Steve Jobs Offers Explanation About iPhone SDK Changes Restricting Adobe and Other Cross Compilers

[AidenShaw]

I think it was neither punishment nor arrogance. It was "we are spending too much money supporting carbon, and we might as well stop now."

I don't disagree with your justification (second sentence).

Arrogance, though, leads to making decisions without considering the impact on users and partners (or ignoring those considerations).

Maintaining compatibility for your partners is important if you want them to succeed. Microsoft understands that, and invests a lot of effort to advance without causing widespread havoc each release. You need to give your partners plenty of notice when an incompatible change is necessary. (E.g. most Vista drivers run fine on Windows 7, and Vista ran most XP drivers. Most XP drivers don't run on Windows 7.)

 

[iSee]

Unity + Xcode lets the same work be done in a TINY fraction of the same time. It provides physics and a zillion other things that would take many months to write from scratch. The massive cost to do so can be prohibitive for small indie game developers. They’d be risking way too much, with no marketing machine to make sure they recoup their losses.

Often, without Unity, the same game COULD be made... by Gameloft or Electronic Arts. Not by one person or a small team.

And by allowing rapid-development, it also makes it easy to tweak and refine and playtest early on, resulting in more creative, better games than that same developer could possibly create with Xcode alone.

Unity is of great benefit to the App Store. A ton of great indie talent (and developer trust) would be lost without it.

I think Apple could handle it like this:

Third-party platforms could sign an agreement with Apple to be a "platform provider." In exchange for Apple allowing apps based on the engine into the app store, the engine's developer agrees to meet certain requirements. Apple could set the requirements to address their concerns. E.g., the platform has to provide an easy way to bypass the engine to access API's directly (which keeps the engine from being a roadblock to progress if it is slow to adopt new APIs). Another restriction would be that the engine must use native UI elements and resources where they exist, rather than substitutes for non-game apps (well, this rule would take a lot of fine tuning -- you want to let developers and the engine extend the UI, but use existing UI elements where appropriate). This rule would help maintain native look & feel. Etc.

The end result is that engines that are good for Apple, the iPhone, and the app store have a way to stay in, and engines that are not (Flash of course, and I'm sure others) would not.

 

[KnightWRX]

Visual Basic on MSDOS

Orly ? Somehow, I doubt Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS, which was incompatible with its Windows counter-part, was as popular as you are trying to claim.

The fact that devs somehow don't choose to write pure Objective-C and use APIs like OpenGL ES and OpenAL directly is because they take too long to take you from scratch to finished product. Same reason your auto mechanic doesn't take raw aluminium to fabricate parts for your car, he simply bolts-off/bolts-on. It doesn't mean he's not a good mechanic.

Apple trying to block efforts by middleware/alternative toolchain providers is not related to user experience, quite the contrary. It is purely a move to prevent portability/platform independance. There is no greater good here.

(Flash of course

Ah, so you've had access to CS5 and have worked with the Flash packager extensively I see. Because, you stating that Flash is bad, as a fact, could only come from personal experience with the unreleased tool that is getting discussed as if it was the only tool impacted by this.

 

[firewood]

Maintaining compatibility for your partners is important if you want them to succeed. Microsoft understands that, and invests a lot of effort to advance without causing widespread havoc each release.

And many people think this is one of the things holding back Windows. Not everything making it easier for dev partners is good in the long run for end consumers.

Apple has several times mercilessly broken backwards compatibility. But after the complaints and uproar die down (what do you mean no floppy drive, SCSI port, LocalTalk?!!), often leads more quickly into the new paradigm.

And even Microsoft may be switching their viewpoint on this, as WM7 completely breaks backwards compatibility of mobile apps.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

How come when Apple price gouges its because of R&D and other things, but when Adobe price gouges its absurd.

 

[dm2]

You do realise most of the popular apps and games in the store are already written with help of third party tools?

well, it is one thing to use 3rd party static libraries that were written in Objective-C/C++, C/C++ (or even not static libraries but real sources)
and completely other thing is something that was packaged from opaque code.

so there are some 3rd party tools that are completely safe to use (from Apple point of view)
as far as I understand Unity is example of former and Adobe technology is example of latter.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Carbon is Dead Adobe. You dont' get a second bridge like 1997

Apple has finally realized they are so well funded and have all the leverage that they have cut the life support cord from Adobe and is making a brilliant decision.

Apple providing Carbon delayed Cocoa development as the direction of Apple for 10 years.

It's now thee development platform for OS X. Either you want to make money [lots of money] with Cocoa on the mobile and even desktop/laptop markets or you don't.

Your choice.

 

[KnightWRX]

Apple has several times mercilessly broken backwards compatibility. But after the complaints and uproar die down (what do you mean no floppy drive, SCSI port, LocalTalk?!!), often leads more quickly into the new paradigm.

Wait, there's nothing here about breaking backwards compatibility. In fact, they are forcing people to use backward languages (C, C++, Objective-C) and preventing them from using newer languages with better features.

This is quite the contrary to what they usually do. And what exactly is holding back Windows ? Last I checked, Microsoft is still in a monopoly position and Windows still gets every app under the sun, while every other platform is relegated to cheap ports or side ports.

Apple has finally realized they are so well funded and have all the leverage that they have cut the life support cord from Adobe and is making a brilliant decision.

Apple providing Carbon delayed Cocoa development as the direction of Apple for 10 years.

It's now thee development platform for OS X. Either you want to make money [lots of money] with Cocoa on the mobile and even desktop/laptop markets or you don't.

Your choice.

How did this become a thread about Carbon ? The iPhone never supported Carbon to begin with...

 

[firewood]

How come when Apple price gouges its because of R&D and other things, but when Adobe price gouges its absurd.

All companies gouge.. because the shareholders (maybe a portion of your parent's retirement fund investments?) really don't like it when the companies don't keep up, or preferably beat, the market.

 

[iSee]

I think this is a good read on the situation, from Ars Tecnica:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/apple-takes-aim-at-adobe-or-android.ars

That article is actually pretty weak. I agree with the main points: Apple is bad to do this, Google and Adobe are the real targets, others have been caught in the crossfire.

But a lot of bad points are made along the way. E.g., his claim that Apple never planned on having an SDK. Also, no one (well, no one reasonable) has claimed that all apps developed on cross-platform engines are crap nor that all apps developed using native APIs are not crap. I don't know why he's muddying the water with this stuff. The actual question is whether apps developed on non-native engines substantially dilute the quality of apps. That's a hard question to answer concretely, but that's the question.

Heh, I don't know why I'm bothering to critique someones stupid post with one of my own. Trying to avoid finishing the taxes...

 

[compuguy1088]

Unity + Xcode lets the same work be done in a TINY fraction of the same time. It provides physics and a zillion other things that would take many months to write from scratch. The massive cost to do so can be prohibitive for small indie game developers. They’d be risking way too much, with no marketing machine to make sure they recoup their losses.

Often, without Unity, the same game COULD be made... by Gameloft or Electronic Arts. Not by one person or a small team.

And by allowing rapid-development, it also makes it easy to tweak and refine and playtest early on, resulting in more creative, better games than that same developer could possibly create with Xcode alone.

Unity is of great benefit to the App Store. A ton of great indie talent (and developer trust) would be lost without it.

Even with a small team, it would be faster to use middleware, than to write a game engine from scratch. Hence why many games on desktop platforms license engines, ala Unreal, Quake, etc.

 

[powers74]

2nd

I have no inside info, but I do believe that Apple will be developing their own products to compete against Adobe in all other areas so as not to tie the release of hardware / software to Adobe's time table.

I'm hoping in the not too distant future there will be virtually no need for me to us a Microsoft or Adobe product. That's probably a little unrealistic, but possible. Photoshop & Illustrator will take a while to supplant.

 

[Phil A.]

No it's not. With JIT it's faster than it once was, but give me gcc and I'll beat it any time.

Go on, then - improve the performance of this if you can

Back on topic, Apple can do what they want with their own ecosystem and developers will either accept it or go elsewhere. I suspect it will be the former due to the far better opportunities in their market. If you are a good developer, it doesn't matter what language you use - you should be language agnostic and able to express your designs in whatever language is the most appropriate to the task at hand. As far as the use of game engines, etc is concerned, then it seems to me that a native iPhone game engine would probably be just fine to use as middleware as it will have been written in Obj-C (or C++) and link directly to iPhone APIs

 

[SteveSparks]

Yet after all the arguments and debates, thousands of applications both free and paid will be downloaded from the Apple App Store today, tomorrow and a month from now.

Developers will be making lots of money.
Apple will be making lots of money.
Someone some where will be setting their first iApp in the App Store.
A new developer will publish a new game in the App Store and Sell 10,000 copies in 1 day for $1.99, maybe more maybe less.

The truth is that people not just Apple will bet getting paid for Applications being sold to Millions of iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users around the Globe.

Sure someone with another tool, might have been part of that Global experience however that someone has the same opportunity as anyone else, at any time to develop an application within the Apple environment and make money.

I read a story about some developers working on a new game for the iPad. They were in line in New York, they flew in from Europe to get an iPad and work on the Application on release day.

Really, does it matter the tool?

Use the tool that Apple says is ok and go make a living. The amazing boom of the App Store is not paused while we are here debating a tool that will never see the light of day...

 

[SteveSparks]

Go on, then - improve the performance of this if you can

Back on topic, Apple can do what they want with their own ecosystem and developers will either accept it or go elsewhere. I suspect it will be the former due to the far better opportunities in their market. If you are a good developer, it doesn't matter what language you use - you should be language agnostic and able to express your designs in whatever language is the most appropriate to the task at hand

+ 50 Million

 

[compuguy1088]

Ha! I know of at least two game engine companies that started off trying to write games, but switched to the game engine business because it was easier for them to figure out how to be successful that way than finishing the design and marketing a great game.

Touche..........

 

[firewood]

In fact, they are forcing people to use backward languages (C, C++, Objective-C) and preventing them from using newer languages with better features.

Better given what metric? Could you please point out the power-aware or multi-threading APIs in ActionScript? Which feature in ActionScript makes use of the new Accelerate vector processing API for better performance and power efficiency? Which API allows you to release as much memory as possible to better share limited physical resources with background apps at exactly the time your user doesn't need them for your app?

Or maybe better to make it easier for someone who has picked up an apps-for-dummies book last week and has no clue that a floating point trig function will eat more battery life than an integer add if you try to do it a few billion times?

I know which metric I prefer...

 

[Ries]

No it's not. With JIT it's faster than it once was, but give me gcc and I'll beat it any time.

not but much and not everytime.

http://www.stefankrause.net/wp/?p=9

 

[Millah]

It amazes me how much people love to bitch and moan. If it weren't for Apple, these developers wouldn't even HAVE this huge market, Apple single handedly is the reason this huge software market even exists, and yet the developers want to strike gold on Apples platform while doing as little work as possible, and then want to bitch at Apple when Apple won't allow them to. They wouldn't even have this market in the first place if it weren't for Apple, and then get mad at Apple for wanting to maintain consistency on THEIR platform.

Apple has always had to make tough, unpopular decisions in the past (OMG NO MOAR FLOPPEEZ WAH WAH WAH), and each time the uproar eventually dies down and pushes the industry forward and increases quality.

I honestly think this is the right decision, and think its necessary to maintain a certain level of quality and keeping uniformity and consistency. People love to bitch about the app store now and claim most the apps are useless, yet if Apple just allowed devs to recycle flash garbage there would be so many more useless apps flooding the app store. And I guarantee you that all the fanboys right now trash talking Apple for making this decision, would be the exact same people trash talking the app store claiming its filled with useless apps. The double standards and hypocrisy of these internet fanboys is really pretty absurd.

 

[iSee]

...Ah, so you've had access to CS5 and have worked with the Flash packager extensively I see. Because, you stating that Flash is bad, as a fact, could only come from personal experience with the unreleased tool that is getting discussed as if it was the only tool impacted by this.

In my opinion Flash apps are bad, on balance, for the iPhone platform. Well, bad for Apple certainly and bad for users.

Apple doesn't want to loose control of its platform and has some interest in the general quality of apps.

Users, or course, have a strong interest in the quality of apps.

Flash apps will produce bad apps because:

Primarily affecting non-game apps: Flash imposes its own UI rendering and event system, breaking native look and feel. E.g., for a lot of the UI for most of the apps, buttons won't be the standard size, standard fonts won't be used, flick scrolling will be replaced with scroll bars or maybe won't use the correct drag coefficient, spell-check and word replacement will not work or will work differently than normal, fonts will be rendered with low quality anti-aliasing, etc.

Affecting Game Apps: Flash won't use hardware acceleration.

I haven't used the CS5 beta iPhone publisher, but I don't need to to see the downside of using Flash for iPhone apps. But these are the problems I see today with Flash-based web apps. Adobe can't address the UI issue, at least not without breaking compatibility with all existing host environments (in which case there's no point to using Flash).

Perhaps Adobe, could extensively optimize their rasterizer to be hardware accelerated on iPhone OS devices. But based on their previous record, I highly doubt it.


Has Adobe somehow addressed these issues
This is a big drawback for non-game apps. 2) Flash doesn't use

 

[SteveSparks]

It amazes me how much people love to bitch and moan. If it weren't for Apple, these developers wouldn't even HAVE this huge market, .......

I doubt, there is a single developer here that has a #1 paid app on the App Store who is complaining that Adobe is locked out. They are too busy developing a second and third application and counting their money.

I could be wrong....which is why its a doubt rather than an absolute...

 

[E.Lizardo]

Then as a stockholder AND a dedicated user, I'm glad to see apple putting customer experience, consistency and reliability above the whims of developers.
Apple has given developers a gold mine and all we hear is bitch bitch bitch.
Developers are not the customers.

Agree totally.
I'm glad they are taking steps to see that "it just works"and works well.

 

[peters438]

Nope. This falls into the category of "undocumented API"

No, it doesn't. "Undocumented API" refers to an Apple API present on the iPhone but not yet made public. Those are off limits. Libraries, 3rd party or in-house are fine as long as they are C, Objective-C or C++.

 

[clochard42]

It won't work anyway

Apple could let Adobe give it a try to bring Flash to iPhone/iPad, but it won't work anyway. And for end users it's better to prevent such a ridiculous effort completely.

iPhones have 128 MB RAM, 3GS and iPad have 256 MB. Most of it is used by OS X and the cocoa touch framework. For applications of the 128 MB there's about 30 MB left I read somewhere. And with 256 MB we don't want to waste memory either: Multitasking (some sort of) is coming - and it's obvious why it doesn't work on 128 MB iPhones and iPads: there's just not enough memory to keep multiple apps or even just parts of it loaded.

I even wonder how Apple managed to implement a working browser - Safari - using only that amount of memory. So no room left to add a Plugin (e.g. Flash) to the browser.

Vice versa? Let's create a stand alone flash application using the CS5 Packager for iPhone. See flash-on-the-iphone. Implementing flash means to duplicate many things that's already implemented in OS X and cocoa touch. And that computes to eating up memory.

My computer has 8 GB of RAM and I'm a java developer. So I don't have to care about 20 MB libraries, some MB of native JVM code, a hotspot compiler that compiles my code into native code (again sucking memory).

A "hello" wold program in C/C++/Objective C is some KB, using any other framework it blows up to use MBs.

Programmers have become lazy. My first computer had 8 KB of RAM and I learned how to spare it.

 

[E.Lizardo]

But they do manufacture the products that are the iPhones biggest selling point right now.

If I were an Apple stock-holder I'd be worried about the longer term effect this might have. A dispora of developers towards other products, particularly android, would be very alarming. Cross compilers would mean developers could make apps once, then simply compile one for the mac and one for other devices.

Given that android app development is growing at an exponential rate and apple have a very limited range of devices to sell against the growing range of Android and later Windows Phone 7 products, if apple lose developers they risk finding themselves isolated and left behind in the quality and volume of their apps.

People are arguing against cross compilers saying they can't adequately function on both an apple and google device. I find that ludicrous personally, since right now virtually all smartphones are using nearly identical hardware. At any rate, I see no reason why they shouldn't be given the chance to at least try - if the quality is bad, THEN block those apps.

Two points you don't seem to think are important.

1-85 MILLION iPhone OS devices.Any developer who turns their back on that because it's a little extra work won't produce anything of value anyway.

2-Apple's"limited"range of devices is a developers dream come true.One UI,and just a few minor differences in processor,etc.

To say Apple will have a problem attracting developers is,to put it nicely,not terribly realistic.