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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.'"
It was a similar situation with 3G, copy and paste, and a plethora of other features that were added well after the fact. The fanboys claimed that they didn't want all of that. 3G drained the battery, copy and paste complicated the UI, etc. It's all about the Reality Distortion Field being pumped up to levels of recockulousness.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
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.
Well, good thing this isn't about desktop OS's, then, isn't it? In fact, coding for OS X is free and unrestricted, just as with Windows. On the other hand... You know that for Windows Mobile 7, apps need Microsoft's approval, don't you?
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?
Actually, i find it's the other way around. Nobody blinks an eye when Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo brings out a new line of consoles, vendor locked-in to the max, only running apps that require their approval and signature, a process which costs tens of thousands $$. But if Apple does it for their iPhone, bring out the tar and feathers!
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.
The problem is that the iPhone and iPad are becoming more or less general computing platforms. This isn't a matter of locking down a single, narrow media device, but a broad multi-purpose system. The iPad is a hell-ouv-lot more than a game console -- it has the potential to completely replace a laptop, depending on the user's needs. Apple is getting a foot-hold on our everyday computing needs, so when they lock down such devices they gain an unbelievable amount of control. If tomorrow, we all switched to Apple devices, we would literally have a technology Big Brother. It's not just a buzz phrase at this point, it's how Apple operates. They think they know best, and they are willing to use their power to get their way. Now, that doesn't mean it would be the end of the world or anything, but it would be a sad day for the tech industry. But hey, we can argue all we want online, I vote with my wallet (i.e. I will never buy anything with an Apple logo.) That is, at least, until I don't have much choice.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
they're lack of a monopoly is what makes it legal but it doesn't make it any more right
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
Donate free food here
Actually, Microsoft is banning all other environments other than .Net from WinMo 7. That was the reasob cited for FireFox not to create a port for it.
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.
"The best cut n paste UI of any mobile device."
That must mean cut and past on everything else is horrendous. I don't have an iPhone but I now have an iPod Touch and I use it around the home mostly for web stuff over Wi-Fi. Every once in awhile, when I am trying to scroll around on the display, the 'copy' mechanism kicks in and grabs some text instead. A minor annoyance and usually I can deselect it without hitting a hyperlink and Safari flitting off to some other web page.
Yesterday for the first time, I wanted to cut and past something. I've installed QuickOffice on the thing and I wanted to save some text from a web page.
Nothing that I could do, or figure out how to do, would trigger the 'capture text for copying' function that I've inadvertently triggered in the past.
That is NOT my definition of a good cut/paste user interface. There's nothing intuitive about it. I guess I should go out and find an O'Reilly manual for the iPhone OS. They publish the 'Missing Manual' series after all.
Apple's interface design decisions are always highly political and steeped in dogma. It's been that way since the launch of Macintosh.
It's good that you've stepped forward to be the spokesperson for 'the fanboys' Baselbrush... but this is developers.slashdot.org not your usual apple.slashdot.org. Don't you feel kinda out of place here??