Apple announced the iPhone SDK 4.0 last week which will bring several new changes to the already rich API. Most notably, the new license agreement bans the porting of application from other platforms, specifically targeting Adobe’s Flash CS5.
Most of us are familiar with the heated ties between Apple and Adobe, and with the release of the new SDK, the relations will only worsen. Adobe is releasing the next version their Flash product, the Flash CS5 professional today that will bring many exciting features to a large base of developers. The flash to iPhone compiler is being regarded as the flagship feature of the new release. This will allow the developers to compile the flash code into a native iPhone application and bring thousands of already existing flash applications and games to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
However, Apple explicitly banned this porting from languages other than C++, Objective-C or JavaScript.
“Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs.”
Thus submitting any application on the App store that is ported from flash will directly violate the license agreement. According to Steve Jobs, CEO Apple, “Intermediate layers produce substandard apps”. This news is a hard blow for Adobe as well as the flash developers who were waiting for the new platform for months. However, Kevin Lynch, CTO Adobe has declared that the iPhone packager will remain a part of the new release. He further pointed that if anyone is stopping the developers from using this new feature, its Apple. There is also a possibility that Adobe might move to other hand-held platforms such as Android, which would bring it in direct competition with Apple.
It’s likely that the iPhone packager leaves some traces of the flash application code. However, it’s uncertain for now if the native iPhone apps and those complied by the iPhone packager can be separated. Anyways, now the ball is in the developers’ court. Either they can maneuvers over the new agreement or stay confined in the Apple's boundaries for iPhone developers.
Commented by: 150cc mopeds, 2 May, 2010
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