Apple puts a flailing, disenfranchised Adobe out of its misery and bans cross-compiled apps from iPhone OS devices

> Cross-compiled ports are notoriously buggy and incongruous
> with native applications.

I see 2 failure points in this:
1) A developer can generate a buggy and incongruous app with Apple's certified developer tools.
2) What, if anything, is the value of the submission process to iTMS if not to capture such apps, regardless of the source of the app? Apart from filtering nudity, too, of course.

This rings hollow.

Come on! This is ridiculous! I don't see Android limiting their users! I have had it with Apple and their closed system! Because of it if you want to develop an iPhone or iPad or iPod touch app you then have to purchase an APPLE computer and then have to use an old outdated programming language! It would be like Microsoft saying no no no you can't use photoshop you have to use our tool! MS Paint because it is soooo much better! Yea right! Give me a break Apple!

I think you should try and separate opinion from fact. What evidence to say that adobe is "flailing and disenfranchised"?

I also agree with the above poster that your excuses for apple are hollow and I do think "even Apple would be that blatant and pigheaded."

And thus ends any thoughts I had about the iPhone 4G. I simply don't like the way Apple operates. I'll gladly "settle" for the HTC Incredible operating the latest greatest Android OS when that comes out.

God, what a bunch of douche bags. My hatred for Apple grows!

I have always been an Apple "fanboy", but they are starting to get Microsoft on us. Why should they care where the application started, as long as it follows guidelines and meets the requirements for submission?

It's like building a house. There are codes you need to meet to get a certificate of occupancy. They don't tell me to use Stanley tools. Or only hand tools. As long as my house is up to code.

My company has a lot of time and materials invested in Flash applications. I was hoping that Adobe would continue to make compilers so I could extend these to iPhone, Android, and of course browsers. So now I have to develop on Objective C -- which of course means ONLY the iPhone? and maintain other code for desktop browsers and Android?

This is ridiculous.

Nice to see Apple competing in such a bold and courageous way.

I'm disturbed because I was looking for to using Monotouch, a toolkit to allow you to use C# to code iPhone apps. The toolkit uses the native iPhone UI components (unless you draw your own), so visually, they would look the same as Objective-C apps. I'm not sure how different the compiled code would look like in that regard...but MonoTouch also does garbage collection, so I'm pretty sure it would be easy for Apple to determine that your app is not "legal"...

Rich

I'm hoping that there is more than just the excerpt above in regards to which languages developers can use (though I'm guessing there isn't). As a developer, I'm insulted by Apple thinking they can dictate to developers what languages they must user for development. I can understand making sure apps don't do malicious things. And I can understand making sure apps don't crash or do other bad things to the system. And I can even understand making sure that apps look consistent. But as long as I'm not doing anything bad, play nice with others and provide a decent user experience, why should Apple care what language I used to develop? As long as it compiles to executable code and follows the above additional requirements, original source language is totally irrelevant.

If there are no other exceptions after the above quoted excerpt, things like apps developed using 3rd party compilers that use other languages would be rejected. Even using code generation tools written in other languages to generate C, C++ or Objective-C code or custom scripting languages that drive an engine written in one of the approved languages could be considered unacceptable. Totally depends on what is considered as the "original" development language. And given Apple's past app store track record, that interpretation could literally be anything.

I fail to see why anyone would want to develop for Apple... i'm amazed they are as succesful as they are.

I'll stick to developing on MS technologies... they look after their developers.

Ben Fry on the issue:
http://benfry.com/writing/archives/649

Apple is truly an evil company. Adobe is "flailing and disenfranchised"? Seriously? There must be Apple logos on the knee pads you wear for your meetings with Steve Jobs.

If some porting tools continue to be permitted and Adobe's are banned, then Apple sets itself up for anti-trust (i.e, create a policy for their platform and selectively only enforce it against a certain company).

A huge problem with this policy in concept is that historically software development innovation has been as much about improvement of tools and languages that are used to create applications as it is about creating the applications themselves. Anyone in computer science knows other languages and tools can be fabricated to generate linker object file format output and necessary compliance to public APIs. So this policy turns the progress of software development on its head and sets things back 20 years to have a company come along and forbid any advancement/innovation in that aspect of this creative industry.

Of course the real reason is that Apple (Steve Jobs) is trying to manipulate developers into only creating their new apps for his platform (by raising the bar of impediments that would enable them to create their apps for other platforms too). The Adobe creative tools suite is one of the foundational set of tools used by any company that is involved in development for the web. So forbidding their use and effectively permitting only the C language compilers supplied by Apple means developers have to cast their application completely into a software code that is good only for the Apple device platform.

For small companies it makes it that much harder to try and also target Android and other tablet platforms that will emerge soon. They just won't have the resources to redevelop their app (as most folks really won't be making that much off of $1 apps anyway - just a few companies are going to be widely successful with six or seven figure revenue streams derived from the Apple app store).

Very simple reason for this. By not allowing cross ported applications, Apple is forcing developers to abandon other platforms in favor of the Apple ecosystem by cutting them off an easy way to leverage their work across multiple platforms.

I totally agree with a previous poster that Apple is the incarnation of an evil company and is so totally self-serving in every decision it makes, that it's not even funny.

Microsoft had the gall to package a web browser as part of their OS distribution and got into many years of legal battles about competitive advantages and forcing users to use IE. This on a platform that any user can install another browser in minutes without a single problem. And here Apple locks you into their ecosystem, uses a proprietary DRM for their content that does not play on any non-apple portable or streaming device, locks you into only buying apps they allow, and nobody says a peep about it. This has got to stop, and stop soon.

Where's the EFF, fair trade unions, etc when you really need them?

Apple proving yet again how childish and pathetic they are. Screw apple, their iMaxi and all their other products they so smartly put an i in front of!