which seems to be more informed by an order of magnitude than a lot of the "original" contributions to this thread.
Umm, you're not suppose to include the rest of the world. The anti-trust is only applicable to US companies for the US market, not the world. In smartphone market, Apple is in top 3. I don't have the latest statistics, it was like 25% for Apple and RIM had 30% last I checked.
RIM is Canadian.
Regardless, however, it's the market that matters, not the headquarters of the company. And Apple is not at the top of the list for the market (although they claim to be the largest U.S.-based smartphone manufacturer).
jW
Well that's why apple should allow third party solutions that then have to go through xcode, then a dev could use the same codebase (but tweak it) for any platform, much in the same way that to make a cross platform console game the code has to be ported between the systems, 360 running directX, Wii running Open GL IIRC, and the PS3 running something else (I can't remember its name at the mo).
Hell if apple allowed middleware, they could sell licenses for the makers to use and profit even more.
Oops on saying that there already is middleware for the iPhone, take fmod as an example, likewise the unreal 3 engine has already been ported to the iPhone, so I'm doubting apple are saying you can't use those, as long as they are used within the confines of their SDK
Edit, if MS did say no more Unreal 3 Engine games they'd be pretty screwed with Gears of War though wouldn't they
Now, lets do it differently. Let's define the market for mobile apps. Not just any apps but those that are not free (free apps are mostly irrelevant for software development businesses). All of a sudden Apple owns 95% of this market. We'll see which defintion prevail
Who cares, a monopoly by itself isn't illegal. It doesn't matter if Apple owns 100%, it's not breaking any laws to do so. There's a huge difference between an "innocent" monopoly, ones that don't break any laws to try to grab all the market share and kill off competitors and "predatory" monopoly like MS who forced their way in.
No. The difference is that Adobe was actively planning a transition (32 to 64, for something like Photoshop, was seriously unlikely to have been a matter of simply re-compiling), and instead of working on a sane transition (to Cocoa) the waited around hoping that they'd be able to take an easier way out using a tool that Apple had announced their attention to be a temporary stopgap SEVEN YEARS AGO.
That's got nothing in common with Apple still slowly but surely working their way through transitions to Cocoa.
And Apple is not banning cross-compilers. That's not the point. If you really wanted to, you could probably manage to coerce Xcode into using Compiler Foo (as long as it were just acting as a C-foo compiler). And the license wouldn't necessarily bar that (at least not the parts that people are currently up in arms about). They are specifically trying to stop other companies with a penchant for underhanded lock-in tactics from getting their proprietary languages and translation/compatibility layers into Apple's own proprietary device ecosystem. Which is totally reasonable, given that Apple is the one who put the R&D into it. It may or may not be a good idea (I think it is, given the examples of history), but that's not relevant to a question of whether it's "fair" or legal.
People keep framing this like Adobe is some sort of open paragon of virtue. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth, particularly in their current incarnation. Adobe used to be about creating really interesting and useful tools; now their management (though I doubt the engineers like it) are about enhancing lock-in and embrace-and-extend.
You are talking about the wrong market. If the problem was about, say, 3G chips or screens, then the share of handsets sold would be relevant. Since we are talking about software development here, I believe the most relevant definition of market would be the market for mobile apps and as others pointed out already , in terms of revenues, 95% of sales went through Apple.
I hope your kidding. You can't have a monopoly because you make something better...
Revenue isn't important, however. When dealing with a trust, market share is. And the market isn't defined as app sales, but even if it were, you can see from the chart I posted earlier that when you break down percentages of app sales, Apple is only at about 26% of the market. That's what's important, and what makes Apple far from a monopoly. There is plenty of choice for both consumers and developers, and it's only a question of which one they prefer. You can't cherry-pick the parts of one and parts of another you want, not unless you can come up with your own offering. You can only choose between the options that exist, and the government neither can nor wants to tell you otherwise.
jW
Well, if you agree that Apple controls 95% of mobile app market, then you'll probably agree that it should be considered a monopoly with all the obvious consequences.
Yes, that is accurate. What is also accurate is that the *particular* way of Adobe and others here is *not* the "right" way, for values of "right" that prioritize quality of user experience. You can't get around that. It doesn't matter what the platform in question is--every general computing platform has its own strengths and weaknesses that its users are used to and depend on, and write-once-run-anywhere does not allow the user--or other developers, for that matter--to depend on it.
You're clearly wrong, because every relevant piece of that toolchain is amenable to, for example, maintaining Android builds, and many developers do so.
There is an Android App Store, for example, that currently boasts nearly 40,000 apps, with 100,000 projected in a few months' time. Not sure where you're getting that 95% figure from.
If you mean that more people are buying from Apple's App Store, then fine, but that doesn't imply any nefarious form of control or Apple attempting to inhibit sales of Android apps.
But your figure only reflects sales and revenue figures, anyway.
But they don't control 95% of the market. Its just their users buy more apps then other systems. Other systems have 1000's of apps now. Did you ever stop and wonder if that isn't partly because of Apple's demand of high quality?
There's no such market. I can't buy anything from one seller in the market and use it on a phone from another seller. You might as well say that Apple controls 100% of the iPhone app market, and declare a monopoly based on that. Similarly Apple controls 95% of the market for white USB cables with dock connectors on one end. So what. It's not a "market" within the meaning of the Federal anti-trust laws.
I think you are wrong. You simply can not define a market without using revenues and profits. The chart that you posted, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the market. It does not actually explains what it shows but as I understand it shows how often different app stores are "used". And it does not define what "used" means. It could be just a number of unique visitors which would be totally irrelevant for commercial software developers. What matters is how much revenue respective stores generated.
I think it could be called a monopoly because the Android App Store has sold a total of 12 applications. 11 of them were to it's mother.
Blah, blah, blah ... the license agreement impacts far more than that "*particular* way" which is what I ALREADY SAID. There are other competitive ways that Apple can protect its user experience, but Apple chose to be anti-competitive.
What part of invest more heavily in did you not read?!?!?! Apple should not be dictating what tools developers/companies choose to invest in, that is inherently anti-competitive.
Apple's demand for high quality is their unfair trade practice. If they were to sell crap like everyone else, all the other guys would have a chance.
BAN QUALITY NOW!!!!
What you think isn't particularly important, however. It's what a market is defined as in the eyes of the law. Granted, I don't know all of the relevant laws, but it's my understanding that markets are not defined by revenue in any meaningful way, as far as anti-trust laws are concerned.
jW