Apple Slaps Developers In The Face
theflashblog.com
theflashblog.com
1. Adobe isn't completely innocent. They're pretty close to a monopoly on their type of software and charge dearly for it (their Creative Suite costs as much as a MacBook Pro). They've done a lot to make sure there are no non-Adobe Flash players even when that's just hurting customers and not costing them money since they don't sell the player. They're not exactly "open" and "free".
2. Apple could be said to have an interest in not supporting intermediaries. Intermediaries are likely to create less efficient code and I'm sure they don't want to deal with developers using up their support time over things that are the fault of Adobe's Flash SDK or Novell's C# one.
3. It's also in Apple's interest to get people using Objective-C and their toolkit. It brings developers to the Mac by forcing them to buy one. That will have positive externalities in more software for the Mac. It gets developers into the Obj-C camp which means more people with Mac development skills. It means that apps can't be re-compiled for iPhone, Android, and webOS - and that's huge for customer lock-in. We all know how users get attached to their apps and I think it's easy to imagine Adobe building an Android compiler right after the iPhone one got finished.
Do I like Apple's stance? No. As a user and a developer, it's bad for me. However, Apple's the market leader and getting people to use their API gives them control and means that app developers will always be ready to use the latest new features they add while building a wall of incompatibility against Android and webOS that will keep users buying iPhones for apps in the way that users bought Windows computers for their apps for ages.
Jobs wanted web apps. Developers balked. Web apps would have been cross-platform (at least with Android and webOS). Apple responded to developers and now they've seen their chance to lock users and developers to their system.
Adobe isn't known for being open. Given the chance, Adobe seems to wall itself off as much as Apple. Companies tend to go for openness insofar as it's in their interests.
http://www.gnashdev.org/?q=node/25#eula http://www.gnashdev.org/?q=node/64
Other implementations do exist, but Adobe has taken action to hamper those efforts.
EDIT: Other people can argue for as long as they like about what is considered hampering, but Adobe isn't exactly free and open with flash.
See http://www.openscreenproject.org/about/faq.html to see how much Adobe has opened up since.
Also, it is worth noting that Adobe has never gone after these open source swf player projects.While i agree that Adobe is not as open as it should be, i dont see any reason not to appreciate a good gesture from a powerful company.
I hate when people say this. It's like saying "my point is valid, but people on HN are too stupid to get it".
They went after rtmpdump, a tool developed by the gnash devs after clean-room reverse engineering to eventually bring RTMP support (client video streaming) to gnash and other free players:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol#RT...
> rtmpdump is an open-source command-line tool that is designed to dump the full RTMP stream. It implements the RTMPE protocol, which Adobe believes to be an encryption and copyright protection scheme: however analysis of RTMPE shows that RTMPE is nothing of the kind. rtmpdump was removed from its original SourceForge page due to Adobe issuing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice, which Sourceforge did not have the resources to contest, and could not place any other sourceforge projects at risk. flvstreamer is a fork of rtmpdump which removes all the code that Adobe believed was in violation of the DMCA (due to the belief by Adobe that RTMPE is an encryption mechanism). flvstreamer still allows users to download a stream of audio or video content from all RTMP servers, as long as RTMPE is not enabled on the server. rtmpdump development was restarted in October 2009 and is hosted at the MPlayer site[5]. It has much improved functionality and has been rewritten in C (was C++).
I'm not convinced Apple is trying to force developers to buy Macs, and I'm far from convinced that such a strategy would actually work.
Indie Mac developers think a little differently than any other, and it's a direct result of the influence from Apple's UX aesthetic. There is immense respect for the conventions that have been established, and any feature that breaks away from them better have a damn good reason. I just can't see a developer that chooses Windows XP as their main operating system completely understanding the platform and putting the same amount of care into their work.
The funny thing is, Apple has been promoting their platform to developers for years by making it a Unix that just works. And now they're un-promoting it by having a bunch of developer-hostile policies.
I never did get around to it - my girlfriend went farther than I did - and so it sits, gathering dust, under my desk.
But if I had a toolkit that let me develop iPhone apps without having to buy a Mac Mini, then I'd be much more likely to develop an iPhone app.
So take me as a data point: the existing practical restrictions forced me to buy a Mac.
The App Store is 185k titles strong, most of them crap. Developers without a passion for the platform are exactly what they don't need any more of.
Jobs didn't want web apps, he wanted no apps. Web apps would have been more than useful given the right js APIs. It wouldn't have done a thing for games, but there's a great deal of stuff you could technically build in html + js if it were a true first class development environment.
Who cares about a company being "innocent" ? What does that even mean ?
>(their Creative Suite costs as much as a MacBook Pro)
Do you have a serious study saying that Creative Suite is overpriced ? Because it doesn't look that way to me. And what does that even have to do with anything ?
>I'm sure they don't want to deal with developers using up their support time over things that are the fault of Adobe's Flash SDK or Novell's C# one.
So they could have added a clause to the dev agreement saying they won't support the dev choosing to go with other SDK's or languages. That would have been a TOTALLY different story no ?
> 3. It's also in Apple's interest to [...]
Of course it's in Apple's interest. The way they're ready to alienate a non negligible part of their partner's base (because that's what devs should be, partners) for their short term interrest is kind of scary though. I even really doubt it's a clever strategy if you consider Apple's interest alone.
>Do I like Apple's stance? No. As a user and a developer, it's bad for me. However, Apple's the market leader and getting people to use their API gives them control
However what ? You know the problem isn't even the fact that the platform is closed to others languages. If it has been like that from the beginning of the IPhone/Ipad, it wouldn't be the same problem at all. The real problem in this story is that Apple is ready to screw other peoples businesses. It reminds me of the Playstation3/Linux story, in some ways. People have invested time and money in this platform, and yet Apple decides to change the terms of the game and screw them over completely. The fact that they have the right to do it doesn't make it right. It's immoral and wrong.
> Adobe isn't known for being open. Given the chance, Adobe seems to wall itself off as much as Apple.
Examples please. I may have forgotten some things, but on the top of my mind, i can't find anything even remotely similar to this.
People have invested time and money in this platform, and yet Apple decides to
change the terms of the game and screw them over completely.
What in this sentence do you not understand ?
Also, Apple relies on developers to make some of their profit. Even if it's a relatively small profit, screwing theirs openly doesn't look like a very clever business practice to me.
Did Apple make some sort of promise not to pull this sort of nonsense? Such promises do exist, BTW. They are called Open Source licenses. (Not an Open Source zealot by any means!)
Lesson learned, time to move on. Make a note that Apple is capable of this. Protect yourself with platform diversification or with platform on a FOSS license. Move on and make something of value.
No. Thanks. I have no urge to develop for iPhone, iPod or iPad, much less in Objective C.
I think I am gonna pass this one. ;-)
If you want a Mac, go buy one. You don't need Apple as an excuse. They are very good computers, very well built and have an OS that, IMHO, is second only to a decent Linux box as a development platform.
It's so good it breaks my heart to install Linux on top of it. So much in fact I never did it.
Except once, when I installed MkLinux on a Power 9500. Very nice X terminal, BTW.
As a developer, you choose the platform you intend to use to deliver your application. Nobody is being forced anything. There is a huge potential market outside the App Store.
If you bet the company on Apple's good mood, it's only your fault they pull your app, change the rules of the game and drive you out of business. They own the clients. If you want to sell to their clients, you better be ready do jump when they tell you to. Actually, it's no different than selling to a telco on a platform like Brew.
As a dominant player, Apple not only has to foster the development of killer apps for their platform, they cannot afford killer apps evolving on other platforms. Unless they change course, that's what will happen.
Development for a mobile device is different. If you were developing a Windows application, you'd be expected to own a Windows system. If you're developing a MacOS X application, you'd be expected to own a system that runs MacOS X.
But what about an iPhone application? By the above logic, you should only be expected to own an iPhone. Now, this analogy breaks down a bit, because I wouldn't expect anyone to actually develop a serious piece of software directly on an iPhone (at least not without an external monitor, mouse, and keyboard). So you need another platform to do your development on. Apple is requiring you to buy a Mac. Clearly they have development tools that work on Windows, otherwise Win Safari wouldn't be possible. A port of the iPhone SDK to Windows (or Linux, or whatever) is certainly not out of the question... it's just a matter of throwing resources and time at it. Now, again, I can certainly believe that Apple would think that restricting iPhone development to Macs is in their best interest, but it's ludicrous to suggest that this decision is also in their developers' best interests. I think that's what a lot of people are pissed off about.
Go to another mobile platform? Sure, you can do that, but then you're restricting your market. Yes, there are quite a few other lucrative mobile platforms (several of which have greater market share than the iPhone), but, as a developer, you end up with the unfortunate choice of having to either not develop for the iPhone, or buy an expensive piece of hardware that you only use for iPhone development. And by "expensive" I don't just mean the price tag. I also mean costs in training (even if it's self-training), maintenance (in 5 years your speedy Mac won't be so speedy anymore), and upgrades (IIRC you already can't install the latest version of Xcode on anything older than Snow Leopard; I imagine this trend will continue).
I know people like you seem to think that it's an easy binary decision: 1) don't buy a Mac and don't develop for the iPhone, or 2) buy a Mac and develop for the iPhone, but there's a lot that goes into that decision, including a judgment of whether or not developing an app that you may not be "allowed" to distribute is worthwhile.
It's not so cut and dried.
As with any business decision, you have to weight as many factors as possible. Unless you have some marketing muscle for promoting your app, chances are it will drown in an ocean of similar applications. Worse: in an ocean of applications with similar names and descriptions.
Going the Apple way has never been an easy thing. At least in the pre Xcode days, Macs had a wider choice (like two vendors?) of development tools. I never liked MPW and preferred the Metrowerks tools. On the Mac, you program to a small slice of the pie, but a less crowded one. The iPhone is different - it represents a huge slice of the "people willing to pay for mobile apps" pie, but the slice is very, very crowded.
I've been developing this metaphor while reading and posting to other threads:
- Companies are like states.
- Ownership is like sovereignty
- Open Source licenses are like constitutions and the rule of law
- Community processes are like democracy
(This doesn't mean that I won't publish on the App Store. But it does mean that I'm going to look at platform diversification as a safety measure! I guess this move by Apple has had the opposite from desired effect in my case.)
I too don't like what Apple did, but you are comparing different things.
Which is worse?
Stab <---> Not Stab
Professional <---> Not Professional
My claim is that a professional, not-stab approach would be more effective than a not-professional, not-stab approach. To me it seems like this is a bit difficult to argue against, but I suppose it's possible that this temper tantrum post will be more effective than a strong-but-professionally-worded post in the same direction. Maybe you disagree.
Regardless of whether you do, comparing Apple's behavior to Adobe's is irrelevant and misleading. Comparing the two might incorrectly lead people to believe that this post is a good idea because it compares favorably with what Apple has done. In fact, whether this post is a good idea is completely unrelated to how bad Apple's behavior is.
Let me clarify -- theflashblog.com is not produced by Adobe, the company. It is written by an official representative of Adobe, but it is not the official response of Adobe the company, and the site is not an official Adobe site.
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.
Comments are closed.
Please do not reply to this. Especially if you do not agree.
Publishing on teh intarwebs is cheap and easy. If some potential commenters want their own soapbox, they can easily get one. I honestly don't understand why it's become "required" that readers of any site should be able to comment on what's written on that site. Let the content stand for itself. If you have an opposing viewpoint, use your own channel to promote that viewpoint; don't leech off of someone else's.
One place where I do have issue with this policy is in the case of game engines/middleware (ie. Unity). Due to the complexity and development requirements of game middleware I think an exception, or a more refined policy, is required to allow middleware to give the required 'leg-up' to game developers. Additionally, while Apple has provided an awful lot of what developers need to create great View-based applications for the iPhone with Cocoa Touch (within the constraints what third-party apps are allowed to do, at least), they haven't done so for games. This is understandable, again due to the aforementioned complexity of game engines, but it makes games a special case.
I hate such broad-sweeping statements.
What is clear is that Apple most definitely would [abuse their loyal users and make them pawns for the sake of trying to hurt another company].
Apple has always been about the experience of using their products, and I think a lot of what they're doing with their mobile devices still stems from that focus. Maybe they're being too heavy handed, but, then again, they're not allowing grandma's phone to be overrun with software that affects the perception of the device itself.
Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino Comment SPAM bots.
I also find this highly patronizing.
That may be fine if you're 'just producing devices,' but Apple presents the iPhone and the iPad as the 'future of computing' with a vision of all computing being done on devices like this in the future. Therefore the way they treat their devices' ecosystem now should be a predictor of how they see their role in the ecosystem in the future, a future where their devices are the only devices.
> I hate such broad-sweeping statements.
I know no "real developer" who really likes Flash either, so, I find all this "oh no we want Flash" thing rather amusing.
> I also find this highly patronizing.
Patronizing? Sure... Incorrect? Probably not.
Uhhh
What?
The Apple Board?
Fire Steve Jobs?
Yeah, good luck with that buddy.
I just think this is starting to get a little morbid.
It's better to win in the field of ideas. If you have a better way, go compete. Create a phone or a tablet or a web site or whatever, and build a business.
Wishing someone dead so you can leach off of the one they built is a little 'punk-like'.
Now again, no disrespect.
I'm just sayin'.
I just wanted to address that whole line of thought before it went too far down the rabbit hole.
History is foremost in everyone's mind right now.
I think Jobs learned from those failures, but the history is a lot more complicated than "Jobs gets pushed out from Apple, Apple starts floundering, Jobs comes back and Apple succeeds."
You know that "too much of a good thing" thing, right?
Now, assuming Apple is using this language to defeat the expectation that Flash is viable on the iPhone OS, who really loses? I would argue that elimination of Flash is win for everyone but Adobe, but that's my opinion. Even if you like Flash a lot, you can't fault Apple for not accommodating Adobe given the belligerent history between them.
I guess I just have a hard time mustering sympathy for Flash developers after years of frustrating, shoddy, inconsistent web experiences with Flash. There are a few exceptions (artists like http://yugop.com/ come to mind, as well as the acceleration of online video) but, overall, Flash has been a nightmare for opinionated web users like myself. Good riddance.
It's not the language, it's the framework. UIKit and friends really are very good; they're the secret sauce of the iPhone OS and I'm not sure Android has anything comparable.
(The framework itself needs to be implemented carefully to avoid Apple's ire. Apple itself may want to implement it, as it would put their Obj-C toolset in the position as the original, and other platforms get the copy.)
did anyone read this before the post was edited?
As many other commenters pointed out here, theflashblog.com is not an official Adobe blog.This is definitely not "Adobe's reaction" as the title suggests.
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
[Sentence regarding Apple's intentions redacted at request from Adobe].
Of course, they stick pretty much on topic so I'm not sure if they occasionally inject personal opinion...
Edit: I just realized that you're not allowed to comment on it if there is one :)
No matter what Apple says in the next few days, nothing short of removing the new clause can prevent Apple from enforcing it at will.
Whether or not they "mean" things like PhoneGap are dead, etc., is irrelevant. The ability to kill any app because of its original source language is the important thing.
We have Gruber's interpretation of a complex legal document, taken completely out of the context in which "Application" is defined. Lawyers don't get paid big bucks to interpret this stuff for nothing.
Legal texts aren't software; it's actually in the best interest of Apple to define things as broad and vaguely as possible so they cover a large spectrum.
I think Gruber's interpretation is one that any person reading the document will have.
Not necessarily. See: http://andreyf.tumblr.com/post/508678742/stop-interpreting-l...
But if the author is counting on "not using the SDK" altogether then basically your whole developer agreement with Apple is void since the whole purpose was to develop "applications". And if the agreement is void there is no reason for Apple to accept your stuff on AppStore.
Unless it highly affects sales (which I doubt the average consumer cares about developers), or a very well known App developer pulls their apps completely (and by well known, I mean well known by the public like Facebook or EA), there'll be no formal or informal response.
Though I'm enjoying the show quite a lot!!!
Oh? Raganwald seems to be ok with this, especially since he does his iPhone development on the web platform and doesn't need Apple's permission.
"Any real developer would not in good conscience be able to support this."
So this is merely offensive and insulting to programmers, and can't create any lasting competitive advantage.
How professional.
Personally I'd prefer something profanity-laced that I can relate to (as long as it actually presents reasoned arguments!), over some artificial, self-censored PR-speak.
I personally reason entirely with Apple's choice. I understand every bit of it (and it's not just my fervent zeal of dislike for the obese, sluggish behemoth that Flash has become.)
Apple doesn't like Flash (or Adobe, depending on preference).
Adobe develops Flash to iPhone compiler.
Apple bans anything-to-AppStore apps that aren't "originally written in C/Obj. C"
...
* Adobe writes Flash to Canvas/HTML5 Apps ?
Apple has nothing to lose from that cornered last step to get onto the iPhone... The internet as a whole doesn't have anything to lose...
For once in my life I feel like an Apple fan. It's a shame it only happened under the influence of alcohol.
Edit: I feel very dirty all of a sudden.