Is MonoTouch now dead in the water? | Hacker News Reader

Is MonoTouch now dead in the water?

redth.info

31 pointsrayvega13 comments

I don't agree with the conclusion here. If you're using MonoTouch you should panic. You should be looking at backup plans and asking yourself whether you can use web apps.

Because even if Apple decides not to drop the bomb today they might tomorrow or the next day. You're living on borrowed time if you use MonoTouch. It's not fair but it's true.

Apple could drop the bomb on any language at any time (including Objective-C). You're presuming that Apple wants to kill MonoTouch, which I don't think is a foregone conclusion. I personally think that this is all about Flash and MonoTouch has very little to do with it from Apple's standpoint.

That might be true, but is it worth the risk?

If you've already got a MonoTouch app as SamAtt claims, then the risk is already taken.

Apple's agreement explicitly bans apps that were built with MonoTouch (or Titanium, or whatever). It really doesn't matter what Apple's intentions are, what matters is that they're willing to fuck over a whole bunch of existing developers for whatever reason.

You'd have to be extremely foolish to start an app with one of these toolkits. The onus is on the developers to comply with the SDK agreement, unfortunately.

> If you're using MonoTouch you should panic.

I would go further than that, and say if you're developing for the iPhone or iPad, you should panic, since you have no way of knowing what shit Apple will throw at you next week, next month or next year.

I can't believe we even have to have this conversation. It's absurd. There really isn't any other way to put it.

I feel wrong about having an iPhone now. I feel dirty.

" MonoTouch apps have very little evidence that they were created with MonoTouch"

Maybe that's fine for a small independent developer to take that risk. Some big organization with lawyers will not do this, and a startup probably will not either.

"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++"

I don't think Apple can get more clear than this. This is referring to your application.

"Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited"

Yes this bans MonoTouch.

I'm a big MonoTouch fan. And even I can admit that MonoTouch apps have a lot more startup time than native apps. The MT team has done a lot to relieve this, but it's still there and still obvious. I think that alone makes Apple not like MT :-/

And all this time everyone thought Microsoft was the big threat to Mono.

Mono does not have a place/platform they can comfortably call home. Marginalized by the Microsoft/Windows community, marginalized by the Linux & Mac communities, and now banished from the IPhone/IPad platform.

Really good point mentioned by the author, "Apparently every game produced by EA on the App Store would be in violation of the terms due to the fact they use Lua for scripting."

Does Apple really expect EA to select a new scripting language for their games or block scripting/add-ons on the iPhone/Pad versions?

EA being the size they are will presumably have some negotiating power to be allowed to use Lua. More to the point, EA probably can check with Apple in advance if they'd allow a particular game, just as it's done on other game consoles. You don't have to worry about EA, you have to worry about the thousands of little developers who don't have the direct wire to Jobs's desk. Developing for the iPhone is becoming a liability, not an investment.

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