Now that a beta version of iPhone O 4.0 and the corresponding developer putz have been liberate to iPhone developers , there ’s a young developer permit concord to go along with them . John Gruber of Daring Fireball noticed a drasticchange to section 3.3.1of that agreement , which originally forbidthe exercise of private framework — or software computer programing interface ( APIs)—and discouraged developers from using document , public APIs in manner not approve by Apple . Now , it study as follows .
3.3.1 — Applications may only utilize Documented genus Apis in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not habituate or call any private APIs . software must be originally write in Objective - C , C , C++ , or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone bone WebKit engine , and only code compose in C , C++ , and Objective - C may compile and directly link up against the document APIs ( for example , Applications that link up to Documented genus Apis through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).[emphasis added to spotlight novel text ]
With this variety , Apple has repair its concord so that software approved for the App Store has to be compose in one of a select few , Apple - approved scheduling speech , all of which are corroborate by its Xcode developer peter .
That seems to put the forthcoming Adobe Flash CS5 square in the crosshairs . Flash CS5 ’s Flash Packager for iPhone promise that developers could compose applications in Flash and then build them for use on the iPhone OS .
This was n’t just a feature article in Flash CS5 , this was theflagshipfeature — Adobe ’s foot in the threshold to enable its wide stable of customer to create content on an passing successful platform . It would have helped plough Flash into a crabby - platform development environment for iPhone software and other political platform , assuming it ’s actually capable of produce apps that are as snappy and responsive as Xcode ’s .
But the new terms of 3.3.1 could have far - reaching complications . Extremely ok performance alteration that can only be made in low - horizontal surface forum language seem to be off limits too . It also imply that other languages likeC#andSchemeare in hazard , and the future of cross - platform environment like ace look uncertain . ( In a argument , Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason say the company has a great kinship with Apple and there was no indicant that anything would interchange in their situation . )
Apple ’s developer concord forces developer to write high - quality covering that look and palpate like Apple computer software . After all , Apple does n’t desire the iPad to wait like any other lozenge , or the iPhone to look like any other phone , and it certainly does n’t desire its customers to trust that its own products execute badly as a result of third - party software program or tools .
It seems improbable that it would have come up to this were it not for Adobe ’s determination to continue with Flash Packager despite Apple ’s lack of support for Flash on the iPhone OS . Apple owns the computer hardware , the most critical software package , and the shopfront : one manner or another , every software company has to deflect to the whims of the program .
Which raises the question , did Adobe expect this to run out any other way ? Even media giant Condé Nastsaw the writing on the paries : though it has been developing a Flash Packager version of Wired for iPad , the evident clash between Apple and Adobe made it hedge its stakes anddevelop a version using Apple ’s methods as well .
Adobe is a puppet company , so it has to honour the platform — instead , it decided to work against Apple ’s interests . For well or for worse , Apple now appears to have totally lock Flash out of the iPhone . As a result , developers may not see a viable alternative to Xcode or HTML5 for a very , very long time .
