So the CS5 launch is on Monday (it’s the Thursday before) and the developer jungle drums are awash with disgusted / aghast people surprised that Apple may be waging war on any Flash originated apps that dare to be submitted. It seems to be (or may not be) down to a change in the Terms for the iPhone developer, as spotted here.

It all boils down to this paragraph.

3.3.1 — 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 (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

What it is saying, at length is that you must use the ‘proper way’ to make apps. The coder way. Not some easy ‘just drag stuff on and press go’ Flash way. That would be too easy. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a company forcing developers to develop in a certain way, especially when the ONLY way is to use Apple’s own Xcode development platform.

It’s not just Flash that may fall foul of this, there are many other ways to ‘compile’ an app without going near the Xcode development platform such as AppBreeder, SwebApps or GameSalad. Only time will tell whether these (up until now) legit platforms will become outlawed in the collateral fallout from the Adobe Apple willy swinging war.

I’ve had a few views on this before [The real reason your iPhone will NEVER get Flash] but I really am disappointed with Apple’s behavior of late. I know Steve Jobs was a bit ill and I know he’s not as involved in the strategic direction as much as he used to be but this is old Microsoft cold war stuff from 2002. Money and control seem to be the guiding lights at Apple at the moment and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

So what can I do? Am I going to sell my iMac? No. Am I going to give up my iPhone for an Android phone? Well, maybe. Ok, no. Unfortunately I am now going to treat everything Apple do with suspicion, which is a real shame. They are not whiter than white, in fact Apple is very dirty at the moment. As Nestle will attest, products are easy to fix but reputations almost never recover.

Let the battle commence.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010 at 12:26 am and is filed under Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.