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Comment by commieneko | Hacker News Reader

No, Steve Jobs is not insane, this interpretation of the new rule is insane. Apple is merely (!) trying to control what tools people use to create software on their platform. I can understand why they want to do this, just as I can understand why I might, or might not want to comply. The legal terms used are to give Apple the tools it needs to get compliance. The only real issue is: do you want to develop for this platform or not. (I probably am, but mostly on the webkit/webapp side of things, which, so far, is still completely open.)

There are possibly some anti-competitive issues here, and if Adobe has any chance of getting around this rule, that's the way they will probably go. Good luck to them, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Really shocked by your comment.. How can you even start to say that any company controlling how developers write their code is acceptable?

It's complete BS. If I want to write it in (insert language here) and compile it into a compatible binary thats my choice not theirs. If I want to write it in Actionscript and compile down to objective-c who are they to say that I cannot?

"There are possibly some anti-competitive issues here"

really you think? Apple anti-competitive.. Naw </sarcasm>

Apple is worse then MS ever was. I had started to develop a program for the iPhone and then stopped a while back when apple started screwing over their developers. I am really glad I decided to switch to the android when I did.

It is acceptable for Apple to sell its hardware/software under any kind license that it wants to, as long as it isn't illegal. No one is under any obligation to develop for their platform. There are very real advantages to their closed wall approach; which console device makers have been doing for years.

You pays your money and takes your choice (or visa versa...)

Everyone understands that. What people are pissed off about is the "originally" part. Lets agree that the only acceptable compiler is approved by Apple and that's it. Ok fine. Now what is the material difference between me hand typing code into a source file and building it with the compiler, or me generating the source file with a tool and then it gets compiled? Apple has no way to know that you have done the latter instead of the former - but they still have made this a reason to kick you out of the store. More importantly they have killed any tool that does the latter. This is not about closed walls and consoles. This would be like Sony telling Playstation developers they must type in Dvorak. They are going up the stack - into the actual way people are creating code - when there is no good reason to.

No, that's like Sony telling you that you have to use their development garden, which, the last time I looked into console development, they did...

I'm pretty sure the agreement says nothing about what kind of keyboard you should use :) But if Apple wanted to specify that in their license, that's entirely within their rights.

You're missing the point. Just because it's legally within Apple's rights to do this, doesn't mean that we have to be happy about it.

No, you're missing the point, this discussion isn't about what we would like. This is about whether Apple is insane or within their rights to do what they did. There are lots of other discussions on this site about whether it's a good idea, or whether developer's should like it.

You can be both insane AND within your rights. Nobody is disputing the legality of what Apple is doing. What they are disputing is how stupid/insane/ridiculous Apple is by doing it.

Please feel free to cite some examples of people saying it's illegal for Apple to do this. You won't find any, because that's not the argument at hand. There's a difference between complaining about something and saying that it's illegal.

Please feel free to cite where I said anyone was saying it was illegal. The closest thing I can find to that is where I said:

"It is acceptable for Apple to sell its hardware/software under any kind license that it wants to, as long as it isn't illegal."

I was a top level post in this thread, responding to the article. Go read the article and then go and read my top post. The topic here is "Is Apple Insane." (Answer: No. They have valid strategic business reasons for doing what they are doing.) and "Are these policies acceptable." (Answer: Certainly, what they are doing is not illegal, and appears to be working successfully for them.)

Do you have to like it? No. Do you have to put up with this awful, sorry treatment. No. You can take your development efforts elsewhere. Develop for Android or WindowsWhatever.

"This is about whether Apple is insane or within their rights to do what they did."

So in other words, you can't and don't intend to address the topic at hand. bye bye...

> I can understand why they want to do this

I can't. Except as a land- and power grab in the "all your toil are belong to us" category.

I can understand that Apple attempts a strategic move to avoid becoming just another platform for Flash.

I can understand that Apple may want to cut down on the number of submissions, and are assuming that those that go to the trouble of learning Objective-C/C/C++ are the "real professionals", as opposed to those who once spent a weekend learning Flash.

I can understand that Apple wants a minimum quality to their apps and are not happy when the exact same code is cross-compiled to a dozen devices: The code would probably be developed to the smallest common multiple, would look and feel bad and would not play to the iPhone's strength. In short, it would make the iPhone look bad, and users would blame the iPhone and Apple.

I can understand that Apple doesn't want a 10kB app to ship with a 1 GB translation library. (From comments I've seen elsewhere, it appears that this is how the Adobe tool does it.)

Maybe I can even understand that they might want to strengthen their nuclear law arsenal with a poison pill in case someone falls out of favor.

But: Which tools I use and how I use them is not Apple's f...ing business - I don't work for Apple, I'm an independent developer.

From my point of view, Apple has every right to be as anal retentive as they wish regarding what they accept - it is their store and their party.

But Apple has no right to any opinion whatsoever regarding how I create those deliverables - that is my business, and remains so until I submit it.

Whatever Apple is trying to achieve here, outlawing pretty much anything a developer can do to increase productivity is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I can't see this as anything else than a pure power trip ("see how we can make them jump") and a big F... Y.. from Apple to their developers.

Now whether Apple actually intended it to come across that way is another discussion.

But we have no way of knowing either way unless Apple deigns to clarify. And Apple is hardly known for being talkative on controversial issues...

[update: minor spelling, phrasing]

You seem to understand _many_ reasons why Apple would want to do this. Apple has every right to sell its stuff with whatever kind of license they want. Just as you (and I) have every right not to develop for them.

The thing is that, for now, Apple is selling something that _many_ people want to buy, and that _many_ people want to develop for. So they have the upper hand. Nothing illegal or crazy about it. Now certainly things can change in the future and they _might_ become more accommodating.

Complaining about probably helps a little. Not developing for it helps more. Not buying the hard helps a lot, but the developer community is _much_ smaller than the consumer community...

> But Apple has no right to any opinion whatsoever regarding how I create those deliverables - that is my business, and remains so until I submit it.

So, companies in the 1980s had no right to any opinion whatsoever regarding whether or not the products they sold benefited the apartheid regime in South Africa? Amazon has no right to any opinion whatsoever regarding whether or not the books they sell are printed on paper made from trees harvested from virgin rainforest? Target has no right to any opinion whatsoever regarding whether or not the clothes they sell were produced in sweatshops?

There are a lot of arguments that can be made against this new rule, but the argument that Apple doesn't have the right to impose the rule in the first place is utter and complete nonsense.

"merely (!) trying to control what tools people use to create software on their platform"

Put any OS of your choice, except iPhone, in that sentence and it sounds pretty darn insane to me.

Don't game consoles have expensive, compulsory SDKs?

Yeah, and that's why your console spends 90% of its life powered off.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a stupid policy even for Nintendo, Sony et al. My point is that stupid != insane.

Insanely stupid then.

I thought that was because I had to go to work...

Yes, and none of them have ever included a rule against cross-compiled code, to the best of my knowledge.

Right, none of them have the complete monopoly to insist on exclusive titles. Notice how big a deal they make it when they do get a studio to do an exclusive.

Apple can get away with this for now, then when WinPhone7 comes out (or somehow they get some real competition), start backing off if they need to. In the meantime, they'll build up more developers that have developed skills in iPhone only tools.

Even if they do you can still write your own languages that compile down. Ala: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp

No, that's exactly what the terms are saying you _can't_ do. If you used something like GOAL, you wouldn't be starting out in Objective C, and thus you'd be in violation of the new terms.

He was referring to game consoles, for which you _can_ use other languages to compile down from, so they are less restrictive than the iPhone.

Thanks. Sorry, I misread. And that's an interesting point too, because until now, an argument I commonly heard in support of Apple was, "At least the App Store is better than the console game environment."

Yes, but you are not restricted in what tools you can use to develop and compile your code.

this interpretation of the new rule is insane

OK, I'll bite. What's the correct interpretation, according to you?

Presumably it's "as long as you're using the Cocoa Touch stack as your primary development environment, we don't care what other tools you use; however, if you want to use Flash, develop for a different phone."

Insane? No. Worrisome in its arbitrary restrictiveness? IMHO very much!

Since my memory span goes more than a year or two back, I vividly recall Apple shipping a product that had native app development available only to Apple. I simply don't believe that Apple owes everyone Flash.

Maybe this will get different when Apple owns 70% of the smart phone market. Right now, people are upset about not being able to use their preferred tools on the coolest phone. But they have no inherent right to develop on the coolest phone.

Some of us have already invested over a grand buying Macbooks and Unity licenses and test iPod Touches specifically so that we can develop games for the iPhone, though... Would have been nice to have known in advance that this would be ruled out!

Conceded completely: that sucks.

This is a step above just saying, "It's our ball, you can't play!" This is waiting until someone goes and buys a bat and only then telling them they can't play.

And that's where you lose me. It sucks to be out $2000 and having the terms changed on you. I hope they get refunds. But keeping Adobe out of the iPhone dev tools market doesn't suck at all. It's a totally rational decision and while it is not the decision I would make, I will in the end probably benefit from it.

I agree with you: the fact that this is happening to Adobe mitigates it somewhat for me, but that doesn't make the maneuver in the abstract any less severe. This is getting to the level of Microsoft telling everyone that the MFC is the way to go, but later on people discover that Microsoft is using something else internally for GUIs.

Yes but this excludes tools, such as MonoTouch, which actually do use the Cocoa Touch stack but allow you to code in C# rather than Objective-C.

Are they wrong about MonoTouch? Probably yes.

They're not going to do everything right.

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