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a mistaken belief that consistent developer tooling means a consistent user experience Not necessarily, but inconsistent developer tools rarely lead to better

a mistaken belief that consistent developer tooling means a consistent user experience Not necessarily, but inconsistent developer tools rarely lead to better UXs than consistent ones. I don't know about you, but I haven't tried a single Flash-written app on the iPhone which didn't suck. And Apple's recent deletion of below-standards apps shows that they take app quality very seriously and want to set a high standard for the platform. As for the author's stance, it's simply ridiculous!

colinplamondon 17y ago
Yup. Allowing Flash-written apps is just encouraging even more shovelware to get into the App Store. You can argue about the benefits of having an open market, but that is categorically not what the App Store is. If you want an open market, you can write for Android. If you write a Cocoa Touch app, you're targeting the touchscreen-based iPhone OS. If you build with Flash, you're targeting mouse-based windowed operating systems, and, what the hell, might as well build to iPhone while you're at it! Banning Flash apps is smart, and I'm glad they're doing it. For C# apps, that's definitely non-ideal, but I can see where they're coming from.
- krschultz 17y ago
  Isn't the App Store already the definition of shovelware? There are some great apps but the vast majority are awful.
jimbokun 17y ago
Then reject apps with crappy user experiences. If this takes out all Flash derived apps, why the superfluous language specifically banning apps written in anything other than Objective C?
- martinpannier 17y ago
  UX is subjective, they can't reject apps on that basis. Whether it's written using Objective-C or another language, however, is not. And I'm not defending Apple, here. I don't like where they're headed. But I find this whole 'the program was written in my brain' thing ridiculous.
  - jerf 17y ago
    "UX is subjective, they can't reject apps on that basis." This is the Apple App Store. All apps require Apple approval before they can be sold. They can reject apps on whatever criteria they like. They have also demonstrated this is not a theoretical concern, either, by rejecting things for all sort of reasons that can't be said to be "objective". Apple graciously gives developers some guidelines on how they may make their arbitrary decisions, but, well, while I concede I have not read the developer agreement it is only because I'm about 98% confident without looking that Apple never actually agrees to do anything w.r.t. releasing your app. Ultimately, "we don't want our vision compromised" is a smokescreen. It is absolutely true that if this is what they wanted, they could accomplish it simply by holding all apps to the same standard regardless of implementation techniques. This is all about lockin. Now, if an open platform mandated certain libraries, but allowed you to distribute arbitrary executables, the UX argument would at least hold water, as lacking the strong enforcement mechanism of having absolute say over what you can run on your device means that falling back to the weaker enforcement mechanism of code would arguably mean something. (Something stupid, but something.) But Apple already has total control. Arguing about how their already-total control can only be augmented by this technical thingie over here is a smokeshow; taking control from "total" to "total" is a no-op, technically.
  - DannoHung 17y ago
    > UX is subjective, they can't reject apps on that basis. Yes they can, they can reject any app they don't want and have rejected any app they don't want. In fact, I think the whole damn thing would be better if there was just a standard disclaimer, "Yeah, we'll reject anything we don't like."
  - martinpannier 17y ago
    Do you have any examples? And we're not talking about apps which replicate core functionality, call private APIs, or do a bunch of stuff that is forbidden by the developer agreement ...
  - billybob 17y ago
    It's not ridiculous. If the finished app meets Apple's standards, why should they care how it's made? Whether something is written in Objective-C or compiled to it is irrelevant if the finished product is indistinguishable. It's like saying "I need the original copy of that file." What, you want me to ship you the hard drive? All you really need are identical bits of information. Oh, crap, I defragged my hard drive. Guess I don't have the "original copy" anymore after all.
anonjon 17y ago
How is it ridiculous? 'Compilers' back before automatic compilation, were humans. Technological progress lead us to swap a computer for the human compiler pretty early on. Maybe we'll see people getting jobs as flash 'compilers' in the near future due to this.

colinplamondon 17y ago

Yup. Allowing Flash-written apps is just encouraging even more shovelware to get into the App Store. You can argue about the benefits of having an open market, but that is categorically not what the App Store is. If you want an open market, you can write for Android. If you write a Cocoa Touch app, you're targeting the touchscreen-based iPhone OS. If you build with Flash, you're targeting mouse-based windowed operating systems, and, what the hell, might as well build to iPhone while you're at it! Banning Flash apps is smart, and I'm glad they're doing it. For C# apps, that's definitely non-ideal, but I can see where they're coming from.

krschultz 17y ago
Isn't the App Store already the definition of shovelware? There are some great apps but the vast majority are awful.

jimbokun 17y ago

Then reject apps with crappy user experiences. If this takes out all Flash derived apps, why the superfluous language specifically banning apps written in anything other than Objective C?

martinpannier 17y ago
UX is subjective, they can't reject apps on that basis. Whether it's written using Objective-C or another language, however, is not. And I'm not defending Apple, here. I don't like where they're headed. But I find this whole 'the program was written in my brain' thing ridiculous.
- jerf 17y ago
  "UX is subjective, they can't reject apps on that basis." This is the Apple App Store. All apps require Apple approval before they can be sold. They can reject apps on whatever criteria they like. They have also demonstrated this is not a theoretical concern, either, by rejecting things for all sort of reasons that can't be said to be "objective". Apple graciously gives developers some guidelines on how they may make their arbitrary decisions, but, well, while I concede I have not read the developer agreement it is only because I'm about 98% confident without looking that Apple never actually agrees to do anything w.r.t. releasing your app. Ultimately, "we don't want our vision compromised" is a smokescreen. It is absolutely true that if this is what they wanted, they could accomplish it simply by holding all apps to the same standard regardless of implementation techniques. This is all about lockin. Now, if an open platform mandated certain libraries, but allowed you to distribute arbitrary executables, the UX argument would at least hold water, as lacking the strong enforcement mechanism of having absolute say over what you can run on your device means that falling back to the weaker enforcement mechanism of code would arguably mean something. (Something stupid, but something.) But Apple already has total control. Arguing about how their already-total control can only be augmented by this technical thingie over here is a smokeshow; taking control from "total" to "total" is a no-op, technically.
- DannoHung 17y ago
  > UX is subjective, they can't reject apps on that basis. Yes they can, they can reject any app they don't want and have rejected any app they don't want. In fact, I think the whole damn thing would be better if there was just a standard disclaimer, "Yeah, we'll reject anything we don't like."
- martinpannier 17y ago
  Do you have any examples? And we're not talking about apps which replicate core functionality, call private APIs, or do a bunch of stuff that is forbidden by the developer agreement ...
- billybob 17y ago
  It's not ridiculous. If the finished app meets Apple's standards, why should they care how it's made? Whether something is written in Objective-C or compiled to it is irrelevant if the finished product is indistinguishable. It's like saying "I need the original copy of that file." What, you want me to ship you the hard drive? All you really need are identical bits of information. Oh, crap, I defragged my hard drive. Guess I don't have the "original copy" anymore after all.

anonjon 17y ago

How is it ridiculous? 'Compilers' back before automatic compilation, were humans. Technological progress lead us to swap a computer for the human compiler pretty early on. Maybe we'll see people getting jobs as flash 'compilers' in the near future due to this.