Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhinoceraptor | Hacker News Reader

Arbitrary code isn't banned on iOS, there isn't anything (yet) that can create fully fledged apps like Droidscript, but a few cool apps are:

- iSH: an Alpine Linux shell environment, powered by an x86 to ARM JIT emulator

- Scriptable: an iOS automation tool using Javascript, it can even integrate with native iOS APIs like photos and calendars, create native UIs, etc.

- Pythonista: a Python IDE, you can create 2D games, use it as a REPL, integrate with native APIs, and much more

And of course, there are the 1st party apps, Playgrounds and Shortcuts.

View on HN

> Arbitrary code isn't banned on iOS

It is.

Even mozilla firefox is banned on the premise that it can run arbitrary code and yes, that is the official apple instance.

The fact that they apply it when they see fit and allow other times, and that it is totally arbitrary and opaque based on their own private interests, is exactly what everyone with common sense tried to explain when criticizing the walled garden.

My understanding is that what's banned on iOS is not arbitrary code per se, it's arbitrary code downloaded from the internet. Code you enter yourself, like in Pythonista, is just fine.

I believe Pythonista is interpreted, not compiled, and outside of Apple's Swift app you are not able to run compiled code

Isn't the problem JITing? Mozilla could ship Firefox, even with the JS engine, it would simply be unusable (compared to Safari) because they wouldn't be allowed to run JIT (only interpreter).

Really? you are you going to defend that point as not arbitrary?

If you want to split hair, where would you draw the line? Should pythonista go out of the way to prevent copy paste from the browser/email?

Or should apple, being non-arbitrary, also blocks adobe PDF reader since it can open PDFs from the web with javascript just like a browser would do?

> it's arbitrary code downloaded from the internet

That's a huge caveat though.

How far does that restriction extend? Can I share or import Pythonista projects from other people?

What's the difference between interpreting a file I downloaded from the Internet and visiting a website?

Firefox isn't banned, Gecko and SpiderMonkey are. For a few reasons, Apple doesn't want Blink/V8 demolishing users' batteries, and they have the excuse that allowing 3rd party browser engines is a security risk.

Firefox is in the AppStore.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com