
Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad - thafman
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/04/steve-jobs-has-just-gone-mad.html
======
vegashacker
Sure I've had my moments of App Store frustration, but all in all, I haven't
been as offended by it as a lot of folks. I think that's because I felt that
Apple was giving me something that I couldn't easily find elsewhere (single
point of distribution that everyone knows about, very few taps for users to
install my apps, the ability to easily charge for apps), so I was okay if they
were a little particular about the terms.

But this is different. Apple telling us programmers not to write source to
source compilers, is telling us to ignore a totally fundamental technique in
computer science. They're telling us not to be too clever, which us
programmers don't take kindly to.

~~~
tptacek
I'm puzzled, since Apple has been shutting off fundamental techniques in
computer science since day one. Today it's Flash compilers. Yesterday it was
access to the filesystem, things that run in the background, etc.

~~~
jfoutz
I half agree. The filesystem is just a device. No running in the background is
kinda icky, but that doesn't seem like a computer science kinda thing. (not
that multitasking isn't hard, it's just not the first thing that jumps to mind
when thinking of simulating things on a turing machine)

Language to language translation, that's core. that's fundamental to CS.

The most popular virtual machine ever is the regular expression interpreter.
It's such a, fundamental thing. Nothing to do with a particular set of
hardware or instructions, just the concept of interpreting match, split, jmp,
and char.

I'm having a real hard time understanding how to write C without unions of
tagged structs... Maybe that's allowed? I just don't get where one language
ends and another begins. how much can i abuse the macro preprocessor? have you
ever seen the bash source with BEGIN END blocks? it's sick.

Of course #define is nothing compared to c++ templates. If i just write scheme
as partially applied templates, am i cheating?

it's pretty nucking futz.

~~~
api
I agree. Nucking futz. This is much crazier than anything Microsoft has done
in recent memory.

------
grellas
Legally, Apple can do pretty much what it likes on its own platform and there
is nothing anybody can do about it except accept their restrictions or decline
to deal with them and hope for the best with commercially viable alternatives.

Someday, though, as Apple's strategy continues to unfold, and as it continues
to tighten restrictions on others' ability to develop for each device, to use
its dominance of one device (e.g., iPhone) to leverage market share in others
(e.g., iPad), and to exert significant control over a range of devices that
are nominally independent but actually inter-connected, the idea of "platform"
will blur and Apple will likely have to own up to the antitrust police, just
as Microsoft did with respect to the desktop OS market.

I am not an antitrust lawyer and the above may in fact be naive.
Instinctively, though, the apparent arrogance behind Apple's methods of
throwing sharp elbows toward competitors has all the feel of what Microsoft
did in the 1990s as it used its desktop OS leverage to favor MS
Office/Internet Explorer, etc. and to harm independent software vendors trying
to market their apps for the PC market. Ditto for IBM before that. And, while
we are at it, though no two people could possibly be so different in so many
ways, it would appear that Steve Jobs has drawn his competitive (or anti-
competitive) inspiration right from John D. Rockefeller, who was a control
freak over his markets and who often used such control in even ruthless ways
to stifle competition.

We are nowhere near the stage where Apple can seriously be declared a
monopolist in any relevant market but Apple certainly seems bent on pushing
the limit as it goes along its path on its quest for hegemony.

------
alexandros
I was always critical of Apple's closed ecosystem but nobody saw this coming.
In a sense, they're not even leaving room for doubt that they are not to be
trusted.

What's worse, essentially developers are now told that they have to put up or
shut up, since Apple has the apps market cornered, and their app store full of
apps.

Developers take heed. Every time you write an application for Steve's app
store, it's just one more weapon that steve can and will use against you and
every other developer when he decides he has a reason.

Nobody saw this one coming, and I shudder to think what's next.

One more thing: what about apps that have been already written with some
translation tool? Do the developers have to rewrite in Obj-C or abandon
altogether? How is this in the interest of the users exactly?

~~~
crux_
> nobody saw this coming

Surely you jest.

Lots and lots of people saw this coming; they were just dismissed as radical
idealistic free software hippies.

------
stcredzero
Summary:

 _If you need to "originally" write your code in Swahili, while listening to
Milli Vanilli, while reclining in a patch of mud, and then you need fifty
oompa loompas to translate the Swahili into C, that is none of Steve Jobs
f#ck^ng business._

~~~
michael_dorfman
And Steve's response, I imagine would be: if you want to sell your app in my
store, it's my business. If you don't like my rules, develop for a different
platform.

Seriously: if Barnes and Noble decides it only wants to sell fiction by
authors whose last names begin with "Q", wouldn't we just consider it a bone-
headed move, and not the cause for moral outrage?

The iPhone is not the only smartphone on the market, and it's never pretended
to be an open platform.

I really can't see why folks are getting their knickers in a twist.

~~~
cousin_it
_I really can't see why folks are getting their knickers in a twist._

Your use of demeaning language doesn't make your opponents wrong.

 _wouldn't we just consider it a bone-headed move, and not the cause for moral
outrage?_

It's both. Legality != morality. A business practice can be perfectly legal
but immoral. Of course you can say anything Apple does is moral because it's
within their rights, but there are also other ways of assessing the morality
of actions, e.g. weighing their consequences.

~~~
michael_dorfman
OK, then explain the consequences to me.

A store-owner decides he wants to put an arbitrary restriction on the types of
items he sells in his store. Let's say, perhaps, that a grocery store decides
to stock only Organic produce.

What's the moral harm?

~~~
krschultz
That's not a good analogy. Those selling non-organic produce have plenty of
other places to take their goods. They are commodities.

Anyone who has invested in a language layer technology can't do that. You
can't take your Flash -> Objective-C compiler and sell it anywhere else. Apple
just forced you to lose all of your investment for no good reason.

It's like offering communal grazing areas. A bunch of ranchers decide to move
their cattle down to your area because it makes economic sense at the time.
Once they arrive, you put up a fence and say fuck you. Now they spent their
time and money moving down there, and have nothing to show for it. Sure you
didn't have a contract but they have real material losses due to the changes
in basically, the TOS on your grazing land. Catlle might die, ranchers might
not be able to afford moving them back and go out of business. The same
applies with Apple. I would hate to be a startup in this space right now.

~~~
michael_dorfman
But Apple never offered a "communal grazing area". The iPhone has been a
closed platform from day one, and everybody developing for the iPhone already
had a metric buttload of restrictions on them.

If the ranchers decided to move their cattle to an area in the hopes that they
might find communal grazing available, well, they took a risk, and lost.
That's business.

Sellers of non-organic produce have plenty of other places to take their
goods, and developers of applications for mobile devices/smartphones have
plenty of other devices they can develop for.

~~~
krschultz
You still haven't grasped that you are comparing commodities to non-
commodities. If you just invested a bunch of time into a source to source
translator for the iPhone, you can't just take that somewhere else. It is
entirely useless elsewhere. Of course Apple doesn't HAVE to accommodate these
people, but it is an egregious move for both developers and the users. I don't
actually see what the gain is for Apple from this other than slighting Adobe.

------
warfangle
While this sucks for iPhone developers who want to branch out / use other
languages (clojure, etc), it might persuade these developers to move over to
the Android platform. Especially given the several Android tablets
forthcoming...

~~~
fab13n
Apple is of course conscious of this trade-off (attractiveness of the
platform+customer base vs. unattractiveness of being treated like shit by
Apple).

The thing is, they can easily back off _when they will have to_ : today, most
app developers won't snob the iPhone even if they're treated miserably. If
they can't afford Android+iPhone portability, most of them will choose iPhone-
only over Android-only.

If/when a competitor starts to be attractive enough to represent a treat, Jobs
will announce a big change towards a more developer-friendly policy. Today, he
thinks he can get away with being a dick, and he's probably right IMO.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I think you are largely right, but don't forget that this pragmatic business
view of the world does not dominate every phase in every hacker's life.

Apple would be well advised to take note of the emotional sea change that
helped sweep IBM and later Microsoft from their all powerful positions.

Being hated is not a good position to be in for anyone, regardless of how
powerful they may be at one point in time.

~~~
pedalpete
Was it Microsofts business practices that brought it down a few notches? or
was it their lack of quality products?

Currently, business decision makers are likely looking at the market
penetration/mindshare of iPhone vs Android.

However, in the coming months, I suspect we'll see a few points which steer
businesses away from the iPhone.

1)you'll be able to develop apps to run on Android, WinMo 7, RIM and Palm, all
likely using a single code-base and hooking into a framework which manages the
different device api's (such as PhoneGap, or even Flash).

2)the overcrowding of the Apple store means as a business, you are trying to
compete with thousands of others, while the other stores have less apps (at
the time being), and more overall users.

The AppStore is like a huge mall with 50 million people and 150,000 stores.

The competing stores is like a mall with 100 million people, and only 10,000
stores. I'd much rather be one of fewer stores in a larger market, than the
one of many in a smaller market.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I think the main cause for Microsoft's weakened position is the web. Their
core products are high quality in my view, but they just never wholeheartedly
embraced the web. Neither technologically nor in terms of the business model.
Fighting the web moved them from being seen as a freedom fighter against IBM
to the position of a ceaselessly scheming oppressor that keeps inventing new
ways of ruining the fun for the tinkerers.

They have alienated an entire generation of hackers and that's why in spite of
all the money that can be made on their platform the interesting stuff happens
elsewhere. Apple is on route to follow them, once the hype around their glitzy
fashion items subsides.

------
danparsonson
_The key is where they say "Applications must be originally written in
Objective-C, C, C++."_

 _Take a pause and think about what that "originally" really means._

 _Developers are not free to use any tools to help them. If there is some tool
that converts some Pascal or, Ruby, or Java into Objective-C it is out of
bounds, because then the code is not "originally" written in C._

Yes it is "originally" written in C - when the Objective-C compiler first sees
it. There's nothing in the quoted clause from the Apple T&Cs that says
"written == written by a human".

I really don't think this clause is aimed at code converters, but rather at
e.g. run-times that execute byte code - see also "(e.g., Applications that
link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility
layer or tool are prohibited)". You don't link to an API until either compile-
or run-time. Making an API call from a piece of code that is then converted
into C is not 'linking to APIs through an intermediary layer'.

OK, it still sucks, but it seems to me that both this article and the other
similar one on here at the moment ("Apple takes stance on consciousness",
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1252438>) are based largely on a
misinterpretation of the use of the word 'originally'.

~~~
ghshephard
The "Originally" clause was placed in their _precisely_ to forbid code
converters.

~~~
danparsonson
Can I ask what your authority is on that? It seems that most people agree with
you but I don't understand why!

~~~
smallblacksun
Because embedded interpreters in iphone apps are already banned in another
part of the developer agreement?

------
tibbon
So Frameworks like Unity for game development are basically dead, making it so
that indie developers who don't have the money/ability to write their entire
engines from scratch are nearly banished and putting only the AAA title makers
in the running. Great...

~~~
ahi
That is precisely the point. They don't need more apps, they need more AAA
apps.

~~~
wvenable
That might be true, but the implicit assumption here is that only EA can make
AAA games and indie developers just produce crap. That assumption has been
demonstrated to be false on both points.

~~~
lallysingh
Not at all! You can buy a few C++ game engines (e.g. Torque) and port them. I
have Torque running on Linux, Solaris, Mac, & Windows. Considering it's normal
posix underneath, you just have to redo some plumbing.

~~~
potatolicious
The iPhone is POSIX, but not to you as the developer. Porting Torque to the
iPhone will have to be done by GarageGames, not by you - even if you pull it
off it will certainly be violating a laundry list of App Store rules.

~~~
lallysingh
.. but you get the source & build tools. Why can't I do it?

~~~
potatolicious
Well, for one thing, you have no file system - and that's just first among the
list of POSIX-y things that Apple internally has access to, but you do not as
a 3rd-party.

The amount of plumbing to be ripped out is pretty extreme given that you don't
have access to large bits of the OS.

Not to mention Torque is not written with OpenGL ES in mind - so you'd have to
rewrite not only plumbing, but some core graphics code.

To make it an Apple-compliant app, porting Torque (or most desktop engines for
that matter) is simply not feasible/worthwhile.

------
makmanalp
This is another gem: “10.4 Press Releases and Other Publicity. You may not
issue any press releases or make any other public statements regarding this
Agreement, its terms and conditions, or the relationship of the parties
without Apple’s express prior written approval, which may be withheld at
Apple’s discretion.”

~~~
warfangle
Somehow I doubt that clause is enforceable.

~~~
anigbrowl
It's not enforceable in the same way that having all your apps removed from
the app store isn't actionable. Anyone engaged in commercial development for
the iPhone only does so at Apple's pleasure, which may be revoked at any time.

Of course, if this causes your users to seek refunds and you have already
spent your earnings, that could get problematic.

------
Vivtek
You know, it just occurred to me that if Apple specifies the tools that may be
used to develop applications for the iPhone, then all iPhone developers may
legally be their employees for tax purposes....

~~~
elblanco
You know that they'll need to pay at least minimum wage.

------
00joe
I've had a couple of close friends and relatives have health issues that
almost killed them. Afterwords their personality changed. They became much
more negative and harder to be around. The things I have read about Jobs is
that he is a health nut. To have the problems he has had might have been a big
emotional blow for him.

Since he has come back, things have gotten much worse for partner relations
and there is almost a continual barrage of news about Apple jerking someone
around. I really think they could do better with a new CEO.

~~~
ahi
You don't change CEOs because you want a nicer guy.

~~~
pwhelan
You may change CEOs if their behavior habits change significantly, including
them turning from narcissistic jerk to narcissistic jackass. Instability at
the helm isn't a good thing, even if you are currently still heading in a good
direction.

I seriously doubt the legality of this part of the contract, which only sets
them up for more legal battles with Adobe (with MSFT and GOOG as supporters)
which will bleed cash, create ill-will among developers and take the focus off
of doing what Apple does that creates its value. If you are thinking of
developing a good tablet app, are you doing to want to deal with Apple OR will
you try doing it on the new HP slate?

------
charlesju
I really doubt that this particular rule is aimed at the masses. Steve Jobs
could care less about things like PhoneGap and random IDEs.

In my opinion this is a strategic method to create optionality in case it
needs to go into outright war against Adobe.

~~~
peterarmstrong
That doesn't make it anything short of disgusting -- it's worse than anything
MS ever did.

~~~
tptacek
REALLY. Saying "no alternate compilers on our hardware" is _worse_ than using
the threat of yanking OEM licenses for the then-monopoly desktop OS if they
dared to feature another company's browser on the desktop?

~~~
orangecat
Arguably yes. Microsoft never tried to stop users from running whatever
software they wanted on Windows, they just made it more inconvenient in some
cases to get that software.

~~~
tptacek
"I will use my operating system monopoly to put you out of business if you
don't assist me in putting an unrelated competitor of ours out of business" is
worse to you than "you may only use Objective C to develop on this device"?

I don't like Objective C either, but I don't take it that far.

~~~
akmiller
Microsoft, as all companies would, is going to use their successful product(s)
to push other products that they create. They had 95%+ of the OS market and
simply wanted to push the use of their browser to those individuals. That
doesn't and never has seemed like a dirty tactic to me. Apple pushes its own
products over its competitors on the iPhone. You won't see Opera on the
default dock bar on the iPhone anytime soon...it may never even be approved to
be in the app store. Microsoft may have made it tough for their competition
(and I'm sure they crossed the line many times as you mention) but they
certainly aren't telling the folks at Mozilla now that Firefox must be re-
written in .Net or they aren't going to allow it to run on their platform!

~~~
MichaelGG
Well, Windows Phone 7 only allows verified CLI bytecode apps, which
practically speaking means Firefox won't be compiling for it anytime soon.

But MS doesn't care how you compile, just as long as the bytecode checks out
safe.

~~~
rbanffy
And Windows Phone 7 is not a dominant player in any segment.

------
commieneko
No, Steve Jobs is not insane, this interpretation of the new rule is insane.
Apple is merely (!) trying to control what tools people use to create software
on their platform. I can understand why they want to do this, just as I can
understand why I might, or might not want to comply. The legal terms used are
to give Apple the tools it needs to get compliance. The only real issue is: do
you want to develop for this platform or not. (I probably am, but mostly on
the webkit/webapp side of things, which, so far, is still completely open.)

There are possibly some anti-competitive issues here, and if Adobe has any
chance of getting around this rule, that's the way they will probably go. Good
luck to them, but I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
j-g-faustus
> I can understand why they want to do this

I can't. Except as a land- and power grab in the "all your toil are belong to
us" category.

I can understand that Apple attempts a strategic move to avoid becoming just
another platform for Flash.

I can understand that Apple may want to cut down on the number of submissions,
and are assuming that those that go to the trouble of learning
Objective-C/C/C++ are the "real professionals", as opposed to those who once
spent a weekend learning Flash.

I can understand that Apple wants a minimum quality to their apps and are not
happy when the exact same code is cross-compiled to a dozen devices: The code
would probably be developed to the smallest common multiple, would look and
feel bad and would not play to the iPhone's strength. In short, it would make
the iPhone look bad, and users would blame the iPhone and Apple.

I can understand that Apple doesn't want a 10kB app to ship with a 1 GB
translation library. (From comments I've seen elsewhere, it appears that this
is how the Adobe tool does it.)

Maybe I can even understand that they might want to strengthen their nuclear
law arsenal with a poison pill in case someone falls out of favor.

But: Which tools I use and how I use them is not Apple's f...ing business - I
don't work for Apple, I'm an independent developer.

From my point of view, Apple has every right to be as anal retentive as they
wish regarding what they accept - it is their store and their party.

But Apple has no right to any opinion whatsoever regarding how I create those
deliverables - that is my business, and remains so until I submit it.

Whatever Apple is trying to achieve here, outlawing pretty much anything a
developer can do to increase productivity is throwing the baby out with the
bath water. I can't see this as anything else than a pure power trip ("see how
we can make them jump") and a big F... Y.. from Apple to their developers.

Now whether Apple actually intended it to come across that way is another
discussion.

But we have no way of knowing either way unless Apple deigns to clarify. And
Apple is hardly known for being talkative on controversial issues...

[update: minor spelling, phrasing]

~~~
commieneko
You seem to understand _many_ reasons why Apple would want to do this. Apple
has every right to sell its stuff with whatever kind of license they want.
Just as you (and I) have every right not to develop for them.

The thing is that, for now, Apple is selling something that _many_ people want
to buy, and that _many_ people want to develop for. So they have the upper
hand. Nothing illegal or crazy about it. Now certainly things can change in
the future and they _might_ become more accommodating.

Complaining about probably helps a little. Not developing for it helps more.
Not buying the hard helps a lot, but the developer community is _much_ smaller
than the consumer community...

------
endlessvoid94
Enough!

If you don't like Apple's terms of service, DONT USE APPLE, and DON'T DEVELOP
SOFTWARE FOR APPLE'S PRODUCTS.

It's not unfair. Whether or not he's insane is irrelevant. Stop bitching and
solve the problem.

EDIT: downvote me for having an opinion? come on, HN.

~~~
megamark16
I'd rather just avoid the problem all together by building apps on an open
system like Android.

~~~
thenduks
That's what he just said. Don't develop for the platform you dislike/don't
agree with the policies of/etc.

------
MikeTLive
Is Jobs taking these actions to prevent the commoditization of his platform? I
refer the reader back to the Joel Article reposted a few days ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250958>

If apps are portable from iphone to droid the phones step closer to being just
another commodity portable device.

~~~
ams6110
I think that's exactly what he's doing.

He wants iPad/iPhone apps to work, to be elegant, and to be consistent.

He wants the Android space to be full of sort-of-works crapware that you find
when there are tools that let any half-wit drag-and-drop an app together.

------
profgarrett
Actually created an account to write this...

What surprises me is not as much Apple's move (though it is truly ridiculous),
as some apologists' responses. Talking about how "Adobe's just as bad," or
that "it'll reduce crappy software in the store," or that "Apple's within
their rights" is really missing the point.

The point is that this is totally unnecessary from a technological
perspective. It's totally a business move to destroy competitors and pursue a
bizarre vendetta against Adobe.

I teach in a business school, and am very 'pro competitive edge,' but this is
just so short-sighted. Apple's competitive moves seem oriented to reducing
anyone who could be a competitor to rubble out of some misguided belief that
the iPhone paradigm is theirs, and that they should be able to dictate who
makes money off of it.

Ultimately, any business adopting this approach dies. It make take 4-8 years
for a competitor's product to reach equivalency, but it'll happen. Tech moves
so fast that it'll be tough to keep a closed environment (even a good one) on
top.

Furthermore, (and really to the point) I don't want to do business with any
firm that thinks they can dictate if or how much profit I can make, or how I
can approach my particular niche of interest. Apple keeps on reducing the way
you can build apps; how do I know that my next app isn't going to compete with
mobile Pages & get pulled? They're creating a totally closed and controlled
platform, and you better hope that you don't run across any of their plans.
It's a terrible business environment, and totally destructive.

Ridiculous.

------
doron
It is interesting to revisit this thread based on Alex Payne moderate request
for openness - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1243445>

Apple progression to restrictive hardline, is going against developers with a
generally pragmatic approach.

Apple seems to give no quarter when it comes to their inane lock down
practices, developers shouldn't give much benefit of the doubt to apple
either.

------
zppx
The situation isn't new, what type of company press their employees to not
write blogs or have twitter accounts about something they should be proud?

This is my main instance against Apple, Apple is partly a soviet style
bureaucracy, it's impossible to know right now from whom the good ideas came
from, basically people blame or praise Steve Jobs after every show keynote for
the work that a team of great anonymous engineers are developing for each new
product.

This don't show that Steve Jobs is mad, it only says that the board of
directors is either oppressive towards Apple employee or submissive towards
Jobs, anyway incompetent, but it is hard to say about incompetence when your
company is so lucrative.

------
jpark
"Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information
Purification Directives. We have created for the first time in all history, a
garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of
contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more
powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one
will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and
we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!"

How far we've come.

------
theli0nheart
Hasn't anyone else realized that this rule is totally unenforceable? How is
Apple going to find out if something was _originally_ written with Unity3D or
Clojure? Everything is submitted to them as a binary. You can't inspect a
binary and figure out what language the code that generated it was
_originally_ written in.

So seriously, what's the problem here? Either there is none or I'm missing
something.

~~~
Zak

        $ ghc --make helloworld.hs
        $ strings helloworld|grep ghc|wc -l
        19
        $ csc helloworld.scm
        $ strings helloworld|grep chicken|wc -l
        1
    

There are more telltales that might be harder to mask. Other tools have
similar giveaways. It wouldn't be hard to set up an automated test for the
most common ones.

~~~
theli0nheart
Right but I'm assuming that these 3rd party tools are actually converting code
to Objective-C / C / C++ and _then_ compiling...is that right?

~~~
Zak
I think that's true for some tools and not others. csc converts Scheme in to C
and then compiles it with the local C compiler. There are specific markers
that will exist in every binary compiled with Chicken. Some of them are ASCII
and easy to spot by hand by running strings on the binary, but I suspect there
are also binary sequences that appear in every program compiled this way.

It would also be possible to look at data structures in memory and detect
patterns of access common to specific cross-compilation tools or abstraction
libraries.

These techniques don't produce proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but no such
proof is required; Apple can and will reject applications that don't meet its
standards.

------
david927
Developers! Developers! Developers!

(Please go away...)

------
latch
You know, this whole Apple thing finally makes sense to me.

They are simply trying to tie their developer community to their platform. Now
is the time to do it, when competition is low. There's virtually no chance of
this having any noticeable impact in its established community of developers.
By year-end, when competition is a bit stronger, the groundwork they've put in
place today will make it less likely that developers will bother to learn
another platform.

Its what Microsoft did with Java and Netscape. It's what they did with IE.

I'm not saying its right. I'm just saying I finally understand it.

(and I know MS was sued, and lost, for each of those infractions).

~~~
commieneko
> They are simply trying to tie their developer community to their platform.

No, they are trying to tie the _consumer_ to their platform. They couldn't
care less about developers outside them providing consumers a reason to buy
their product. (and as a source of revenue.)

Apple _does_ want to control what _media_ can be played on their platform. And
they way to control that is to control what developers can do. Notice there is
no VLC on the iPhone? No Mplayer? No open codecs what-so-ever. (and certainly
no F _L_ A _S_ H...) At some point expect there to be a (surprise!!!) clamp
down on h264 encoding, enforced by patents and licenses.

------
robryan
Problem is with the app store is that a number of developers could reject
these changes and decide to develop elsewhere, but instead of improving the
situation on other platforms it would probably just be that the remaining app
store developers would be now getting a bigger piece of the pie.

I think there is an incentive for developers to turn a blind eye to some of
the more crazy apple app store policies because if people leave it benefits
them and there is no viable alternative at the moment for someone wanting to
make a living selling mobile applications.

------
thenduks
I don't get this at all.

Why does everyone act like the iPhone should be as 'open' as an OS on your
computer? Did everyone forget that when the iPhone shipped you couldn't write
apps _at all_? You can't write apps in Erlang for your Zune, your PS3, your
cable modem, your microwave, your car or your apartments alarm system... no
one cares.

Yes, Apple wants (insists, even, if this ToS becomes final) you to use their
tools, their stack, etc for making apps on their consumer electronics device -
shocking? No. Annoying? Of course. Don't like it? Go somewhere else!

~~~
wvenable
"Did everyone forget that when the iPhone shipped you couldn't write apps at
all?"

Yup. And did you forget all the complaints about that too and then the
jailbreaking and then the development of apps without any SDK at all? You have
to wonder if Apple would have ever created the app store if programmers hadn't
done all that.

"Why does everyone act like the iPhone should be as 'open' as an OS on your
computer?"

Why shouldn't it be? You act like merely complaining about something should be
a crime. If Apple is well within their rights to do what they want with their
platform, we're well within our rights to complain about it.

~~~
thenduks
Considering the level of polish on the Cocoa Touch frameworks and the
surrounding tools at release I'd say Apple was planning the AppStore long
before the mob started RABBLE-RABBLE-ing about it.

Still, I am absolutely not saying you shouldn't be allowed to complain. My
point is only that I don't see what there is to complain about. I wouldn't
complain about this any more than I would about not being able to write apps
for my current crappy cellphone. It isn't even that bad though, of course,
because you _can_ write apps for the iPhone, just not in arbitrary ways that
Apple doesn't approve of.

Anyway, it's ok that we don't agree -- it seems, at this time, that Apple and
I are on the same page... We'll see if things change or not. I am obviously
all for Apple being more open in general (having to use a Windows VM to sync
my iPod is a huge pain in my ass, for example), I'm just not losing any sleep
over it.

~~~
wvenable
> My point is only that I don't see what there is to complain about. I
> wouldn't complain about this any more than I would about not being able to
> write apps for my current crappy cellphone.

Really? When I had a crappy cellphone, I complained that the WAP browser was
constrained to my provider's walled garden. I managed to crack it enough get
out and even write my own WAP applications. So not only did I complain, I did
something about it.

I also complain that my stupid DVD player doesn't let me skip over FBI
warnings and previews. The fact that it was designed that way on purpose,
doesn't mean it isn't something worth complaining about.

I think it's funny you feel complaining about the complaining is important but
the original issue is not significant in comparison.

~~~
thenduks
I think you've touched on our disconnect.

I'm not _complaining_ about your complaining - I don't think you should stop
or anything like that. I'm simply voicing my opinion just like you are. It's
all good.

On to your points. If I was upset at my phone's browser (and believe me, my
phone's browser shouldn't even be _called_ a browser) I would just look for a
better phone, one with a browser I liked. Same with the DVD player. I don't
think that's what we're talking about here though. It's more like your DVD
player vendor was saying "you can circumvent the FBI warnings, but only if you
do it while singing the alphabet backwards"... well, if I cared about the FBI
warnings that much and had the time to spare and otherwise enjoyed that DVD
player, I'd just do it the way they wanted. I just have better (from my
perspective, of course) things to worry about than "HEY, they should let me
remove those warnings while singing _anything I want_!"...

To get back to specifics and away from stupid analogies: It is true that I'd
prefer to write an iPhone app in Ruby than in Objective-C. I just don't think
that my preference is Apple's problem. They're just doing fine without me,
after all. This could come back to bite them, but then again it might not. So
I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree here.

So to reiterate. I don't think this is not significant, just that it is not
significant to me. I didn't mean for my comment to be taken literally as a
"no, you should all stop caring", even if I came across that way.

Cheers.

~~~
wvenable
> It is true that I'd prefer to write an iPhone app in Ruby than in
> Objective-C. I just don't think that my preference is Apple's problem.

I think we've touched on another disconnect. I don't think it's Apple's
problem either -- it's _our_ problem. We're still working out just how big of
a problem this is for us. For you, the problem is no Ruby.

> This could come back to bite them, but then again it might not.

I don't really care if it bites them or not. I'm not trying to give them a
friendly suggestion. I don't think they care. I just think it's a crappy thing
to do.

------
icey
The way the section is worded makes me wonder if this also prohibits ports of
applications from other platforms. What does "originally" mean when Apple says
it?

------
nfnaaron
So why doesn't Adobe just add a feature to their tool, that will take an app
originally written for the iPhone in Jobs-approved languages, suck that source
up and produce either source for Adobe's tools or source directly for other
phones?

It doesn't take care of existing apps that were written elsewhere first, but
it does take care people who can write iPhone apps and would like to port
those elsewhere.

~~~
83457
Seems like a valid idea but defeats their current purpose of making flash
development available for the iphone

------
cturner

        Applications must be originally written in
        Objective-C, C, C++.
    

Interesting: this excludes lex, bison and similar generators.

~~~
FredZarguna
I think it also exludes psuedo-code scribbled on the backs of envelopes or
napkins, code sketches sent via e-mail from the shop guru, anything appearing
originally in Knuth, and your own boss's idiotic missives if they contain
anything explcit.

------
steamer25
Couldn't another motivation be that they don't want to hire app reviewers with
fluency in every language under the sun? They have no way of enforcing the
Swahili/Milli Vanilli/mud -> C via Oompa Loompa exception, provided that the C
is readable and appears to be 'orginally written'.

I see it as a natural outgrowth of the chaperone model that a good number of
users have tolerated/embraced.

~~~
wvenable
App reviewers don't get the source code so that's not a valid point.

~~~
steamer25
How do they know what tools were used to create the app?

------
azzleandre
This is really funny, since this is just the transcription of their daily
business practice, so your experience shold have told you earlier. But only
now do people see it, after years of Apple behaving this way, people still
cramming to get into the apple-bottom, who are you to blame apple for actually
write it down?

------
bsaunder
Gee, I thought they meant "originally" as in:

"My code was originally written in C, but I've now ported it to Clojure." ;)

Of course as I make changes, it produces C that compiles to normal .o files
that are then (without any further translation, compatibility layer, or tool
required) linked with the Documented APIs.

------
etaque
What about MacRuby ? It still isn't working for iPhone eventually, but does it
mean "forbidden" now ?

------
celticjames
Is it possible to turn things around and compile an iPhone app to run on
Android/Flash/etc.? I'm sure it would be a monumental task, but could the
headers in the Apple SDK be wrapped in a cross platform library? Or is there a
rule against that too?

------
JeremyChase
This rule is only in there so they can justify their selective enforcement.
I'm sure you'll still be able to do whatever you want, but it gives them a
line to point to when not approving certain apps they don't like for whatever
reason.

------
motters
Apple, who is primarily a computer hardware manufacturer, shouldn't be in the
business of dictating what tools or languages software engineers use to create
applications.

------
coliveira
If you develop software for the iPhone/iPad, you are just a supplier for
Apple's app store. It is not unheard that companies require a process from
their suppliers.

------
dpcan
So this means, if you write a game for Android first, then want to write it
for iPhone, tough luck, better start with them??

------
j00lz
How does Apple get away with such monopolistic behaviour, if Microsoft had an
app store would antitrust lawsuits prevail?

------
MaysonL
I wonder if the restrictions on language used in development will also apply
to their new ad program?

~~~
eagleal
As I understood, the developers will access the iAd network via APIs. Is the
APIs available for different ad networks or only iAd.

This is interesting because the thing where this is not clear, it's the fact
that Jobs said you can use any ad serving network. Bur if the APIs are
available only for the iAd, and since you are stack with Apple approval
process (and the language restrictions) you can't use 3rd party technology
(eg. embedding Flash ads), and as a result you can't use any other network.

------
va_coder
1984

~~~
godDLL
newspeak

------
grumpyfart
"It is perhaps reasonable to specify the nature of the programs that can be
sold in the AppStore. It is not reasonable to specify how developers create
those programs so long as the end result meets the specified end result
criteria."

Can you see the pattern?

About a couple of months ago we were swearing to Apple because of AppStore
policies, and now AppStore policy to ban random apps is acceptable since they
introduced even more ridiculous terms.

I like the way how Steve plays!

------
ahoyhere
I honestly can't believe the stupidity of the metaphors in this thread.

Cattle grazing on the commons? Like Apple's telling you "Don't program in a
functional style"? It's a problem if the only store in town won't stock your
goods? Telling Leonardo da Vinci he can only use gummy?

Is Apple pissing in your freedom flakes? Really?

The iPhone is not a commons. It was never a commons. No smartphone device IS a
commons.

Apple is not dictating your programming style. They are dictating that you do
not run cross-compiled software, written in a non-native language, on their
device. This is not unreasonable.

There is nothing illegal, or immoral, or even marginally unreasonable, with a
store refusing to stock your goods. Even if it's the only store in town.

It's not like telling Leonardo he can only use one medium, because of course,
the iPhone is not the whole world, where da Vinci lived.

If one customer of da Vinci's only wanted art done in gummy, that would be an
accurate parallel.

Seriously, guys, this is HN. Let's see some of that logical thinking.

------
grumpyfart
Even though it's insane all developers will suck it up as Apple has the power
(boat load of users) and developers want to make money. They'll suck it up and
keep developing what they are developing.

From Apple point of view this makes perfects sense, they are not loosing
anything. They know as soon as they can keep the end-users happy developers
will come. That what has been happening and it'll keep that until someone else
comes up with a better marketing + product and take over a big chunk of the
market. And Android is not ready for that kind of action yet.

------
c00p3r
Good news for those who had invested in Android.

------
signa11
storm in a teacup much ?

~~~
yumraj
blinded and deafened by the fanboyism much?

