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iPhone SDK Agreement Shuts Out HyperCard Clone
Halo1 writes "Demonstrating it's not just about Flash, Apple has officially rejected for the first time another alternative iPhone development environment following its controversial iPhone SDK Agreement changes. Even though RunRev proposed to retool its HyperCard-style development environment to directly expose all of the iPhone OS's APIs, Steve Jobs still rejected its proposal. The strength of RunRev's business case, with a large-scale iPad deployment project in education hinging on the availability of its tool, does not bode well for projects that have less commercial clout. Salient point: at last February's shareholders' meeting, Jobs went on the record saying that something like HyperCard on the iPad would be great, 'but someone would have to create it.'"
Just imagine the outcry if Microsoft banned all other development environments than Visual Studio and .NET from Windows. It would be hit with lawsuits and there would be tons of stories and tens of thousands of comments dissing MS on slashdot.
People also always cry about how consoles are locked down. Slashdotters cry about DRM, restrictions and not giving them control of the devices they buy.
But suddenly when it's Apple it's all ok. Why the hell?
product which pretty much everyone knew wouldn't get approved with the changes ... and now we're surprised?
This might have been news when the changes were introduced, now its just:
Duh, you knew you were treading on thin ice before you even submitted it.
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Jobs went on the record saying that something like HyperCard on the iPad would be great, 'but someone would have to create it'.
This being the same Steve Jobs that effectively killed the original Apple Hypercard back in 2000?
Maybe that should have read, "something like HyperCard on the iPad would be great, but we would have to create it, otherwise it clearly would not be insanely great..."
yes
if you are a mega corp and buy the idevice enterprise SDK license than you can load your internally developed apps directly to idevices. still a PITA to deploy to thousands of devices compared to running BES. but that is the state of mobile devices today. blackberries suck as devices. idevices are nice but Apple has no idea how to support corporate customers. Android is still too immature and has no corporate IT support
For something like Hypercard? Sure.
This isn't just the 10,000th fart app.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Steve Jobs has turned into a megalomaniac who is driven completely by business.
/. community, full of geeks, don't get this. Apple has turned into everything a geek does not want.
I am not even sure if this is metamorphosis. I think this would have a lot earlier had Apple been as successful as Micrsosft turned out to be. We are just finding out what assholes the CEO and the company are now.
Even after this, I can still understand why those who want to be cool and hip go crazy for apple products. What I do not understand is the
Steve is really trying to sell himself short, here. His reality distortion field has gone to his head, and he thinks he's bulletproof. And you know what? When he was the only game in town, he was bulletproof.
But he's not the only game in town. In fact, as of 1st Q 2010, he's not even the biggest game in town! As an application developer myself, the recent shenanigans around dictating to developers like me how we can or can't do our job and/or what tools we can use make the iphone a non-starter.
Sorry, too hostile for me, too much lockin for my clients, and not enough benefit. Android it is!
Isn't it ironic that the company responsible for opening up the smartphone market is now offering the most closed platform?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Apple are already struggling, and widely criticised, for their slow and inconsistent 'approvals' process.
Imagine the explosion of apps that would happen if multiple, and easy, development paths were opened up on the iPad/Phone.
They'd drown...
I
Then perhaps the question should be phrased as:
- how would this app need to be created so as to meet the requirements of the license?
William
(who is quite fond of Runtime Revolution as it was originally called and developed a ``ProportionBar'' app in it:
Windows: http://mysite.verizon.net/william_franklin_adams/portfolio/interfaceconcepts/proportionbar.zip
Mac OS X: http://mysite.verizon.net/william_franklin_adams/portfolio/interfaceconcepts/proportionbar.app.sit )
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
You can develop however you like on OS X, which would be the analogous case to developing on Windows.
Find me a 10" MacBook on Apple's web site. The closest thing is iPad.
This is not about an iPhone app, but about a development environment to create iPhone apps. The company contacted Apple after the SDK agreement changes to determine whether there was any way they could adapt it to the new requirements, and apparently got their final rejection notice from Steve Jobs (see the fine article).
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I just picked up a HTC Incredible and shall I say it is, incredible... the significant reasons are AT&T sucks and the iPhone is cool but it is so married to Apple's blessings. It's one thing to be cool; it's entirely another to be free to choose what you do with your tools. Apple should be careful because it's only a matter of time that something like Android will come and decimate your business model.
It depends on what kind of functionality you want. With my iPod classic I use foobar on the iPod itself as a portable application to manage my music collection. My iPod touch is completely jailbroken and can install 3rd party apps via iTunes. But as another poster correctly pointed out, unless you're willing to devote a lot of time and potentially brick your device, you're pretty much stuck in the walled-garden.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Apple is not selling the iPad as a PC or even as a computer. It's a device. As others have pointed out, you don't see a lot of complaints about manufacturers of other devices not supporting developers. Microwaves, refrigerators and other appliances have computers in them. How about your cable box? You can hack them if you wish, but we accept the fact that if you do you violate your warranty. We accept the fact that development tools are not provided or supported by the manufacturer, because it’s a device they’ve defined and they support.
Until the iPhone, how many phone manufacturers supported the development of phone applications beyond a few chosen partners? How many carriers or manufacturers allowed you to distribute your applications using their facilities or run on their networks? Apple provided more freedom to developers on their iPhone than you could find from any other major manufacturer. Suddenly it’s your right not only to go further but to also have Apple spend its resources and risk its business and reputation supporting you? Sense of entitlement have you?
Apple isn’t stopping you from doing what you want with your iPhone or iPad, they are just refusing to help or support you.
You have more computing power in a Toyota Prius and many other cars than you do in an iPad. Why aren't slashdotters demanding free development tools, etc. for cars? If you took it upon your self to hack your car; would you expect to be covered by the manufacturer if it was then unsafe, unreliable or inoperative? I want Linux for on my Prius! Open source my BMW!
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Do you mean to say that Microsoft is now going to force developers to publish through its app store and nothing else?
This appears correct.
I did not know that. Citation needed please.
From this InformationWeek article: "All apps must be approved by Microsoft, and can only be distributed via the Windows Marketplace for Mobile."
I'll bet that HyperCard app would look cool on an Android phone if the developer decided to port it over... hint, hint.
Everything that has gotten approved so far uses XCode as a build step. You don't necessarily have to do all your development work in XCode (i.e. Unity game engine),
Where have you seen that Unity has been approved by Apple? All I've seen is the Unity people saying "we think we're fine because Apple can't afford to remove all apps on the appstore that have been built with our engine, but obviously we can't offer any guarantees".
Cross compile to an XCode project with things like static libraries for your runtime and everything will be fine.
I'm not sure how you can interpret an SDK agreement stating, a.o.,
as
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Well those people were wrong for sure. I really like my iPad, but it is no substitute for a PC - whether desktop, laptop or netbook. It's better than a PC for users who are only looking for an internet, media and communications device. I can e-mail, create small documents, edit and present, but its not very good at serious original content creation.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Microsoft is doing what it always does: Copying.
But in this case, the copying went the other way around. Microsoft had the XNA Creators Club ($99 per year) and Xbox Live Indie Games several months before Apple had the iPhone Developer Program ($99 per year) and App Store. This is just Microsoft extending the XNA model to phones.
And I'd like it if Apple would be at least a bit more open about any number of things (like java 6 being two years behind)... But Apple's been pretty clear about at least a few points:
1. Don't ship crap. Say what you will about the iPad/iPhone... the hardware and software is definitely not crap.
2. Write once run anywhere always has issues (abstraction layers too). I'm a long time java swing guy and >I know that java apps are not ideal for normal end users.
3. Badly performing apps create a stink that gets on everyone.
#3 is ultimately what apple wants to avoid. A bunch of apps written on some third party abstraction layers that ALL break when apple does an update (apple can't QA everything). Then people think the iPhone/Pad suck... not the hidden abstraction layer.
And like it or not they are now at least being consistent about it. No abstaction layers for anyone!
I hate it when people trot out that tired convicted monopolist argument.
So if tomorrow the Supreme Court found Apple to be a monopolist with regards to smartphones (setting aside all plausibility arguments as to such, this is a hypothetical), I presume that would make you say what Apple is doing is wrong?
I somehow doubt that would be the case for most people that raise the convicted monopolist argument.
Legality is not the same as morality.
If we were all guaranteed with a crystal ball that Apple would forever remain a niche player and that the iPhone/iPad mobile ecosystem would not become the dominant paradigm of mobile computing, then I would agree with you. However, given Apple's current trajectory, this conclusion is by no means clear to me. So in the meantime, I am trying to prevent that from happening, but raising attention to the bad things that would happen if Apple's current growth continues unimpeded.
This is about rights and freedoms. Freedom of choice is meaningless if when the time comes to make a choice, there is only one thing to choose from.
What's to stop them from making an enterprise deployment? Or have the rules for that changed? Looking at Chapter 5 of the guide (http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/), you can use the iPhone Configuration Utility to deploy a signed package, the only thing you need to do is get a signature via Apple, then send out a config that includes instructions on how to get the app.
What am I missing?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I don't care if it's arbitrary to you or not. Apple sees them as such, so that's how it is. If you don't like it, that's excellent, there are many other products for you to choose from.
And your paranoia is absurd - "a grim digital dark age for humanity" thanks to Apple's sdk limitations, hahaha.
Unless you're referring to the word monopoly by its legal definition, which would not be relevant to discussions of whether what Apple does ought to be considered a problem, how you define whether something is a monopoly is crucially important.
Everyone loves to trot out that Nokia owns something like 50% of the global market for smartphones. Then they gleefully point out, Apple isn't a monopoly!
However, you take the players that are bigger than Apple on the market, and you examine their products. Nokia's so-called smartphones are not used as smartphones by the vast majority of their users. What percentage of Nokia users have ever installed a program on their phone? Likewise Blackberry's so-called smartphones are used basically as email/messenger terminals. The only significant installed programs on Blackberry's are those that are pre-installed by the corporation's IT department.
The only major player besides Apple in the real general purpose mobile computing device market is Google Android. However, despite their recent uptick in sales, at the moment, if we were to look at installed base of Android and iPhone OS mobile devices, iPhone OS is in a monopoly position.
It may not be a legally cognizable category to act upon (yet), but the real market we need to be looking at is mobile general computing products. Mobile computing very likely will replace what we now call desktop computing in the future, and if current trends continue, we may find ourselves in a situation where what we can run on our computers is in the hands of a single company that has exercised power ruthlessly in the past.
Long story short, Apple is a monopoly in an emerging market that looks like it will be incredibly important in the future. When it acts like a dick with the power that it has now, I'm going to try to convince others to consider Apple's business practices as a bad thing.
I don't know anyone here in the US personally who gets by with their iPad/iPhone alone
That's because it has to be synced to iTunes before it will work. Once Apple drops that restriction, watch people start "get[ting] by with their iPad/iPhone alone". A lot of people in Japan, where homes are smaller due to exorbitant land values, already get buy with other models of phone alone.
You say you don't care about Apple's draconian actions in your original post.
You then respond to me and imply that you would care if they had an illegal monopoly.
So would it be accurate to characterize your belief as you only care about things, and think they're bad, if they're illegal? For example, if it were legal to have a monopoly, you would not care if a company had a monopoly and exercised it in an anti-competitive fashion?
Personally, I find things good or bad, generally irrespective of what the law says about them, and in turn believe good governance is trying to align the laws with the populace's beliefs on what is good and bad.
In this case, I see actions by Apple, that are plainly anti-competitive, and add nothing to society, and add nothing to anyone except themselves. It may be legal (I am taking no position on that), but despite that, I still believe that Apple's actions are bad, and should be discouraged.
The best way to keep Apple from having a monopoly is not "to not buy an iPhone". It is to not buy an iPhone, to raise attention to Apple, to call them out on their bad behavior, and to not give bad guys a free pass simply because they are complying with the letter of the law.
The PC is going to become a niche product. It's only a question of when and not if.
We've already seen this once when desktops were turned into a niche product by laptops. Laptops already have "good enough" power for anything any mainstream user needs.
When a mobile phone has the same power as your current general purpose computer, what do you think the sales of general purpose computers is going to look like?
Bearing in mind that cutting edge mobile phones can already be hooked up to external keyboards and monitors.
The average person, even the above-average intelligent person such as those you find on this fine website, drastically undervalues hazy and amorphous future benefits such as freedom.
We have a Constitution, because if given half a chance, at every opportunity, ordinary men, and the greedy leaders who prod them on, would sell freedom up a creek for a little temporary gain.
If the average man would sell his freedom of speech away for pennies, what do you think he would sell something even more vague and speculative for, such as the freedom of others to innovate and create new products that may interest him?
The fact is, freedom does not make a very good bullet point on marketing materials, and arguing that it is not important because the OpenMoko failed is ridiculous.
The only reason we have any freedom at all is because freedom is something that can be idealistically assigned an out-sized value, such that some people do all the caring for the rest of mankind.
Apologies for the double post, somehow must have clicked anonymous the first time I posted this.
Let me see if I can draw out your argument to its logical conclusion. Correct me if I misstate your views, or if an additional fact I provide means you will have to add additional nuance or caveats to your original point.
Your argument:
If you sell something and advertise it not as a computer, but as a device, you have no obligation, moral or legal, to make it more open to 3rd party development.
Hypothetical:
Year is 2018. The iPhone 15G controls 95% of the consumer computing market. General purpose computers are relegated to niche status, only owned by corporations that need major processing power and enthusiasts. The iPhone has followed the example set by gaming consoles, and is completely locked down, with no security holes realistically accessible to the average consumer. Apple has continued its policies regarding controlling what software can, and cannot, run on its device. The iPhone 15G satisfies all mainstream computing requirements, but Apple denies any software it considers offensive, including software that states any political message that does not align with Apple's, or competes with Apple in any way.
Logical Conclusion:
You are totally okay with this situation, and any consumer that complains suffers from an entitlement complex, as Apple never advertised the iPhone as a general computing platform.
Got any evidence to go with that assertion.
Despite Nokia making a profit on every sing bit of hardware sold. Nokia is not big in the US but they own half of Asia and are well respected in Europe and Australia. The E71/72 is one of the best selling business phones in Australia and Symbian phones account for over 60 of ad traffic from Asia whilst Nokia makes up 47% of the market compared to Apple's 16%. What you'll also notice is that Apple's market share includes Ipods. Unfortunately my own nation of Australia has been skewing these statistics and for that I am deeply ashamed. Source Admob Metrics(PDF warning)
Nokia also consists of more then just mobile phones, they have significant sales in infrastructure and corporate phone systems (PBX's). Not to mention all the R&D Nokia does into telecommunications, the GSM patents Nokia has alone will keep the company well and truly afloat. Almost any phone you purchase will have hardware developed in part or in full by Nokia (including the Iphone).
So you're wrong on both counts, Nokia enjoys significant sales world wide and they aren't dependent on selling applications (although Nokia is doing quite well with Navigation since they bought Naviteq and started offering it as a subscription service on their phones).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
That's only because of the limited and artificial way in which 'monopoly' is defined'.
If apple computers were "PC-compatible" and could run all PC programs just as well as any Win7 box, then I'd say they can be judged in the same class. But that's not the case.
Apple's != PC's. Therefore, they should be judged as being in a separate container.
There are few or NO competitors to Apple in the OS-"x" (x={6,7,8...}) space.
There are no competitors to Apple in the "iphone-compatible" space. There are no other phones by other manufacturers, that can run iphone programs. When there ARE, then we would have 'competition'. But Apple is a monopoly in this space. As well as in the OS-x space.
So Apple sees this Hyper-Card clone that already has a good sized institutional market lined up and decides not to approve it. Rather than hyperventilate about DRM and lockin, why not just go with the simpler explanation of greed.
It would be so simple for Apple to come out with their own Hyper Card for the iWhatever; they've got the background and the copyrights. With an already existing market this would be a easy win; I'll bet that there's Apple developers at work on this right now.
It's not all about control, guys - it's about money. If you follow the money you won't have to pull out that old "reality distortion field" handwave to explain what's going on.
The tragedy is your tiny view of monopolies being only what you are told they are.
No, I view monopolies as what they are considered and agreed to be under law. This is useful because that way, when the grown-ups are talking, we all get to talk about the same thing.
No one else is allowed to provide a "plug-compatible" platform that will run those applications. There is no competition. If you want a device that will run all of the apps in those specific spaces, you must by from Apple.
And if you want to fit a Ford ECU, you need to own a Ford. You can't fit them to a Toyota. There's NO monopoly in either example.
We can sit and redefine terms to our heart's content, but that doesn't move this forward. I can redefine "small minded dickhead" to be a picture of you, but that wouldn't necessarily make this the commonly agreed upon use for this term. In the same way, your use of the word monopoly is misinformed and more importantly, wrong.