Fallout From Apple's Exclusion of Flash-to-iPhone Export Continues

[kdarling]

What is completely ridiculous is that there is absolutely no change of intent of the updated SDK wording.

The whole internet is abuzz because the intent _has_ obviously changed. This is clear to any developer.

Translation layers/Virtual machines/third party frameworks were always forbidden and pretty much every developer knows this.

Translation layers were never targeted before. That's why there have been more and more of them. Any knowledgable developer knows this.

Apple is well within it's rights to demand native apps for it's platform, and such a decision will lead to better apps from dedicated developers, rather than yet another cross target output check-box from Flash "developers".

It affects more than just "Flash developers".

Apple appears to be against the idea of any cross-platform tools that make it easier for developers to produce apps for both the iPhone and other devices. This will lead to developers targeting more friendly platforms.

It's hypocritical that some Apple fanatics talk about supposedly cross-platform HTML5 web apps... but then suddenly (just in time with the changed SDK rules) have a hissy fit against cross-platform native app development tools.

 

[jragosta]

Don't waste your energy. Half these people don't understand what Flash is outside porn ads and pogo games. Flash is more than HTML5 will ever be because Flash is an environment beyond the web.

Just as the approved language (c, objective-c and c++) are language beyond the web.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain what magical things Flash does that can't be done with approved tools. *crickets*

85% of the comments on here are from people who think this is about Flash Player vs. HTML5. It is not. You do not make apps for the app store with HTML5.

True. It's about Adobe's flash to iPhone converter against C, Objective-C and C++. So tell us what Flash will do that those languages won't do better.

I disagree with both of your thoughts because you are talking about completely different things that have NOTHING to do with the iPhone SDK and those new restrictions.

If I wrote an application in, let's say, FreePascal, which is as much as purely compiled language as C or C++, I would not be allowed to publish it on the iPhone anymore.

I haven't read the relevant part of the SDK, but let's say you're right. So what? You're free to develop your own platform in FreePascal if you wish. Just don't complain when no one buys it.

What Apple deserves is that all developers abandon ship and now exclusively write software for Android or Windows Mobile. Without developers, the iPhone will just die.

Yeah, that would be really smart. 64% of ALL mobile web traffic is Apple devices. How many billion apps sold? Look at the revenues from the Apple App store vs the Android or Windows Mobile app stores. Tell me again why a developer would choose to drop Apple in favor of those other platforms?

Being a student of graphic design in college, I don't have time to learn objective-C but I've always wanted to build apps.

I've always wanted to be an Olympic figure skater, too, but I don't have time to take lessons or practice. I guess I should sue the Olympics for not letting me compete?

The trouble is that we will never hear their discontent because Apple employees are forbidden from blogging, posting to social networks, or other things that we at companies with an open culture take for granted.

This is too funny considering his blog was censored by Adobe.

It's even funnier when the Adobe blog in question specifically turned off comments - refusing to even hear what anyone else might have to say.

 

[mixel]

That's why choice is so important.

Me, I'll stick“ with Mac. So what's the best Photoshop replacement for Mac in case it comes to that?

Haha. There isn't one. The GIMP? Painter? Good luck.

Nothing comes close to Photoshop. The people saying Adobe's apps are garbage a) Probably know little about their apps. b) Don't use their apps much if they do.

A world without Adobe's support is a horrible one in the current market, it's like the difference between BeOS and osX level of bad news. We do NEED Adobe, but not just for Flash, for their productivity apps. Imagine if we'd always had 3DS Max then Autodesk pulled the plug.. Losing Adobe would be MUCH bigger than that. It would obliterate Apple in big chunks of the education market. If Anyone as big as Adobe can pull out of the platform then the platform is pretty much a worthless toy from the perspective of many who have to invest big sums of money.

A lot of people, myself included will stop recommending Apple to creatives if there was no Adobe support. This isn't Adobe abusing any power - they just have good market leading products that at least partially define the Macintosh platform.

Indesign! Dreamweaver! If people were seriously suggesting such a crazy thing a couple of years ago the community would be completely shattered. We need these apps, I'd argue they're much more important than official MS/Office support, even!

Back to the issue at hand though, I'm still not bothered about Apple denying flash iPhone apps.

 

[Minimoose 360]

And from a student consumer with no computer-professionalism background:


Life goes on as normal.

 

[justinfreid]

QFE

I am also a professional SW dev, I also started on embedded systems. I am telecom (CDMA/LTE) network/callP layer developer today.

The main complainers in these thread don't actually seems to understand the very real issues.

Not a surprise, the ignorant are usually the loudest on the internet.

Enforcement of Native development is a completely reasonable requirement that leads to better resource usage, better applications, better skilled designers, better incentives for platform enhancement (which feeds back into better apps, better devs...

Beyond just making good technical sense, it isn't new. This has always been the case with the iPhone SDK/appstore. Hopefully it always is.

It's funny that you reference those who are loudest being the most ignorant in the midst of your rampant use of bold text.
That aside, you shoot out an assertion that native development is a completely reasonable requirement, yet you do nothing to evidence that position. Merely stating a bunch of intended benefits does nothing to sway a savvy reader to your point of view.
How is locking out any other SDK uniquely beneficial? Warrant that claim and then the discussion might get fruitful.

 

[Azmordean]

DIAF, Flash.

Long live HTML5 and open standards for the web.

You apple fanboys DO NOT GET IT. This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH FLASH IN A WEB BROWSER. It is about programming languages. Right now, I have several choices of how to write an iPhone app.

1) Code it in xCode on a Mac in Object-C and compile for iPhone.
2) Code it in Visual Studio .NET in say C# and compile it for iPhone using a translation layer (like Mono?).
3) Code it in Flash and compile it for iPhone using a translation layer (Adobe CS5)

and so on.

ALL OF THESE produce native iPhone APPLICATIONS. None of them have anything whatsoever to do with Flash web sites.

Apple has now said 1 is the ONLY option for creating iPhone apps. 2, 3, and any other related options no longer exist. That is why Apple is full of s*** on this move. And frankly, if it's technologically required, then their technology sucks. So long as an app compiles to a native iPhone app, they should not care what language it's programmed in.

 

[jimmyjoemccrow]

QFE

I am also a professional SW dev, I also started on embedded systems. I am telecom (CDMA/LTE) network/callP layer developer today.

The main complainers in these thread don't actually seems to understand the very real issues.

Not a surprise, the ignorant are usually the loudest on the internet.

Enforcement of Native development is a completely reasonable requirement that leads to better resource usage, better applications, better skilled designers, better incentives for platform enhancement (which feeds back into better apps, better devs...

Beyond just making good technical sense, it isn't new. This has always been the case with the iPhone SDK/appstore. Hopefully it always is.

Are you saying that it's impossible to produce an app that will make the iPhone sluggish with the languages Apple do allow? Have you never experienced such an app on the iPhone? Apple have control over the applications that are put on to their store anyway, such an app can be removed at the approval stage.

 

[epirali]

I think you are still missing it. Any binary generated based on the DESIGN of flash scripting will most likely result in code that is just as bloated as the flash player. IF ADOBE COULD GENERATE lean code from the scripting why wouldn't the flash player itself be a lean and mean runtime environment?

Now as far as the other tools: yes they may be fine. But Apple can not control the assumptions they make. And if they want to make multitasking (limited form) work they may need much tighter control.

So yes they are throwing certain tools out. But I do not believe it is without reason. Some may not agree, but a lot of people are yelling without actual understanding. You can agree or disagree, you can point out the loss of good tools (NOT flash based), but let's acknowledge there are REAL TECHNICAL reasons for this decision.

Non of that is necessarily true. Parts of the Flash applications is software code. That the Flash libraries are "bloated" is largely immaterial. They are implemented in C/C++ too so aren't really the problem with the restriction.
The new restriction doesn't block those at all.

You should note also that Apple blocks assembler language here too. Assembler is faster and less bloated that C/C++/Objective-C. If you embedded app with scarce resources has a small critical section of code that requires maximum speed and minimum space you are out of luck.

This is about throwing the baby out with the bath water. Apple blocks not only bloated code but more efficient code here also with the much uses exactly these 3 forms of syntactic sugar to compose your code in.

Note also that this strictly also bans tools such as UML modelers that generate C/C++/etc too. Also GUI building representation tools which also generate code from other presentations of a program. That you must write 100% of your code by tapping keys on a keyboard in a specific syntax is ridiculous. Reminds me of the old cantanerous mainframe guys yelping about how can't possibly write apps except using 360 assembler all those abstraction languages like C++/etc just layer too much overhead to get properly performing, efficient programs. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

If apple wants all the applications run through the c/c++/objective-c front ends of gcc or llvm fine. That seems kinds of quirky and is goofy to put into a contract. That isn't necessarily going to get you better apps.




Apple may be trying to block Adobe Flash but they've blown up numerous other tools that improve programmer productivity and do not necessarily result in "bad" applications.

 

[NebulaClash]

Or your just behind html5 because is cool and hip?

No, because it is an open standard.

 

[zacman]

Apple created H.264: why aren't companies willing to develop on Apple product, use the standards Apple recommends on the platform they built? Apple recommends HTML5 (which is an open standard, no?) so why is everyone talking about "proprietary'?

Because Apple only allows certain parts of HTML5. You can only use the video tag if you use a H.264 codec for which Apple gets royalities. They don't support the video tag for any other codecs, especially not for open source and royality free ones like OGG Theora.

Apple even blocked that HTML5 gets an open source codec by default:

"Apple Inc., a member of the MPEG LA, has also opposed the inclusion of Ogg formats in the HTML standard (...)

On December 10, 2007, the HTML 5 specification was updated, replacing the reference to concrete formats:

User agents should support Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio, as well as the Ogg container format.

with a placeholder:

It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available.

The removal of the Ogg formats from the specification has been criticized by some Web developers. A follow-up discussion also occurred on the W3C questions and answers blog."

 

[Rivix]

Couldn't resist... I love apple, but hate companies that limit what you're able to do.

 

[monke]

"Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5"

To be honest, I hope Adobe's CS5 sales are terrible. They need to start offering more updates to fix problems, then revamp the entire suite on updates. All they're doing is modifying the UI a touch, adding one or two features, and calling it a new suite...

 

[epirali]

I think the more Android phones (and others) use flash, the more this might hurt Apple. If Android takes the market share, and most websites keep flash, the more this will hurt apple.

I'll bet more Android phones ship with Flash the worse they will do and it may actually make Android seem like a bad platform. Users DO NOT differentiate why the phone is acting badly, they won't go "oh its just flash."

 

[peter02l]

There are other framworks out there from companies like Appcelerator that are effectively restricted as well given the language used. They wrap Apple API's into a higher level abstraction to provide rapid development and better cross platform support. You have a native app using native Apple APIs however it was written with an abstraction so per the SDK changes it would seem even frameworks like these, which support a wide range of popular iPhone apps will now be prohibited.

This "better" cross-platform support will come at the expense of a lower common denominator for cross-platform features. This is not what users deserve. Adobe should instead focus on developing their Mac apps to take advantage of Mac-specific features. They are trying to have it both ways, cut corners while maintaining their hegemony in creative tools. They have had years to address these issues and they sure have been charging us enough to expect it. If Adobe don't seriously address the Mac platform we will surely see their design apps face serious competition as well.

 

[AidenShaw]

Ok, this is purely speculation, obviously, but:

* It seems pretty obvious that Adobe's Flash compiler will not support whatever native API calls exist in OS 4.0 that relate to multitasking, because Apple just announced them two days ago and it's fairly clear that they aren't keeping Adobe in the loop in terms of their future plans.

* So, most likely Adobe's compiler will produce native apps that use OS 3.x API calls.

* However, it also seems likely that existing iPhone 3.x apps will be able to be run on OS 4.0 without needing to be recompiled. So the apps produced by Adobe's compiler would appear to the phone to be just an older style app.

* Since we expect that existing older-style apps will not cripple multitasking or otherwise create issues with OS 4.0, it's reasonable to assume that neither will the Adobe apps.

Be careful. Rational analysis and clear writing could get you banned from MacRumours!

Seriously, though, good points that destroy some of the FUD going on around here.

 

[ValSalva]

They need to start offering more updates to fix problems, then revamp the entire suite on updates. All they're doing is modifying the UI a touch, adding one or two features, and calling it a new suite...

+1

 

[drackmere]

Response is telling.

I think the last three lines on his blog is quite telling:

Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino Comment SPAM bots.

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Comments are closed.

 

[russellb]

So go buy another product

Apple is holding their customers hostage to restrictions and high prices (damn MBPs still expensive!!)

So go buy another computer or another OS

The point is Apple customers choose to use Macs, Iphones etc because they are better products ... no one forces you to use Apple products there are plenty of other 2nd class choices

Is Apple perfect NO, are their products perfect NO , do they have some annoying restrictions on their ecosystem YES ... but customers still choose their products ..

 

[Rivix]

Do we know how well this Adobe thing worked? What if it worked perfectly fine?

 

[sgibson]

Because Apple only allows certain parts of HTML5. You can only use the video tag if you use a H.264 codec for which Apple gets royalities. They don't support the video tag for any other codecs, especially not for open source and royality free ones like OGG Theora.

HTML5 does not specify the format for video. Using H.264 is completely complying with the HTML5 specification and, as an aside, has much better performance.

 

[some12b]

"Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5"

To be honest, I hope Adobe's CS5 sales are terrible. They need to start offering more updates to fix problems, then revamp the entire suite on updates. All they're doing is modifying the UI a touch, adding one or two features, and calling it a new suite...

Credit where credit is due - their new Photoshop looks amazing.

 

[CFreymarc]

I think the more Android phones (and others) use flash, the more this might hurt Apple. If Android takes the market share, and most websites keep flash, the more this will hurt apple.

You are assuming that people want to run Flash on a small mobile handheld device when most Flash apps run for screens ten times the pixel count that an iPhone.

The reality is that the current iPhone / iPad crowd does not want to run Flash! It is only a demand of a small, technocratic group that will bitch about anything that doesn't come with anti-gravity build it. And the if it did have anti-gravity, they would bitch about different planetary gravitational field supports! LOL!

If anything this "Flash Feud" is brilliant PR and advertising for Apple. It is getting them press. It can be said that people are seeing that the Adobe Emperor is not wearing any clothes. A nice 80 / 20 public opinion split is occurring in Apple's favor if you can get away form your screens of code.

If I was at Adobe in the Flash group, I'd quit and consult moving Flash apps to HTML 5 and bill about $250 an hour. I'm sure a few did that already.

 

[Rivix]

I'll bet more Android phones ship with Flash the worse they will do and it may actually make Android seem like a bad platform. Users DO NOT differentiate why the phone is acting badly, they won't go "oh its just flash."

To be fair, iPhone apps arn't perfect either. They still crash too.

 

[Art Mark]

Look, I am not a Flash fan either, but...

Adobe hasn't closed down Flash so much to only support development on Adobe's platform...

You can create Flash files in a number of programs - Corel, Swish, Swift, etc.
There used to be several open source development projects to to replace Flash Generator, Flash Server, etc.

Adobe never threatened to sue them or lock them out.

Apple closing off developers and saying you can only use what Apple says, sucks!

I think this is an issue of Apple saying "This works best. We want software that works the best." Can you write an App in Cobol and have it run on the iPhone? Or Visual Basic? I think it makes sense that APple has a preferred method. It's not a 'language independent' 'open source' device. I think the anger has to be related to people who feel Flash is the only thing they know, or the only thing they want to know and use. I suspect, from the Flash people I know, few of them know much about other languages. Many fell into Flash and have benefited from high rates. But what their general programming expertise level is is unknown.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Because Apple only allows certain parts of HTML5. You can only use the video tag if you use a H.264 codec for which Apple gets royalities. They don't support the video tag for any other codecs, especially not for open source and royality free ones like OGG Theora.

"Apple Inc., a member of the MPEG LA, has also opposed the inclusion of Ogg formats in the HTML standard (...)

I didn't know that Apple was part of MPEG LA. This explains so much. Come 2016, Apple gets another source of revenue when those royalties kick in.

True. It's about Adobe's flash to iPhone converter against C, Objective-C and C++.

I think it's pretty much about middleware.