

Apple: .net apps are kicked off iPhone OS 4 too. - nailer
http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/monotouch/2010-April/001878.html

======
voidpointer
Isn't it funny how many people using alternative runtimes seem to say "I can
fully understand why they would ban Adobe/Flash but why on earth would they
also ban my favorite runtime"?

Apple didn't make this move because they have some irrational religious hatred
against Adobe. They are just betting that a tight control over the technology
by which people produce applications for their mobile platform will be
advantageous to them. They are fully aware that this is bad for people who
have bet on using different technology and I guess is that they just don't
care the tiniest bit.

~~~
chops
_this is bad for people who have bet on using different technology_

Absolutely true.

An intersting thing is that I, and I'm sure quite a few others, would never
have guessed that _language choice_ was a "bet" (at least, not this kind of
bet, anyway).

~~~
rbanffy
> I (...) would never have guessed that language choice was a "bet"

Oh boy... It took years for me to convince several companies Java is not the
only language that can turn out "enterprise level" applications...

That risks putting me back in square one.

Thanks, Steve. Well played.

~~~
pyre
How is that though? If you were betting on Java for iPhone apps, you're just
as screwed here too.

~~~
rbanffy
Many companies bet on one single technology stack for everything, whether the
choice is appropriate or not.

------
clawrencewenham
I work in IT, where we use C# and .Net exclusively, and would love to develop
iPhone apps in MonoTouch.

However, I also think Apple is doing the right thing by banning "meta-
platforms" from the App store. Adding layers of abstraction that only serve
the developer, rather than the phone's owner, is hard to justify on small,
battery-powered devices. Especially when introducing multi-tasking features,
RAM becomes even more precious, and fameworks, interpreters, cross-compilers,
etc. will cause a bloating trend.

If OS 4.0 does indeed make it easier to deploy IT apps across the enterprise
without going through the App store, and 3.3.1 only applies to the App store,
then I know my problems are solved.

~~~
davidw
I think some form of "caveat emptor" would be more appropriate than simply
banning stuff.

One man's bloat is another man's lower barrier to entry for an app that he
really wants to write, but has trouble writing in ObjC. Maybe it's supremely
useful for a niche group of users because the author is an expert in some
domain...

~~~
clawrencewenham
I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like another excellent reason to
keep that developer out of the market.

Remember that the App Store is a business and a marketplace, where products
are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and everything that
runs on it--to be reliable. IE: this is a professional realm.

Professional programmers don't have a problem with learning a new language, if
that's what's required to target a new platform. If someone "has trouble
writing in ObjC", then they really need to work on their skills. This person
sounds like a hobbyist who probably shouldn't be selling his wares to run on
consumer electronics devices with limited RAM and battery life.

~~~
pyre
> _I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like another excellent reason to
> keep that developer out of the market. Remember that the App Store is a
> business and a marketplace, where products are being sold to real consumers
> who want their phone--and everything that runs on it--to be reliable. IE:
> this is a professional realm._

By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified
out of _every activity where people are also professionals._ Want to create a
start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so
you're legally banned from doing so.

> _where products are being sold to real consumers who want their phone--and
> everything that runs on it--to be reliable_

How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the
interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no
conflicts?

> _Professional programmers don't have a problem with learning a new language,
> if that's what's required to target a new platform. If someone "has trouble
> writing in ObjC", then they really need to work on their skills. This person
> sounds like a hobbyist who probably shouldn't be selling his wares to run on
> consumer electronics devices with limited RAM and battery life._

We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from the
lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification program.
Sort of like a bar-exam for programmers. Then we would know that no
professional programmer was lacking in any respect. All code produced would be
perfect and of the highest quality. I mean, it works for lawyers. No
incompetent lawyer has ever passed the bar-exam, and no medical professional
that was incompetent has ever received a license practice medicine.

~~~
clawrencewenham
> By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified
> out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a
> start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so
> you're legally banned from doing so.

That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy. A startup
does not have to ask Apple to provide a storefront, distribution network and
billing system for them.

> How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the
> interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no
> conflicts?

By creating a marketplace with a baseline of quality, you improve everybody's
bottom line. Developers can spend less effort convincing the customer that
their product isn't a buggy piece of crap that won't run, or needs special
access to a restricted service, or any of the other things that Apple's review
process screens out.

Apple is removing barriers-to-purchase for the customers by converting them
into barriers-to-entry for the developers. Doing this has made the App Store
an impulse-buyer's dream, and this benefits everyone.

> We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from
> the lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification
> program.

Perhaps that's coming, too. Despite your sarcasm, a legal profession with Bar
exams or medical profession with licenses is still substantially better than
one without. Even if, at the very least, they only provide a mechanism for
taking consistently poor practitioners out of the system.

But that's unlikely, because professional certifications are used when the
professional himself is the product. Here, the app is the product, and Apple
is screening on the merits of the product.

I'm going to guess it's logistically impossible to train so many reviewers to
look at each product in detail (with turnover, very high submission rates,
etc.), so they have to give them broad rules.

Right now, someone is claiming that CS5-compiled Flash games HAVE made it to
the App Store, and that they are slow pieces of crap:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel...](http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yourself_why_flash_was_banned_from_the/)

If CS5 unleashes a tidal wave of Flash games into the App store, then yes, I
imagine that iPhone owners will be disgusted with the state of the market,
hurting everyone trying to sell a product there. (Think of the "September that
never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) Even developers who've spent a little
more time learning Objective-C so they can create a better product.

~~~
gloob
_That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy._

It was reductio ad absurdum, not slippery slope. Slippery slope would be "If
we let Apple do this, the next step will be having to be 'professional enough'
to be legally permitted to start a startup", which is not what the gp said.

------
jaustin
I can't work out how 'official' that statement is, especially given that it
conflicts with what Unity have apparently said (perhaps there are updates on
that story that I've missed?) - <http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/08/adobe-flash-
apple-sdk/>

There seems to be an 'official' response from Novell here: [http://www.mono-
project.com/newstouch/archive/2010/Apr-09.ht...](http://www.mono-
project.com/newstouch/archive/2010/Apr-09.html), but the email linked here is
doing the rounds on blogs/aggregators as an 'official statement' - is that guy
one of Novell's lawyers?

Further to the link this post gives, this email form later in the thread is
useful/gives more context:
[http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/monotouch/2010-April/00188...](http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/monotouch/2010-April/001882.html)

~~~
nailer
It's from Steve Jobs email account (perhaps I should change 'Apple' to 'Steve
Jobs' to make this apparent, but it's too late) The relevant part:

.net dev > So, I replied back to him, and explained that my firm intends to
both create in-house applications, as well as distribute apps via the app
store:

Steve Jobs > (Paraphrasing his reply:) "Sorry, if you use the app store, you
need to adhere to the T.O.S."

~~~
TomOfTTB
The problem I have is that you paraphrase. For something so important I think
it would be worth publishing the whole e-mail. Unless there's something
personal in it that you don't want to share.

~~~
nailer
I'm not paraphrasing, I'm directly quoting the .net developer who mailed jobs.
He is paraphrasing.

------
sh4na
A post on a mailing list from someone who emailed "Steve" and got some one-
liner reply does not strike me as an official announcement from Apple, no
matter how much people enjoy saying "ooh, I mailed Steve and he replied, I'm
sure this matter is over and done with now"

There are way too many companies and users affected, for this to be resolved
via some one liner reply to some guy on a weekend. A bit obvious, eh?

~~~
pyre
I'm sure whatever was emailed back is the current 'official line' of the
company. They may change that if there's enough developer push-back, but
unless you're trying to claim that Steve (or an underling) responded with
something that isn't 'towing the company line,' then this should be pretty
inline with the message that Apple wants to send. Just because it didn't go
through some official PR channel means nothing.

~~~
stuaxo
We really need them to specify for each tool that we ask Yes/No - not to just
refer us to the TOS.

------
endgame
What I don't understand about this whole kerfuffle is that Apple already had
the power to arbitrarily block applications. Why not just make the TOS more
explicit in requiring performant apps that look and feel like apps written in
ObjC? That would still make life very hard for cross-platform flash, but allow
people developing against Apple's library directly in Haskell, Scheme or
whatever to do so.

------
zandorg
I had a friend criticising me for writing my 'app' (an email archive and
indexer) in C++ not C# because it "didn't use .NET". I replied that as it runs
on a Windows 98 box with 128MB of RAM and a 400MHZ CPU, it's perfect to put on
the iPhone. Of course, my GUI is not Apple-type polished and would never get
accepted, but at least everything else is fine.

------
elblanco
Anybody know if this rule change is retroactive? Will Apple now go through the
App Store and cleave out all the apps that don't fit this requirement? I'm
betting there are a fairly large number of popular and high quality apps that
don't fit into this prescribed tool-chain.

------
yason
I never got excited by the iPhone OS, then I was a bit unsure for a while, but
now I know again why I wanted to miss that boat.

Well, more land for Android.

~~~
veemjeem
In other words, you were never a developer/user for the iPhone, and now you
still won't be.

~~~
yason
Pretty much, yes. It never excited me and I never figured out why would it be
cool to write iPhone apps. And that was at the time when iPhone was cool and
Apple was still seen as benign.

I was never a developer/user/anything to Java either and I've only later
learned that I certainly didn't miss anything. ;)

------
alnayyir
Is there anyone who actually makes a living off of iPhone development that was
affected by any of this? Can anyone honestly speak to this being a problem?

~~~
nailer
Excerpt: 500 apps in the App Store are built on Mono and Unity3D _alone_.
That's excluding non-3D apps. Source: <http://www.mono-project.com/Software>

Presumably these would all be affected.

~~~
gte910h
Ironically, with the huge bevy of crap out on the store, I think the majority
of cross platform library apps are likely currently higher average quality
than the _actual_ "Average App". Unity3D especially raises the bar there.

    
    
       --Actual Developer

