I don't like this at all. Maybe they only meant to hit Flash, and maybe not, but as written this is in direct opposition to one of the most important principles of software development. Apple themselves must have benefited countless times from writing software in layers. But no layer above their layers is permitted?
I wonder if the open source world can successfully fight back, by making compilers that generate code the app store police can't tell from hand written.
I wonder if the open source world can successfully fight back, by making compilers that generate code the app store police can't tell from hand written.
I think the answer is definitely yes. Apple's software engineering is not that great. There is always some hole in Safari that allows root access to the entire device. They can't get atomic syscalls working in OS X. Does anyone really think they can recruit and afford people that can tell computer-generated software from hand-written software?
My guess is that this is a scare tactic to keep anyone thinking of supporting two platforms at once to "not want to risk it" and go for the iPhone instead. More users, only so many hours that the developer can be awake, safer to just go with the iPhone. (Of course, you are already risking it anyway; use the wrong multi-touch gesture -- app denied. Use a Google service -- denied. Do something useful that Apple wishes they thought of first -- denied. And people wonder why there are so many fart apps...)
My next guess is that this tactic will be successful. People seem to adore doing whatever Apple tells them to do. It frightens me.
What I've learned from iPhone vs. Android (among other things) is that people will pick pretty and mean over average and nice.
I am not sure that it'll be exceedingly difficult to determine if an app was compiled using another tool, and not written in Objective-C.
I'd expect many languages and frameworks are going to have many very signature functions and patterns of code. If Apple decides to enforce this, they won't have a hard time.
On top of that, if they miss it, and let a bunch of apps in, then later on determine those apps were crosscompiled, they can revoke the current versions and block that developer...
NetShare users kept using the app months after Apple pulled it. I think people finally stopped using it to tether because an update finally broke it, not because Apple deleted it off people’s phones…
Even if they can tell the difference, C code is C code. It shouldn't matter if it was generated so long as it uses kosher API calls. Doing so would be no different than enforcing which editor I can use to write code in.
Even if they can, the policy is going to be a strong deterrent from using those tools. One would rather be less efficient than risk getting caught and being rejected (maybe even blacklisted?) from the App Store.
I wonder if the open source world can successfully fight back, by making compilers that generate code the app store police can't tell from hand written.