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Apple Relaxes iOS Restrictions On Development Tools, Publishes Review Guidelines

464 points by jakewalker 16y ago

More details: http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html

elblanco 16y ago
Well that was a bunch of unnecessary drama for a whole lotta nothing.
jakewalker 16y ago
Will be interesting to see if Adobe's program to port flash-to-iOS 5, which was to be included in CS5, is a go again.
- TrentBrown 16y ago
  Exactly. This is potentially hugely important news.
- al_ 16y ago
  Are applications developed with the current version of FlashCS5 now allowed ?
sant0sk1 16y ago
Welcome, but long overdue.
- city41 16y ago
  It still doesn't really matter. They can revoke this stance whenever they want. It still remains risky to base your livelihood on a format completely controlled by someone else who ultimately couldn't care less about your needs.
  - mcav 16y ago
    There's no way they could go back on this now. The outcry would be ten times larger than it was when they first restricted it.
    - hswolff 16y ago
      Agreed. You give a mouse a cookie, and then he'll want a glass of water. By giving up this ground it would be near impossible and close to PR-suicide to commit any future retraction. About time for sure.
    - points 16y ago
      10 * 0.00001 is still pretty miniscule. Uproar from developers is meh. End users don't care. Apple can do what they want with the app store. If a few whiney devs decide to not play any more, there's an infinite supply of other devs who will.
      - mcav 16y ago
        It's more than whiney developers now. It was one thing when Apple never made clear the guidelines and chose to reject apps; now that they've made guidelines very explicit, going back on them would very publicly damage other companies: Large companies, like Adobe and Oracle, who would be very upset as well if Apple reneged on this change of policy. They won't go back on it. Not now.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Who do you develop for? Don't say Android unless you mean rooted Android. In which case you could also develop for jail-broken iOS. EDIT: As explained below, my point isn't that Android isn't open today but that it's their (or the carrier's) platform.
    - drivebyacct2 16y ago
      What are you talking about? Target the Dalvik VM and Google doesn't care what you do, what language you do it in, or what tools you use to build it. Sure there are some parts of the system that you can't access without root privileges, but that's an entirely different issue.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        But it's their platform. Maybe they don't care today but how do you know they, or the carriers wont care tomorrow? That risk seems at least as big as Apple going back on today's announcement (for the record, I would view both small).
        jrockway 16y ago
        What if the world ends tomorrow and you spent your last hours doing nothing but debating hypotheticals? That would be a shame, so you should just stop now.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Your reply would fit even better to the person I originally responded to.
        nlogn 16y ago
        The difference is that Apple has enacted many policies that limit developers while Google has, to my knowledge, never done anything of the sort. In fact, it seems like they go out of their way to be fair to developers (for instance: every app they built for Android uses only the APIs that are available to everyone). Edit: My point is that Google has never shown an inclination towards policies like these, and I think it's reasonable to expect that not to change.
- napierzaza 16y ago
  What's the point of such a comment. It reminds me of the pundits talking about how it was "About time" copy & paste was devised. Be glad that Apple isn't so prideful that they aren't able to make changes like this. A lot of people and companies wouldn't be able to admit things like thing to make the right decision. Whether it was fast enough for you is entirely besides the point. They couldn't have just opened up the whole deal could they? They make careful decisions. They started out with high restrictions and have become continually more open. How often is the opposite the case? Every "death knell" for the App Store and the iPhone is being chipped away; not by Android, but Apple itself.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    The point was that Apple could have avoided much pain and suffering for all concerned if they had done the right thing in the first place. Now we just need to be able to run programs not purchased through the Apple store and access my iPod without having to use Windows, and I will have to take Apple of my "somewhat evil" list.
    - nanairo 16y ago
      I disagree. Apple's stubbornness has its problems, and sometimes it's a pain. At the same time this uncompromising stances are common among those with strong believes and vision. And Apple has those (if you agree with their believes and vision is another story though ;) ). Case in point: the original Mac had no arrow keys to FORCE the developers and the users to change their frame of mind and make heavier use of the mouse. Had they compromised maybe people would have gone for the path of lowest resistance, and people wouldn't have accepted the advantages. Other cases: - USB (how long did it take in the PC world to get rid of serial ports?) - 64-bit cocoa (or rather 64-bit carbon) etc... It may seem madness, but there is logic in the madness. And usually if after many months if not year they are still proved wrong, Apple relents (e.g. fat Nano, Cube, DVD>CD-RW, tabs on top in Safari, etc...).
      - tomjen3 16y ago
        Hmm, I just don't believe in people telling me what to do - if it really is better, I will come around to it eventually (emacs, dvorak) but except for getting more usb ports, I don't really see any of the things you listed as being a good thing. Which just goes to prove my point - I don't fit very well into the Apple box.
bhjodokast 16y ago
How fickle are they?
- bhjodokast 16y ago
  They are very fickle! Anyone want to talk about how fickle they are? I guess not...
thibaut_barrere 16y ago
Now I seriously hope it means we'll be able to use MacRuby on iPhone/iPad in the next few weeks/months.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  Isn't the lack of GC on the iPhone's Obj-C runtime a much bigger hurdle than 3.3.1?
- annon 16y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking. I'd love to do some small things on iPhone, but I don't really want to commit the time to become pro at Objective-C. It's not a bad language, just not my thing.
  - mike_h 16y ago
    If you've used C or Java before, you can become "pro enough" in ObjC in a matter of hours, maybe even 1 hour. The real work of designing an iOS app is getting the interface right, and any complex logic you might have. Nothing esoteric about day-to-day expressing yourself in ObjC -- plus Cocoa provides so many nice features that the verbosity you may gain coming from Ruby is offset by the amount of coding Apple took care of for you.
    - zekel 16y ago
      Yeah, it's really Cocoa you have to learn, not ObjC.
- ptomato 16y ago
  Very unlikely, I'd imagine, just from a performance standpoint.
Setsuna 16y ago
VLC
aditya42 16y ago
Badam bam pshsh!
portman 16y ago
Was this story broken here on HN? I can't find any other stories on Google News. If so, well done jakewalker. Makes me wonder if HN can become a primary source for news in addition to an aggregator.
- jakewalker 16y ago
  I saw it on a few tech sites (AppleInsider, Gizmodo, etc.) this morning, but linked to the source, since most of their articles were just a copy & paste of the Apple press release.
umjames 16y ago
Wait, so does this mean Apple doesn't have a problem with a 3rd-party framework becoming the preferred API for iOS development? How does not allowing apps that download code prevent this? Also, does this mean you can't download JavaScript from an external web page in your app?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ra88it 16y ago
  Apparently Javascript is given an explicit exception.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    What about, say, Haskell compiled to JavaScript?
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      If it runs on their JavaScript engine outputting to their HTML component, it's fine.
    - wslh 16y ago
      Why not a Python interpreter written in Ruby running under Silverlight?
  - brownleej 16y ago
    I found it interesting that the exception was not for Javascript, but rather for WebKit in general. "The only exception to the foregoing [ban on downloading and interpreting code] is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework." [from section 3.3.2]. Perhaps Apple wants to keep their options open for other scripting languages in WebKit. I would love to see python and ruby scripting on the client side, personally.
  - zekel 16y ago
    Would you mind linking me to where it says that? I can't find it.
adriand 16y ago
Is this just a press release that changes are coming later today, or are the actual changes also published? If the latter, is anyone able to summarize what they are?
fierarul 16y ago
What happened ? Did Adobe poke some government officials and Apple was starting to get bothered by that ? It just seems incredibly stupid to first ban all tools -- just to mess with Adobe basically -- and then do an 180 and remove said restriction.
- jakewalker 16y ago
  There is an active FTC investigation into the terms of the developer agreement, I believe. No idea if it was a direct influence on the change.
greendestiny 16y ago
I just had a quick read of the new sections of the agreement. As far as I can see all restrictions on the languages and tools have been removed. No scripts or executable code can be downloaded by the app (ie it all has to be packaged) with the exception of javascript in a web component. Really I guess the press release says all that, but there is no equivocation in the terms of the actual agreement which is nice. Great move Apple!
mcobrien 16y ago
If you're a registered developer, you can read the just-published App Store Guidelines here: http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guide... For those who aren't registered developers, it's basically a list of 189 rules, most in the form of "Apps that ... will be rejected"
- johnthedebs 16y ago
  Any chance someone can make that available to non-developers?
  - Tichy 16y ago
    Probably not, NDA and all that.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- vaporstun 16y ago
  For those non-registered developers, here is a link to a pdf posted by Engadget: http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guide...
  - thwarted 16y ago
    2.11 Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them I wonder how quality of the current apps vs quality of the new app applies here.
    - bad_user 16y ago
      Of course those rules are still subjective ... what does "many of them" mean anyway? But still, it's an improvement.
    - elai 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
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wheaties 16y ago
So does this mean they'll actually follow their own review guidelines or is it going to mean you can read them but @#$%!, you're still at the whim of whomever gets your app?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Only one way to know, try.
- smackfu 16y ago
  Yes, it will be interesting to see if they restrict themselves to these guidelines. In theory, rejections now can just say: You violated 2.1 and 2.3.
- bombs 16y ago
  "This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this." They're not limited to rejecting you for only the things that are in the guidelines. The guidelines say this.
jacquesm 16y ago
So, how about all those people that were supporting apples' right to run their app store the way they see fit and who said that there is no point complaining about it? I think this proves that complaining about stuff like this is well worth the effort, assuming that that - and not some backroom pressure - is what caused them to back off. They mention it in their release so I figure it must have been a major factor. edit: the plaintext version of the appstore guidelines: http://ww.com/appstore.html http://ww.com/appstore.html I've been reading through the guidelines while fixing the markup and it seems to me that it's very reasonable the way it is worded and those terms that are left. I'd feel pretty good developing under these terms.
- lurch_mojoff 16y ago
  The thing is most of the complaining about this was not the constructive "hey, Apple have you considered so-and-so", but rather the whiny "waaaa... Apple are Nazis" kind. And as you point out there is no evidence that it is the complaining that made Apple reconsider. It could very well be something entirely different, e.g. the FTC probe.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Plenty of it was very constructive, it pointed out why the choice of tools should be left to the developer and how not relaxing this restriction would make it easier for people to develop for android than for the Iphone. If the FTC probe (or the rise of android) has anything to do with it then I doubt we'll ever know, but I'm all for taking this on face value and believing them when they publicly admit to listening to their devs. It's a nice thing to be able to hold them to at a future date.
    - lurch_mojoff 16y ago
      Well, it looked plenty for very small values of plenty, from where I stand. There were some very well reasoned arguments against the restriction - arguments like the fact that many libraries and game engines require the flexibility that scripting allows; or like the fact that there are languages and environments that are more conducive of tackling certain types of problems. Those, however were drowned in a sea of petty complaints like "I know language XYZ and now Apple are making me learn their sucky ObjC" or "Apple just want to prevent you from porting your app to a competing platform, them Nazis", or dramatic pronouncements that Apple have turned their back on the hacker crowd and thus are stifling innovation. And I'm not saying we shouldn't believe Apple when they say they've listened to the developer community. I am saying that such decisions usually factor in a broader spectrum of reasons. At the very least, there are may examples of Apple not budging on issues, regardless of the huge ruckus. I'm also not saying we shouldn't complain. I am saying we should cut on the drama, try to understand Apple's rationale for their decisions, and figure out a way to meet them midway. Or as Apple say in the intro to the App Store Review Guidelines - "If it sounds like we're control freaks, well, maybe it's because we're so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products. Just like almost all of you are too."
DeusExMachina 16y ago
This puzzles me. Why did they change them after a couple of months? I'm really wondering. Maybe now they will raise the bar for quality rejecting apps that do not follow guidelines or do not provide enough functionality? Sounds strange, but I cannot think about any other reason. EDIT: reading through the just published guidelines, it is exactly like this.
- White_N_Nerdy 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure they do things like this for the drama, to get free headlines.
- meelash 16y ago
  hmm... haven't I read somewhere about building something people want and releasing quickly, and then iterating on it when you hear from people what they want differently?
tomjen3 16y ago
Does anybody have the links to the actual rules, since this press release, through welcome, is extremely light on details. If not, can we please not post something this light on content to HN in the future? Maybe instead wait for somebody who knows something to blog about it? I would hate for this to become a place to just post press releases.
- mcobrien 16y ago
  The rules and app store review guidelines are both protected by the developer NDA so no one's going to be eager to post them. This mostly affects registered developers anyway (and I'd say there are a fair few on HN), for whom the rules are just a click away.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    Actually it would properly affect those who are considering becomming developers for Apple more - after all, if you already learned the APIs, then you already made your choice.
- jakewalker 16y ago
  https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid... You need to be an iOS Developer to login. Unclear if it's under NDA or not, but I'm sure this document will leak out eventually. There are 22 categories of potential violations, and most rules end in "will be rejected."
  - ben1040 16y ago
    You know, while Apple's rejections seemed to be arbitrary at times, I was surprised that my reaction to reading this was that the vast majority of these rules are pretty sensible. A lot of them come down to "your app must not crash or be full of bugs, it must do what it says it does, and it cannot be malicious." For all the hoopla, I expected this list would read like a crazy list of charges handed down by a kangaroo court. The thing on here which I really strongly disagree with is the ban on making apps that replicate functionality shipped with the phone. If users want an alternate mail client that supports IMAP IDLE for example, it should be up to the user to download that.
ohhmaagawd 16y ago
my guess is the FTC investigation into Apple's practices got them nervous. better to just cave than deal with anti-trust issues: http://voices.allthingsd.com/20100611/ftc-to-investigate-apples-conduct-in-mobile-app-market/ http://voices.allthingsd.com/20100611/ftc-to-investigate-app...
- tptacek 16y ago
  My guess is that only Apple knows why it changed the rules, but that anyone who can do a Google search can (a) read up on what antitrust means and (b) observe Apple's non-commanding share of the mobile market.
  - mattmanser 16y ago
    True, but we're starting to live in a slightly weird world where once you buy a particular product which is a gateway to other products and services, the manufacturer is dictating in a very megalomaniac way on how you spend your money. And commanding huge sums from utterly controlling that marketplace. Like the XBox and iPhone. They may have a non-commanding share of mobiles, but they have a total monopoly on iPhone apps.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Under that theory of law, every platform company in the world is subject to antitrust suits as the "monopoly provider of access to that platform". Twitter could be sued. 37signals could be sued. Fortunately, this simply isn't how antitrust law works.
      - notahacker 16y ago
        Microsoft's monopoly was only on Windows, which just happened to be the only viable option for most PC OEMs and browser developers. If owning 99.4% of the mobile app sales market (Gartner figure for 2009) and imposing restrictions which hinder the development of cross-platform apps doesn't deserve antitrust scrutiny, I'm really not sure what does.
hopeless 16y ago
Just in time for me to start coding my first iPhone app! I'd wanted to use Appcelerator's Titanium to avoid learning Objective-C and to keep my options open with respect to Android phones. I've sat on the development on this idea for a few months now wondering if Apple would finally reveal their hand. I'm glad they did but I'm honestly surprised that they've done "the right thing" and moved away from monopolistic tactics. Wahoo! Coding starts on Monday :)
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Just too late for me, bought an android on Monday!. Too bad, I figured I'd waited long enough and had decided they were not going to budge.
  - stoney 16y ago
    Would you change your mind now? I decided on Monday to buy an Android phone (HTC Desire), but haven't got around to going to the store yet.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Funny, I bought an HTC desire as well. Would I change my mind? That's a tough one. I have a Mac (borrowed it to a friend because of lack of use), so I could develop for an iPhone as well. I like the android ecosystem a bit better because it has more variety, it reminds me more of the PC platform in terms of hardware than the iphone gear. The increased variety means that you'll have to write more flexible software, but that's only a good thing. Most - if not all - of my objections to the iphone platform have fallen by the wayside with this terms of service change, and the fact that if you develop something useful you can immediately market it to a large number of people is a neat thing, however I think that the number of apps in the app store make it hard for new applications to still gain sufficient traction. Your app would have to be pretty original to make a go of it today I think. Then there is the fact that I don't like that they did this stuff in the first place. I'm apparently not the most forgiving person and it appears to me that if you pull this sort of stunt you need to do a bit more than just change your terms and say you'll listen better in the future. It would certainly be a much harder decision to make, I won't be making the choice again but I think it is a toss-up at this point. Probably I'd still go for the android, but I'm really not 100% sure.
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kylechafin 16y ago
Now that MonoTouch appears to be in the clear on iOS... It sounds like C# is going to be a viable language for 3 major mobile platforms this Fall. Windows Phone 7 supports C# by default. MonoTouch brings it to iOS and MonoDroid takes it to Android. It sounds like there will be some really neat opportunities to reuse C# libraries across all three platforms, while dropping a native platform UI on top of them.
- sourc3 16y ago
  Having programmed in C, C++, C#, Java and JS (if scripting counts) I applaud this. I have tried to get used to Objective-C but after using C# for the past 4 years or so, it just seems uncomfortable with me (probably a personal bias that cannot be generalized). I was considering developing my startup's first mobile app in Android since I did not want to touch Objective-C and go with an iPhone Web Page. Considering the number of developers on the .NET/C# bandwagon I think we will be seeing another Gold Rush to the app-store. I really hope the app-review board can filter out the ugly, form and buttons type of applications that will come as part of this rush. Otherwise, AppStore will be the next Tucows.
  - MartinCron 16y ago
    Accidental downvote. Meant to upvote. Totally agree. Damn iPhone.
    - pbz 16y ago
      I would say it's also poor UI, even with a mouse is easy to hit one over the other without a way to undo...
  - swilliams 16y ago
    Keep in mind that using C# to program iOS apps is still very different than traditional .NET apps. The language is familiar, but the framework is definitely not.
    - MartinCron 16y ago
statemachine 16y ago
In other news, hell freezes over, and Microsoft embraces open source.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  You'd be surprised how much MS code is getting released under OSS licenses these days. That just leaves hell freezing over...
- adolfojp 16y ago
  http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/ http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/ Go get a light sweater.
steilpass 16y ago
Strange. Didn't Steve Jobs mention he doesn't want another software layer? Because it leads to bad apps and they can't push API changes as fast, because these third party layers have to update?
- steilpass 16y ago
  "We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform." http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
  - protomyth 16y ago
    I get the feeling that if the dev tool / framework you are using doesn't exactly act like the native framework they will reject your app. Particularly if your app draws its own UI without using the native widgets.
- kristofferR 16y ago
  I guess he changed his mind when Epic showed him the Unreal Engine 3 running on an iPhone. He was so impressed by it that he presented it as the only third party app on their iPod press conference, that says a lot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2H8hmi8yrQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2H8hmi8yrQ
  - colomon 16y ago
    According to John Carmack (http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack, search for Apple), Apple asked him to also be at the conference, and he turned them down because of the conditions they wanted to put on him to do it.
    - judofyr 16y ago
      Permalink: http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/22739785428 http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/22739785428
togasystems 16y ago
Hopefully the fulfill this promise of being more open. They accidentally leaked financial records of many app developers to their competitors. Nothing has been said about this. Link to story: http://togapit.com/apple-leaks-sensitive-developer-data/ http://togapit.com/apple-leaks-sensitive-developer-data/ On another note, I believe they are relaxing the rules due to epic's involvement. A lot of there code uses Lua.
mambodog 16y ago
I really hope this doesn't result in a flood of Flash-based apps. And I say that as someone who's been developing Flash content for the web for quite some time.
- jlgosse 16y ago
  I really wish you had instead said "Flash-flood of apps".
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  I don't think it's that positive a move for Flash. I think there will be some instances where people will port existing Flash content but it's not going to be the platform of choice for most people starting from scratch. I suspect we'll see an increase in iPhone IDEs for different platforms and Flash will be one of many picking up a small share of the market with XCode holding onto the bulk of it.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Yeah. The underlying problem here is not that there are a bunch of Flash apps, but that Apple forces every user to install every app every developer cranks out. If you could decide for yourself, then you could let other people use Flash apps, while you could completely ignore them. Oh right, that's already how it is. So this will actually affect you in no way, except that you have more apps to pick from (or ignore).
- bad_user 16y ago
  Guidelines or not, they can always ban crappy apps ... that's why those restrictions (like developing with other languages) seemed so out of place and more like a political move meant to take shots at its competition. It's quite simple ... if an app consumes lots of resources (measurable) or is violating the design guidelines or is another fart-app ... then ban it. If Flash-based apps are indeed crappy, you don't need to explicitly ban Flash ... and who knows ... maybe a skilled developer can make something usable that doesn't fuck up your battery life.
- elai 16y ago
  With the nature of the app store, it won't really be noticeable unless you specifically search for it, or it actually has some merit.
appie 16y ago
Here they are: http://pastie.org/1148102 http://pastie.org/1148102 ("Use Pastie for good, not evil." - I think this is for good)
- jrockway 16y ago
  Thanks for posting these. Still too many rules for my taste. (Google also has too many rules, FWIW.)
  - cardinal23 16y ago
    Instead of just saying too many rules, do you have points in the list that you object to? One of the problems with rejection until now was the lack of specific guidelines about what would be rejected. It seems to me that a comprehensive document would unavoidably have many rules, and the prohibitions that I read seemed reasonable.
    - jrockway 16y ago
      The tipping point was "no card counting". While card counting may be against the rules at a particular casino, it's not illegal in general and does not belong in the "legal" section. Whenever Apple is confronted with a situation where the user could use a feature or tool for something that's "against the rules", they tend to disable the feature. See, for example, iTunes' inability to import music from an iPod. It could be 100% legal for me to do that, but Apple doesn't provide that feature, even though iTunes "knows" how to do it. (I stopped using Apple products about 5 years ago when they added PT_DENY_ATTACH.)
      - duskwuff 16y ago
        > I stopped using Apple products about 5 years ago when they added PT_DENY_ATTACH. You mean the ptrace() flag that's trivial to bypass? Been a while since I dealt with it, but ISTR it's as simple as: br ptrace commands ret cont end
      - DerekL 16y ago
jakewalker 16y ago
I just submitted this as a separate link, but engadget is hosting a copy of the new guidelines (opens a PDF): http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guide...
tomlin 16y ago
I wonder if this will have a psychological effect on using other dev. environments for Apps. It almost paints a Flash-compiled app as being "legacy" when a company opens it up after demonstrating it's case against alternatives.
wallflower 16y ago
I applaud this. Yes, it might have been in reaction to the potential US Government anti-trust type probe. Yes, it effectively lowers the billable rate and billable hours of many iPhone developers. Yes, it makes it possible for almost anyone (using Titanium and tools-yet-to-come [wake up, Adobe!]) to make mobile apps. However, I think its good because it allows developers to further differentiate themselves from the pack. What apps get featured? People bemoan the fact there is so many apps competing. But I believe that if you write a compelling app that stands out from the hum-drum tab-bar apps and, yes, glut of physics-based games, your reviewer at Apple will notice. They probably even get some kind of bonus for identifying the diamonds in the coal. Thank you and muchos gracias, Apple. I believe that apps that push the limit of what an iPhone current generation can do - and do it beautifully - that is what will win in the marketplace. Uzu, that addictive slice a shape in half game, the render a photo like an oil painting. All require secret sauce - in development time, graphics, rendering. Titanium mobile won't for a very long time be able to make a Uzu-type game. Or even a well-designed app. I hope... Prepare to be flooded with ports of Flash games (I assume this makes Adobe's compile to Flash in CS5 feature a go, now)
woodrow 16y ago
No one has mentioned what seems to be one of other most seemingly positive developments of this -- the App Review Board [1]: "We’ve created the App Review Board to provide you the opportunity to appeal the rejection of an application if you believe that the functionality or technical implementation was misunderstood. You will be able to submit details that the App Review Board will use to determine if the rejection of your app should be reconsidered." Of course it's unclear if this will actually work, but at least there's a seeming opportunity to make an argument compared to the previous "just resubmit it to the App Store" approach. Hopefully these decisions/adjudications won't be under NDA so we can see if this process actually works. [1] http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html
- elai 16y ago
  Sending emails also work rarely. You don't even have to resubmit!
  - jlongster 16y ago
    Yes, I've asked Apple to fast-track the review of my app several times (for good, although selfish, reasons), and 50% of the time they've obliged! They are actually quite friendly.
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c00p3r 16y ago
http://vmkit.llvm.org/ http://vmkit.llvm.org/ becoming ready? ^_^
JeffJenkins 16y ago
This is great news! I just bought an iPad yesterday, and I would like to do some development for it. Since I stopped paying attention to them when Apple added the restrictions, what are all of the tools which are now usable that were in a grey zone before? The Adobe one is the only one I remember.
bigfudge 16y ago
I think this is a big mistake from apple's perspective. Despite the noise, and the possible exception of a few games dev tools for which they could have made exceptions, there has been no serious evidence of people avoiding ios because of the toolchain. This will inevitably result in cross-mobile-platform apps which have non ios-like interfaces. At the very least it will give succour to developers who don't want to fully engage with the ios ui conventions and fully utilise the platform specific features. Obviously, as on the mac, the market will ultimately decide. But remember these sort of cross-platform efforts are what has given us the UI abomination that is CS3 through 5.
- wtracy 16y ago
  Section 10.3 of the new rules specifically bans apps that incorrectly use or fail to use the native widgets.
siglesias 16y ago
Anybody notice that the cadence and style of the intro to the review policies sounds like it was written by Jobs himself?
- rimantas 16y ago
  Yes, Gruber did.
rabble 16y ago
I've got 5 apps which were submitted by not approved by the time this 3.3.1 rule was released. Those apps have been "In Review" for this whole time. I've got another couple dozen apps, which we have been preparing for android, but could easily submit for iOS. Most of these are unique games, but we've build a few on our own from scratch. This is great news. But that said, we're still all at the mercy of Apple's changing the contract at any time without notice in future.
- rabble 16y ago
  They all got approved. Yes! Finally getting something for that work, we'd given up on it. http://oneappatatime.com/games/published http://oneappatatime.com/games/published
gaiusparx 16y ago
What is the pros for Apple beside being able to fend off FTC probe? If company starting to look at cross-platforms tools (such as one that develops for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile), and abandon Obj-C and XCode, will this weaken Apple strategically?
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  The pros are are happier developer community. Apple is many things but it's not a developer tools company - I doubt it even covers costs on the developer programme if you include XCode development and so on. It produces those so people can write software to allow it to sell it's other products. The only way this move weakens it is if, as a result, the quality of apps declines. I'm guessing that they'll look to head that off by pushing non-XCode apps that little bit harder, at least in the short term, to ensure that they're up to spec.
what 16y ago
12.3 Apps that are simply web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links, may be rejected Does this mean you can't just wrap your website in a native app and try to charge for it? What about feed readers? Also interesting, they say the more you charge for an app the more thoroughly they review it. Maybe you can sneak things through if you make it free. :b
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  There are plenty of feed readers in the store and they do fine. The key word is simply. If you're providing additional functionality to allow people to better use or manage web content (the way any halfway decent RSS feed reader does) then that's fine.
statictype 16y ago
Some of the app review guidelines seem weird: Apps larger than 20MB in size will not download over cellular networks (this is automatically prohibited by the App Store) Don't many games cross this threshold? Apps that browse the web must use the iOS WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript Opera Mini - which was accepted by the App Store - would seem to fail this rule.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  > Don't many games cross this threshold? Yep, and they don't download over cellular networks - you have to do it over wi-fi. > Opera Mini - which was accepted by the App Store - would seem to fail this rule. It seems to get round it on a slight technicality. It goes via the Opera proxy server and isn't actually reading HTML (the stream is compressed and encoded) so you could argue that it's not strictly a web browser. In a sense it's closer to something like Instapaper - it takes a chunk of the web, encodes it and passes it to the app to use.
- jlongster 16y ago
  A lot of games put a lot of work into reducing their size below the 20MB threshold. The big games out there are probably over 20MB, but a lot of games are able to get below 20MB as long as they use compressed resources.
- davidcann 16y ago
  The 20MB size limit over cell networks has been published for a long time. It used to be 10MB and they raised it last year, so nothing new on that one.
  - DrJokepu 16y ago
    Also, the 20MB limit applies to everything in iTunes, not just the app store. If you purchase a video in iTunes that is larger than 20MB, it will refuse to download it on cellular connections.
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    Doesn't that also rule out the majority of podcasts? 8/12 on my phone right now are over 20MB. Seems like a rather harsh restriction.
binaryfinery 16y ago
Well, I've spent the last six months learning the shitiest language and libraries with the most backwards arse tools. What a total waste of my time. Can't decide whether I'm furious at this loss of time and destruction of my competitive advantage, or deliriously happy at the thought of being able to use proper tools like Resharper and IDEA. I suppose the fact is I still have a competitive advantage. I have one client purely because they tried middleware and it ran like ass, so they wanted a native app. Time to get Java installed on the iPhone. I'd prefer Monotouch, but the editors on OSX suck compared to Resharper.
- brettbender 16y ago
  If you hate researching new technologies and learning new languages, maybe developer wasn't the right profession?
  - binaryfinery 16y ago
    "New" as in "having recently come into existence", yes. Love it. "New" as in "new to me" but actually created in 1986, no, not so much.
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    Where did he say that? Is he not allowed to criticize Objective C?
- astrange 16y ago
  > I have one client purely because they tried middleware and it ran like ass, so they wanted a native app. This will continue to happen. And just because the tools are allowed doesn't mean that their output is allowed to be below standards. > Time to get Java installed on the iPhone. You mean, a static Java to arm-apple-darwin compiler? It's not possible to run a JIT interpreter (HotSpot+Zero) on iOS.
magicseth 16y ago
An important Caveat is Section 1 and 10.1: The Human Interface Guidelines. This is large document that describes in general the "look and feel" of apps that run on the iPhone. If you make something that doesn't fit with their long-term vision, or irks them in some other way, it is extremely easy for them to say "You are violating the Human Interface Guidelines," and leave it at that. This has prevented me from delivering innovative UI experiences on iOS, stifling creativity, and again, frustrating developers with wasted research and development time.
- gte910h 16y ago
  However it also lets them smash the Flash developers who don't actually port their apps to the platform, which is one of the issues they cited this spring.
- allwein 16y ago
  Would you care to share what sort of "innovative UI experiences" you've been prevented from delivering?
danlove 16y ago
I've seen a lot of messages saying Apple "crumbled" to Adobe (pun intended). While the initial implementation of the rules may have been a knee jerk reaction to Flash, I think its more likely Apple relaxed the specific rules to allow Unreal Engine powered games. Thus allowing themselves to fully compete against the PSP & DS.
dgallagher 16y ago
Engadget.com posted an excellent summary regarding Apple's new App Store review guidelines: "We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don't work unless the parents set them up (many don't). So know that we're keeping an eye out for the kids." "We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don't need any more Fart apps." "We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour." "If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." "This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this." "If it sounds like we're control freaks, well, maybe it's because we're so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products." More here: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/apples-app-store-review-guidelines-we-dont-need-any-more-far/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/apples-app-store-review-g...
Legion 16y ago
I'm skimming the guidelines, and I don't see a restriction on one of the most well-known app rejections: duplicating functionality of built-in apps. I noticed that guideline 2.11 states, "Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them", but that seems intended for preventing a bunch of near-duplicate 3rd party apps, not the "Thou Shalt Not Write a New Mail Client" commandment. I wonder, does this "relaxation" include relaxing that restriction?
- trjordan 16y ago
  10.2 Apps that look similar to apps bundled on the iPhone, including the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore, will be rejected. This may be as simple as thinking their users don't know how to tell the real Mail.app from your 3rd-party Mail.app. If they can't tell the difference after installing yours, they may be confused or otherwise left behind when Apple updates Mail.app with some shiny new feature you don't have. If they're not sophisticated, they'll blame Apple, not the developer, for a lousy core functionality.
  - Legion 16y ago
    Good eye. I was skimming for things like "duplicate functionality". Interesting that this just seems to restrict looking like the built-in apps.
insulanus 16y ago
How fitting that the link to the appstore guidelines is not in the press release!
akshayubhat 16y ago
no more 3.3.1 that's good. Finally sanity prevails over "interface decides programming paradigm/language argument".
butterfi 16y ago
This may be a move by apple to keep the influx of apps available to iOS, as developers move into the Android space. Given Androids growth, this may be a way for Apple to avoid what happened on the PC platform in the 80's/90's.
doki_pen 16y ago
What I find really funny is that a certain breed of fanboy applauded the restrictions in the first place, saying that they were needed. Yet I don't see anyone complaining now that the restriction is removed!
- nanairo 16y ago
  raises small hand sheepishly :) I didn't like the old system at all: I'm very happy that Apple has finally deemed a good idea to release the review policies. However I would have much rather seen Apple giving users another way to install their apps, and turned the store into a nice, curated, deal. In particular I am a bit worried about floods of badly designed apps, maybe because they used some cross-platform framework. Sure, I can ignore those, but the point is that it will still increase the noise/signal ratio. Mmm... maybe Apple should have a tiered system in the App store. Hence why I thought that if they allowed anyone to install any app they want some other way (even though with big signs saying "DANGER DANGER") then they could keep curating the app store without risking anyone's anger. But, oh well... shrugs edit: actually as jdz2 said above, as long as they keep curating the new apps, I don't really care if they were built from CS5 or brainfuck... but the first point is important.
elai 16y ago
I hope they add searchability to in app purchases soon. If you make travel guides for many countries, it looks like you can't sell them as separate apps easily anymore. If someone searches for Bali, it's going to get missed if you make a travel guide for Bali and 50 other regions.
- brownleej 16y ago
  Couldn't you just list all the countries you support in the app description?
  - elai 16y ago
    No, app descriptions are not searchable anymore. Instead you have to insert max 100 characters of keywords and that, and the app title and a few other small things are what are searched. Thats what you would of done quite a while ago when they searched the entire app description. It's half the reason why you see spam apps in the first place. Would you call lonely planet doing the same as spam apps or not, not taking in consideration they do the same with their books?
jsz0 16y ago
I'm still concerned about the "look & feel" problem of shoddy ports using Flash or whatever but rejecting apps with bad UIs on a case-by-case basis should protect users equally as well.
wtracy 16y ago
What's with 4.2 and 4.3? I can't build an app that lets my app drive a toy car around via GPS? (That would actually be pretty cool!) I can't build an app that taxi drivers can use to interact with their dispatchers and report their location via GPS? I can see that those sorts of apps would be likely to run afoul of some other problems, but I don't see how that in and of itself should be a reason for rejection.
- iron_ball 16y ago
  I imagine Apple and AT&T don't want their consumer device to become part of the infrastructure of a major and potentially critical business. Same with the EMS thing. Just too many potential legal risks.
- blasdel 16y ago
  Liability is a bitch! I do notice that they left out the standard clause about operating Nuclear facilities, but that's probably present in the clickwrap for just using the device at all.
technomancy 16y ago
So now instead of developing for a platform run by a megalomaniac dictator who never listens, you can develop for a platform run by a megalomaniac dictator who rarely listens to the demands of developers. Sign me up!
gmlk 16y ago
I don't think this actually changes anything? Apple still bans under section 1 and I think 10.1 any app that don't have a consistent iOS look and feel and behavior. The requirement to only use native widgets is still enforced. So, either the app developer gives the app a native user experience; Or the middleware developer makes it so that any app using his middleware is always conform the guidelines? As far as I can tell this still rules out any simple use of the simple and generic cross-platform middleware layers?
- allwein 16y ago
  You are incorrect. You are not required to use native widgets. What it does enforce, however, is that if you use the native widgets, you have to use them in a way that's consistent with the HIG. As a quick example, you shouldn't use a tab bar controller where the tab buttons perform an action on the current view(like save, or cancel). A tab bar controller is only for switching between views.
  - gmlk 16y ago
    That still doesn't change much to my argument: If the app does not behave exactly like a proper iOS app should Apple is going to reject it. So we can forget about a simple cross-platform middleware layer that can create the same app for multiple platforms, however this is maybe less a problem for games then other applications?
ataggart 16y ago
It's 2010; is there any valid reason why a web page announcing a change to another document doesn't link to that document? Assuming this[1] is it, what exactly counts as a "private API" per section 3.3.1. Isn't any code I write a private API, thus calls to it a are violation? And how is that compatible with the allowance in 3.3.2 to package an interpreter into the app? [1]http://developer.apple.com/programs/terms/ios/standard/ios_standard_agreement_20100909.pdf http://developer.apple.com/programs/terms/ios/standard/ios_s...
- allwein 16y ago
  This strawman comes up every time we have a discussion about the developer agreement. The section referencing "private" APIs is talking about Apple specific APIs which have not been publicly documented. In Apple nomenclature, Public="class, methods, and properties are documented in the reference library and exposed for developers to use." Private="undocumented and exposed for Apple internal purposes only". Basically, if you can find it mentioned in the documentation, you can freely use it. If you had to do a class dump or use introspection to even find the method out, it's probably private.
tumult 16y ago
Awesome. Thank you, Apple. Just throwing my comment into this thread in case anyone there is reading. Some of us really appreciate this move.
new2 16y ago
The death of Objective-C as far as iOS development goes?
- msbarnett 16y ago
  Seems unlikely. It's always been possible to create Mac apps in, say, C++ using Carbon or Qt, but ObjC/Cocoa has remained very popular despite that. It's an exceptionally good and low friction framework that people tend to like. Most of the anti-Objective-C sentiment seems to come from people offended at the notion that they might be required to learn something new rather than stay forever in their comfort zone.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    I think a lot of the complaints about having to use ObjC come from folks that (a) find it inferior to one or more languages they already know (Python, Ruby, etc.) and/or (b) feel it is somewhat of a platform ghetto (effectively only used on iOS and Mac) and therefore not as efficient use of one's time investment as another language and stack that you can use on many other platforms, and for many other types of applications. The biggest problem with Objective-C, in my opinion, is that the syntax and philosophy is a step backwards in time in terms of programmer friendliness. It is so much more verbose and clunky compared to Python, for example. Use Python's built-in dictionary type a while, then be forced to use Objective-C's dictionaries. Yikes. Then the memory model is more complex and more prone to error due to inconsistent lifecyles and naming conventions. The XCode/iOS project model, build generation and signing crud is just nasty compared to how you can develop and deliver web apps to production in, say, Python, or even desktop apps. It's just a nasty and overly complicated rat's nest of special cases. I counted once and an iPhone app has something like 8+ different names or identifiers, each used in subtly different ways in different places, just asking for confusion and conflict. I ship a desktop app or web app and I have effectively one or two identities to deal with, and no Apple hoop-jumping to do, no publication delays, no long silly list of things I can and cannot do, etc.: heaven in comparison. And no it's not about learning something new. I'm personally on like my 8th language used professionally, and love learning new things. But sometimes "new" things are worse than what you already know. In that case, learning that new thing is bad, and a poor use of your time. I've learned enough Objective-C to be productive, but also enough to know it's a step backward from some other tools in my toolbox, so bad use of my time in an ideal world. I'm thrilled about Apple's change today because it raises hope I might be able to use a sexier language than ObjC/C/C++.
benologist 16y ago
I make Flash games, about 5 months ago I asked http://www.oneappatatime.com/ http://www.oneappatatime.com/ to port one of my games, just before the shit hit the fan. It actually got approved today too! http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/square-there/id367085960?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/square-there/id367085960?mt=8
drivebyacct2 16y ago
Developers are forced to the Apple's Push Network? Huh.
sambe 16y ago
Definitely a positive step, but doesn't make (some of) them any less weird. The one about not using GPS to control remote planes and following one about not using for dispatch seems very odd. I'm sure there are plenty of people that could make use of this, and hardly seems harmful. Likewise the kids-only attitude - why bother having ratings at all? Do we really have to confirm 18 years old for a dictionary and yet be forbidden adult material? But strangest of all that I've read so far: "Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected" Doesn't this ban all real-world purchases? Ordering books from Amazon App...?
drewse 16y ago
I think this yet another step in Apple's progress in refining the App Store for both the consumer and the developer. Every thing Apple does with the App Store is taken one baby step at a time, but their baby steps have added up. If you look back at how different the App Store was when it came out, you'll notice how far it's come since then. These review guidelines that Apple recently posted were not needed by most developers, and will still only be relevant to those 1% of developers whose apps are controversial or unlucky enough to get rejected. However, since this has been covered so much by the publicity (just like the iPhone 4 antennagate issue and Adobe-Apple war), Apple felt the need to succumb to the media. Sure, it was not that big of a thing in the first place to just publish their review guidelines, but isn't it unusual that Apple is having to quiet down the media more and more often these days? Apple shouldn't have to do this, but with people taking everything out of proportion (all these issues only affect the small minority), it's hard for them to ignore it. What do you think?

464 points by jakewalker 16y ago

More details: http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html

elblanco 16y ago

Well that was a bunch of unnecessary drama for a whole lotta nothing.

jakewalker 16y ago

Will be interesting to see if Adobe's program to port flash-to-iOS 5, which was to be included in CS5, is a go again.

TrentBrown 16y ago
Exactly. This is potentially hugely important news.
al_ 16y ago
Are applications developed with the current version of FlashCS5 now allowed ?

sant0sk1 16y ago

Welcome, but long overdue.

city41 16y ago
It still doesn't really matter. They can revoke this stance whenever they want. It still remains risky to base your livelihood on a format completely controlled by someone else who ultimately couldn't care less about your needs.
- mcav 16y ago
  There's no way they could go back on this now. The outcry would be ten times larger than it was when they first restricted it.
  - hswolff 16y ago
    Agreed. You give a mouse a cookie, and then he'll want a glass of water. By giving up this ground it would be near impossible and close to PR-suicide to commit any future retraction. About time for sure.
  - points 16y ago
    10 * 0.00001 is still pretty miniscule. Uproar from developers is meh. End users don't care. Apple can do what they want with the app store. If a few whiney devs decide to not play any more, there's an infinite supply of other devs who will.
    - mcav 16y ago
      It's more than whiney developers now. It was one thing when Apple never made clear the guidelines and chose to reject apps; now that they've made guidelines very explicit, going back on them would very publicly damage other companies: Large companies, like Adobe and Oracle, who would be very upset as well if Apple reneged on this change of policy. They won't go back on it. Not now.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Who do you develop for? Don't say Android unless you mean rooted Android. In which case you could also develop for jail-broken iOS. EDIT: As explained below, my point isn't that Android isn't open today but that it's their (or the carrier's) platform.
  - drivebyacct2 16y ago
    What are you talking about? Target the Dalvik VM and Google doesn't care what you do, what language you do it in, or what tools you use to build it. Sure there are some parts of the system that you can't access without root privileges, but that's an entirely different issue.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      But it's their platform. Maybe they don't care today but how do you know they, or the carriers wont care tomorrow? That risk seems at least as big as Apple going back on today's announcement (for the record, I would view both small).
      - jrockway 16y ago
        What if the world ends tomorrow and you spent your last hours doing nothing but debating hypotheticals? That would be a shame, so you should just stop now.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Your reply would fit even better to the person I originally responded to.
      - nlogn 16y ago
        The difference is that Apple has enacted many policies that limit developers while Google has, to my knowledge, never done anything of the sort. In fact, it seems like they go out of their way to be fair to developers (for instance: every app they built for Android uses only the APIs that are available to everyone). Edit: My point is that Google has never shown an inclination towards policies like these, and I think it's reasonable to expect that not to change.
napierzaza 16y ago
What's the point of such a comment. It reminds me of the pundits talking about how it was "About time" copy & paste was devised. Be glad that Apple isn't so prideful that they aren't able to make changes like this. A lot of people and companies wouldn't be able to admit things like thing to make the right decision. Whether it was fast enough for you is entirely besides the point. They couldn't have just opened up the whole deal could they? They make careful decisions. They started out with high restrictions and have become continually more open. How often is the opposite the case? Every "death knell" for the App Store and the iPhone is being chipped away; not by Android, but Apple itself.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  The point was that Apple could have avoided much pain and suffering for all concerned if they had done the right thing in the first place. Now we just need to be able to run programs not purchased through the Apple store and access my iPod without having to use Windows, and I will have to take Apple of my "somewhat evil" list.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    I disagree. Apple's stubbornness has its problems, and sometimes it's a pain. At the same time this uncompromising stances are common among those with strong believes and vision. And Apple has those (if you agree with their believes and vision is another story though ;) ). Case in point: the original Mac had no arrow keys to FORCE the developers and the users to change their frame of mind and make heavier use of the mouse. Had they compromised maybe people would have gone for the path of lowest resistance, and people wouldn't have accepted the advantages. Other cases: - USB (how long did it take in the PC world to get rid of serial ports?) - 64-bit cocoa (or rather 64-bit carbon) etc... It may seem madness, but there is logic in the madness. And usually if after many months if not year they are still proved wrong, Apple relents (e.g. fat Nano, Cube, DVD>CD-RW, tabs on top in Safari, etc...).
    - tomjen3 16y ago
      Hmm, I just don't believe in people telling me what to do - if it really is better, I will come around to it eventually (emacs, dvorak) but except for getting more usb ports, I don't really see any of the things you listed as being a good thing. Which just goes to prove my point - I don't fit very well into the Apple box.

bhjodokast 16y ago

How fickle are they?

bhjodokast 16y ago
They are very fickle! Anyone want to talk about how fickle they are? I guess not...

thibaut_barrere 16y ago

Now I seriously hope it means we'll be able to use MacRuby on iPhone/iPad in the next few weeks/months.

jdminhbg 16y ago
Isn't the lack of GC on the iPhone's Obj-C runtime a much bigger hurdle than 3.3.1?
annon 16y ago
Exactly what I was thinking. I'd love to do some small things on iPhone, but I don't really want to commit the time to become pro at Objective-C. It's not a bad language, just not my thing.
- mike_h 16y ago
  If you've used C or Java before, you can become "pro enough" in ObjC in a matter of hours, maybe even 1 hour. The real work of designing an iOS app is getting the interface right, and any complex logic you might have. Nothing esoteric about day-to-day expressing yourself in ObjC -- plus Cocoa provides so many nice features that the verbosity you may gain coming from Ruby is offset by the amount of coding Apple took care of for you.
  - zekel 16y ago
    Yeah, it's really Cocoa you have to learn, not ObjC.
ptomato 16y ago
Very unlikely, I'd imagine, just from a performance standpoint.

Setsuna 16y ago

VLC

aditya42 16y ago

Badam bam pshsh!

portman 16y ago

Was this story broken here on HN? I can't find any other stories on Google News. If so, well done jakewalker. Makes me wonder if HN can become a primary source for news in addition to an aggregator.

jakewalker 16y ago
I saw it on a few tech sites (AppleInsider, Gizmodo, etc.) this morning, but linked to the source, since most of their articles were just a copy & paste of the Apple press release.

umjames 16y ago

Wait, so does this mean Apple doesn't have a problem with a 3rd-party framework becoming the preferred API for iOS development? How does not allowing apps that download code prevent this? Also, does this mean you can't download JavaScript from an external web page in your app?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ra88it 16y ago
Apparently Javascript is given an explicit exception.
- jrockway 16y ago
  What about, say, Haskell compiled to JavaScript?
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    If it runs on their JavaScript engine outputting to their HTML component, it's fine.
  - wslh 16y ago
    Why not a Python interpreter written in Ruby running under Silverlight?
- brownleej 16y ago
  I found it interesting that the exception was not for Javascript, but rather for WebKit in general. "The only exception to the foregoing [ban on downloading and interpreting code] is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework." [from section 3.3.2]. Perhaps Apple wants to keep their options open for other scripting languages in WebKit. I would love to see python and ruby scripting on the client side, personally.
- zekel 16y ago
  Would you mind linking me to where it says that? I can't find it.

adriand 16y ago

Is this just a press release that changes are coming later today, or are the actual changes also published? If the latter, is anyone able to summarize what they are?

fierarul 16y ago

What happened ? Did Adobe poke some government officials and Apple was starting to get bothered by that ? It just seems incredibly stupid to first ban all tools -- just to mess with Adobe basically -- and then do an 180 and remove said restriction.

jakewalker 16y ago
There is an active FTC investigation into the terms of the developer agreement, I believe. No idea if it was a direct influence on the change.

greendestiny 16y ago

I just had a quick read of the new sections of the agreement. As far as I can see all restrictions on the languages and tools have been removed. No scripts or executable code can be downloaded by the app (ie it all has to be packaged) with the exception of javascript in a web component. Really I guess the press release says all that, but there is no equivocation in the terms of the actual agreement which is nice. Great move Apple!

mcobrien 16y ago

If you're a registered developer, you can read the just-published App Store Guidelines here: http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guide... For those who aren't registered developers, it's basically a list of 189 rules, most in the form of "Apps that ... will be rejected"

johnthedebs 16y ago
Any chance someone can make that available to non-developers?
- Tichy 16y ago
  Probably not, NDA and all that.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
vaporstun 16y ago
For those non-registered developers, here is a link to a pdf posted by Engadget: http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guide...
- thwarted 16y ago
  2.11 Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them I wonder how quality of the current apps vs quality of the new app applies here.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    Of course those rules are still subjective ... what does "many of them" mean anyway? But still, it's an improvement.
  - elai 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

wheaties 16y ago

So does this mean they'll actually follow their own review guidelines or is it going to mean you can read them but @#$%!, you're still at the whim of whomever gets your app?

jacquesm 16y ago
Only one way to know, try.
smackfu 16y ago
Yes, it will be interesting to see if they restrict themselves to these guidelines. In theory, rejections now can just say: You violated 2.1 and 2.3.
bombs 16y ago
"This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this." They're not limited to rejecting you for only the things that are in the guidelines. The guidelines say this.

jacquesm 16y ago

So, how about all those people that were supporting apples' right to run their app store the way they see fit and who said that there is no point complaining about it? I think this proves that complaining about stuff like this is well worth the effort, assuming that that - and not some backroom pressure - is what caused them to back off. They mention it in their release so I figure it must have been a major factor. edit: the plaintext version of the appstore guidelines: http://ww.com/appstore.html http://ww.com/appstore.html I've been reading through the guidelines while fixing the markup and it seems to me that it's very reasonable the way it is worded and those terms that are left. I'd feel pretty good developing under these terms.

lurch_mojoff 16y ago
The thing is most of the complaining about this was not the constructive "hey, Apple have you considered so-and-so", but rather the whiny "waaaa... Apple are Nazis" kind. And as you point out there is no evidence that it is the complaining that made Apple reconsider. It could very well be something entirely different, e.g. the FTC probe.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Plenty of it was very constructive, it pointed out why the choice of tools should be left to the developer and how not relaxing this restriction would make it easier for people to develop for android than for the Iphone. If the FTC probe (or the rise of android) has anything to do with it then I doubt we'll ever know, but I'm all for taking this on face value and believing them when they publicly admit to listening to their devs. It's a nice thing to be able to hold them to at a future date.
  - lurch_mojoff 16y ago
    Well, it looked plenty for very small values of plenty, from where I stand. There were some very well reasoned arguments against the restriction - arguments like the fact that many libraries and game engines require the flexibility that scripting allows; or like the fact that there are languages and environments that are more conducive of tackling certain types of problems. Those, however were drowned in a sea of petty complaints like "I know language XYZ and now Apple are making me learn their sucky ObjC" or "Apple just want to prevent you from porting your app to a competing platform, them Nazis", or dramatic pronouncements that Apple have turned their back on the hacker crowd and thus are stifling innovation. And I'm not saying we shouldn't believe Apple when they say they've listened to the developer community. I am saying that such decisions usually factor in a broader spectrum of reasons. At the very least, there are may examples of Apple not budging on issues, regardless of the huge ruckus. I'm also not saying we shouldn't complain. I am saying we should cut on the drama, try to understand Apple's rationale for their decisions, and figure out a way to meet them midway. Or as Apple say in the intro to the App Store Review Guidelines - "If it sounds like we're control freaks, well, maybe it's because we're so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products. Just like almost all of you are too."

DeusExMachina 16y ago

This puzzles me. Why did they change them after a couple of months? I'm really wondering. Maybe now they will raise the bar for quality rejecting apps that do not follow guidelines or do not provide enough functionality? Sounds strange, but I cannot think about any other reason. EDIT: reading through the just published guidelines, it is exactly like this.

White_N_Nerdy 16y ago
I'm pretty sure they do things like this for the drama, to get free headlines.
meelash 16y ago
hmm... haven't I read somewhere about building something people want and releasing quickly, and then iterating on it when you hear from people what they want differently?

tomjen3 16y ago

Does anybody have the links to the actual rules, since this press release, through welcome, is extremely light on details. If not, can we please not post something this light on content to HN in the future? Maybe instead wait for somebody who knows something to blog about it? I would hate for this to become a place to just post press releases.

mcobrien 16y ago
The rules and app store review guidelines are both protected by the developer NDA so no one's going to be eager to post them. This mostly affects registered developers anyway (and I'd say there are a fair few on HN), for whom the rules are just a click away.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  Actually it would properly affect those who are considering becomming developers for Apple more - after all, if you already learned the APIs, then you already made your choice.
jakewalker 16y ago
https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid... You need to be an iOS Developer to login. Unclear if it's under NDA or not, but I'm sure this document will leak out eventually. There are 22 categories of potential violations, and most rules end in "will be rejected."
- ben1040 16y ago
  You know, while Apple's rejections seemed to be arbitrary at times, I was surprised that my reaction to reading this was that the vast majority of these rules are pretty sensible. A lot of them come down to "your app must not crash or be full of bugs, it must do what it says it does, and it cannot be malicious." For all the hoopla, I expected this list would read like a crazy list of charges handed down by a kangaroo court. The thing on here which I really strongly disagree with is the ban on making apps that replicate functionality shipped with the phone. If users want an alternate mail client that supports IMAP IDLE for example, it should be up to the user to download that.

ohhmaagawd 16y ago

my guess is the FTC investigation into Apple's practices got them nervous. better to just cave than deal with anti-trust issues: http://voices.allthingsd.com/20100611/ftc-to-investigate-apples-conduct-in-mobile-app-market/ http://voices.allthingsd.com/20100611/ftc-to-investigate-app...

tptacek 16y ago
My guess is that only Apple knows why it changed the rules, but that anyone who can do a Google search can (a) read up on what antitrust means and (b) observe Apple's non-commanding share of the mobile market.
- mattmanser 16y ago
  True, but we're starting to live in a slightly weird world where once you buy a particular product which is a gateway to other products and services, the manufacturer is dictating in a very megalomaniac way on how you spend your money. And commanding huge sums from utterly controlling that marketplace. Like the XBox and iPhone. They may have a non-commanding share of mobiles, but they have a total monopoly on iPhone apps.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Under that theory of law, every platform company in the world is subject to antitrust suits as the "monopoly provider of access to that platform". Twitter could be sued. 37signals could be sued. Fortunately, this simply isn't how antitrust law works.
    - notahacker 16y ago
      Microsoft's monopoly was only on Windows, which just happened to be the only viable option for most PC OEMs and browser developers. If owning 99.4% of the mobile app sales market (Gartner figure for 2009) and imposing restrictions which hinder the development of cross-platform apps doesn't deserve antitrust scrutiny, I'm really not sure what does.

hopeless 16y ago

Just in time for me to start coding my first iPhone app! I'd wanted to use Appcelerator's Titanium to avoid learning Objective-C and to keep my options open with respect to Android phones. I've sat on the development on this idea for a few months now wondering if Apple would finally reveal their hand. I'm glad they did but I'm honestly surprised that they've done "the right thing" and moved away from monopolistic tactics. Wahoo! Coding starts on Monday :)

jacquesm 16y ago
Just too late for me, bought an android on Monday!. Too bad, I figured I'd waited long enough and had decided they were not going to budge.
- stoney 16y ago
  Would you change your mind now? I decided on Monday to buy an Android phone (HTC Desire), but haven't got around to going to the store yet.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Funny, I bought an HTC desire as well. Would I change my mind? That's a tough one. I have a Mac (borrowed it to a friend because of lack of use), so I could develop for an iPhone as well. I like the android ecosystem a bit better because it has more variety, it reminds me more of the PC platform in terms of hardware than the iphone gear. The increased variety means that you'll have to write more flexible software, but that's only a good thing. Most - if not all - of my objections to the iphone platform have fallen by the wayside with this terms of service change, and the fact that if you develop something useful you can immediately market it to a large number of people is a neat thing, however I think that the number of apps in the app store make it hard for new applications to still gain sufficient traction. Your app would have to be pretty original to make a go of it today I think. Then there is the fact that I don't like that they did this stuff in the first place. I'm apparently not the most forgiving person and it appears to me that if you pull this sort of stunt you need to do a bit more than just change your terms and say you'll listen better in the future. It would certainly be a much harder decision to make, I won't be making the choice again but I think it is a toss-up at this point. Probably I'd still go for the android, but I'm really not 100% sure.

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kylechafin 16y ago

Now that MonoTouch appears to be in the clear on iOS... It sounds like C# is going to be a viable language for 3 major mobile platforms this Fall. Windows Phone 7 supports C# by default. MonoTouch brings it to iOS and MonoDroid takes it to Android. It sounds like there will be some really neat opportunities to reuse C# libraries across all three platforms, while dropping a native platform UI on top of them.

sourc3 16y ago
Having programmed in C, C++, C#, Java and JS (if scripting counts) I applaud this. I have tried to get used to Objective-C but after using C# for the past 4 years or so, it just seems uncomfortable with me (probably a personal bias that cannot be generalized). I was considering developing my startup's first mobile app in Android since I did not want to touch Objective-C and go with an iPhone Web Page. Considering the number of developers on the .NET/C# bandwagon I think we will be seeing another Gold Rush to the app-store. I really hope the app-review board can filter out the ugly, form and buttons type of applications that will come as part of this rush. Otherwise, AppStore will be the next Tucows.
- MartinCron 16y ago
  Accidental downvote. Meant to upvote. Totally agree. Damn iPhone.
  - pbz 16y ago
    I would say it's also poor UI, even with a mouse is easy to hit one over the other without a way to undo...
- swilliams 16y ago
  Keep in mind that using C# to program iOS apps is still very different than traditional .NET apps. The language is familiar, but the framework is definitely not.
  - MartinCron 16y ago

statemachine 16y ago

In other news, hell freezes over, and Microsoft embraces open source.

bruceboughton 16y ago
You'd be surprised how much MS code is getting released under OSS licenses these days. That just leaves hell freezing over...
adolfojp 16y ago
http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/ http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/ Go get a light sweater.

steilpass 16y ago

Strange. Didn't Steve Jobs mention he doesn't want another software layer? Because it leads to bad apps and they can't push API changes as fast, because these third party layers have to update?

steilpass 16y ago
"We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform." http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
- protomyth 16y ago
  I get the feeling that if the dev tool / framework you are using doesn't exactly act like the native framework they will reject your app. Particularly if your app draws its own UI without using the native widgets.
kristofferR 16y ago
I guess he changed his mind when Epic showed him the Unreal Engine 3 running on an iPhone. He was so impressed by it that he presented it as the only third party app on their iPod press conference, that says a lot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2H8hmi8yrQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2H8hmi8yrQ
- colomon 16y ago
  According to John Carmack (http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack, search for Apple), Apple asked him to also be at the conference, and he turned them down because of the conditions they wanted to put on him to do it.
  - judofyr 16y ago
    Permalink: http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/22739785428 http://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/22739785428

togasystems 16y ago

Hopefully the fulfill this promise of being more open. They accidentally leaked financial records of many app developers to their competitors. Nothing has been said about this. Link to story: http://togapit.com/apple-leaks-sensitive-developer-data/ http://togapit.com/apple-leaks-sensitive-developer-data/ On another note, I believe they are relaxing the rules due to epic's involvement. A lot of there code uses Lua.

mambodog 16y ago

I really hope this doesn't result in a flood of Flash-based apps. And I say that as someone who's been developing Flash content for the web for quite some time.

jlgosse 16y ago
I really wish you had instead said "Flash-flood of apps".
Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
I don't think it's that positive a move for Flash. I think there will be some instances where people will port existing Flash content but it's not going to be the platform of choice for most people starting from scratch. I suspect we'll see an increase in iPhone IDEs for different platforms and Flash will be one of many picking up a small share of the market with XCode holding onto the bulk of it.
jrockway 16y ago
Yeah. The underlying problem here is not that there are a bunch of Flash apps, but that Apple forces every user to install every app every developer cranks out. If you could decide for yourself, then you could let other people use Flash apps, while you could completely ignore them. Oh right, that's already how it is. So this will actually affect you in no way, except that you have more apps to pick from (or ignore).
bad_user 16y ago
Guidelines or not, they can always ban crappy apps ... that's why those restrictions (like developing with other languages) seemed so out of place and more like a political move meant to take shots at its competition. It's quite simple ... if an app consumes lots of resources (measurable) or is violating the design guidelines or is another fart-app ... then ban it. If Flash-based apps are indeed crappy, you don't need to explicitly ban Flash ... and who knows ... maybe a skilled developer can make something usable that doesn't fuck up your battery life.
elai 16y ago
With the nature of the app store, it won't really be noticeable unless you specifically search for it, or it actually has some merit.

appie 16y ago

Here they are: http://pastie.org/1148102 http://pastie.org/1148102 ("Use Pastie for good, not evil." - I think this is for good)

jrockway 16y ago
Thanks for posting these. Still too many rules for my taste. (Google also has too many rules, FWIW.)
- cardinal23 16y ago
  Instead of just saying too many rules, do you have points in the list that you object to? One of the problems with rejection until now was the lack of specific guidelines about what would be rejected. It seems to me that a comprehensive document would unavoidably have many rules, and the prohibitions that I read seemed reasonable.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    The tipping point was "no card counting". While card counting may be against the rules at a particular casino, it's not illegal in general and does not belong in the "legal" section. Whenever Apple is confronted with a situation where the user could use a feature or tool for something that's "against the rules", they tend to disable the feature. See, for example, iTunes' inability to import music from an iPod. It could be 100% legal for me to do that, but Apple doesn't provide that feature, even though iTunes "knows" how to do it. (I stopped using Apple products about 5 years ago when they added PT_DENY_ATTACH.)
    - duskwuff 16y ago
      > I stopped using Apple products about 5 years ago when they added PT_DENY_ATTACH. You mean the ptrace() flag that's trivial to bypass? Been a while since I dealt with it, but ISTR it's as simple as: br ptrace commands ret cont end
    - DerekL 16y ago

jakewalker 16y ago

I just submitted this as a separate link, but engadget is hosting a copy of the new guidelines (opens a PDF): http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guide...

tomlin 16y ago

I wonder if this will have a psychological effect on using other dev. environments for Apps. It almost paints a Flash-compiled app as being "legacy" when a company opens it up after demonstrating it's case against alternatives.

wallflower 16y ago

I applaud this. Yes, it might have been in reaction to the potential US Government anti-trust type probe. Yes, it effectively lowers the billable rate and billable hours of many iPhone developers. Yes, it makes it possible for almost anyone (using Titanium and tools-yet-to-come [wake up, Adobe!]) to make mobile apps. However, I think its good because it allows developers to further differentiate themselves from the pack. What apps get featured? People bemoan the fact there is so many apps competing. But I believe that if you write a compelling app that stands out from the hum-drum tab-bar apps and, yes, glut of physics-based games, your reviewer at Apple will notice. They probably even get some kind of bonus for identifying the diamonds in the coal. Thank you and muchos gracias, Apple. I believe that apps that push the limit of what an iPhone current generation can do - and do it beautifully - that is what will win in the marketplace. Uzu, that addictive slice a shape in half game, the render a photo like an oil painting. All require secret sauce - in development time, graphics, rendering. Titanium mobile won't for a very long time be able to make a Uzu-type game. Or even a well-designed app. I hope... Prepare to be flooded with ports of Flash games (I assume this makes Adobe's compile to Flash in CS5 feature a go, now)

woodrow 16y ago

No one has mentioned what seems to be one of other most seemingly positive developments of this -- the App Review Board [1]: "We’ve created the App Review Board to provide you the opportunity to appeal the rejection of an application if you believe that the functionality or technical implementation was misunderstood. You will be able to submit details that the App Review Board will use to determine if the rejection of your app should be reconsidered." Of course it's unclear if this will actually work, but at least there's a seeming opportunity to make an argument compared to the previous "just resubmit it to the App Store" approach. Hopefully these decisions/adjudications won't be under NDA so we can see if this process actually works. [1] http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html

elai 16y ago
Sending emails also work rarely. You don't even have to resubmit!
- jlongster 16y ago
  Yes, I've asked Apple to fast-track the review of my app several times (for good, although selfish, reasons), and 50% of the time they've obliged! They are actually quite friendly.

deleted 16y ago

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c00p3r 16y ago

http://vmkit.llvm.org/ http://vmkit.llvm.org/ becoming ready? ^_^

JeffJenkins 16y ago

This is great news! I just bought an iPad yesterday, and I would like to do some development for it. Since I stopped paying attention to them when Apple added the restrictions, what are all of the tools which are now usable that were in a grey zone before? The Adobe one is the only one I remember.

bigfudge 16y ago

I think this is a big mistake from apple's perspective. Despite the noise, and the possible exception of a few games dev tools for which they could have made exceptions, there has been no serious evidence of people avoiding ios because of the toolchain. This will inevitably result in cross-mobile-platform apps which have non ios-like interfaces. At the very least it will give succour to developers who don't want to fully engage with the ios ui conventions and fully utilise the platform specific features. Obviously, as on the mac, the market will ultimately decide. But remember these sort of cross-platform efforts are what has given us the UI abomination that is CS3 through 5.

wtracy 16y ago
Section 10.3 of the new rules specifically bans apps that incorrectly use or fail to use the native widgets.

siglesias 16y ago

Anybody notice that the cadence and style of the intro to the review policies sounds like it was written by Jobs himself?

rimantas 16y ago
Yes, Gruber did.

rabble 16y ago

I've got 5 apps which were submitted by not approved by the time this 3.3.1 rule was released. Those apps have been "In Review" for this whole time. I've got another couple dozen apps, which we have been preparing for android, but could easily submit for iOS. Most of these are unique games, but we've build a few on our own from scratch. This is great news. But that said, we're still all at the mercy of Apple's changing the contract at any time without notice in future.

rabble 16y ago
They all got approved. Yes! Finally getting something for that work, we'd given up on it. http://oneappatatime.com/games/published http://oneappatatime.com/games/published

gaiusparx 16y ago

What is the pros for Apple beside being able to fend off FTC probe? If company starting to look at cross-platforms tools (such as one that develops for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile), and abandon Obj-C and XCode, will this weaken Apple strategically?

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
The pros are are happier developer community. Apple is many things but it's not a developer tools company - I doubt it even covers costs on the developer programme if you include XCode development and so on. It produces those so people can write software to allow it to sell it's other products. The only way this move weakens it is if, as a result, the quality of apps declines. I'm guessing that they'll look to head that off by pushing non-XCode apps that little bit harder, at least in the short term, to ensure that they're up to spec.

what 16y ago

12.3 Apps that are simply web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links, may be rejected Does this mean you can't just wrap your website in a native app and try to charge for it? What about feed readers? Also interesting, they say the more you charge for an app the more thoroughly they review it. Maybe you can sneak things through if you make it free. :b

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
There are plenty of feed readers in the store and they do fine. The key word is simply. If you're providing additional functionality to allow people to better use or manage web content (the way any halfway decent RSS feed reader does) then that's fine.

statictype 16y ago

Some of the app review guidelines seem weird: Apps larger than 20MB in size will not download over cellular networks (this is automatically prohibited by the App Store) Don't many games cross this threshold? Apps that browse the web must use the iOS WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript Opera Mini - which was accepted by the App Store - would seem to fail this rule.

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
> Don't many games cross this threshold? Yep, and they don't download over cellular networks - you have to do it over wi-fi. > Opera Mini - which was accepted by the App Store - would seem to fail this rule. It seems to get round it on a slight technicality. It goes via the Opera proxy server and isn't actually reading HTML (the stream is compressed and encoded) so you could argue that it's not strictly a web browser. In a sense it's closer to something like Instapaper - it takes a chunk of the web, encodes it and passes it to the app to use.
jlongster 16y ago
A lot of games put a lot of work into reducing their size below the 20MB threshold. The big games out there are probably over 20MB, but a lot of games are able to get below 20MB as long as they use compressed resources.
davidcann 16y ago
The 20MB size limit over cell networks has been published for a long time. It used to be 10MB and they raised it last year, so nothing new on that one.
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  Also, the 20MB limit applies to everything in iTunes, not just the app store. If you purchase a video in iTunes that is larger than 20MB, it will refuse to download it on cellular connections.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Doesn't that also rule out the majority of podcasts? 8/12 on my phone right now are over 20MB. Seems like a rather harsh restriction.

binaryfinery 16y ago

Well, I've spent the last six months learning the shitiest language and libraries with the most backwards arse tools. What a total waste of my time. Can't decide whether I'm furious at this loss of time and destruction of my competitive advantage, or deliriously happy at the thought of being able to use proper tools like Resharper and IDEA. I suppose the fact is I still have a competitive advantage. I have one client purely because they tried middleware and it ran like ass, so they wanted a native app. Time to get Java installed on the iPhone. I'd prefer Monotouch, but the editors on OSX suck compared to Resharper.

brettbender 16y ago
If you hate researching new technologies and learning new languages, maybe developer wasn't the right profession?
- binaryfinery 16y ago
  "New" as in "having recently come into existence", yes. Love it. "New" as in "new to me" but actually created in 1986, no, not so much.
- CamperBob 16y ago
  Where did he say that? Is he not allowed to criticize Objective C?
astrange 16y ago
> I have one client purely because they tried middleware and it ran like ass, so they wanted a native app. This will continue to happen. And just because the tools are allowed doesn't mean that their output is allowed to be below standards. > Time to get Java installed on the iPhone. You mean, a static Java to arm-apple-darwin compiler? It's not possible to run a JIT interpreter (HotSpot+Zero) on iOS.

magicseth 16y ago

An important Caveat is Section 1 and 10.1: The Human Interface Guidelines. This is large document that describes in general the "look and feel" of apps that run on the iPhone. If you make something that doesn't fit with their long-term vision, or irks them in some other way, it is extremely easy for them to say "You are violating the Human Interface Guidelines," and leave it at that. This has prevented me from delivering innovative UI experiences on iOS, stifling creativity, and again, frustrating developers with wasted research and development time.

gte910h 16y ago
However it also lets them smash the Flash developers who don't actually port their apps to the platform, which is one of the issues they cited this spring.
allwein 16y ago
Would you care to share what sort of "innovative UI experiences" you've been prevented from delivering?

danlove 16y ago

I've seen a lot of messages saying Apple "crumbled" to Adobe (pun intended). While the initial implementation of the rules may have been a knee jerk reaction to Flash, I think its more likely Apple relaxed the specific rules to allow Unreal Engine powered games. Thus allowing themselves to fully compete against the PSP & DS.

dgallagher 16y ago

Engadget.com posted an excellent summary regarding Apple's new App Store review guidelines: "We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don't work unless the parents set them up (many don't). So know that we're keeping an eye out for the kids." "We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don't need any more Fart apps." "We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour." "If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." "This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this." "If it sounds like we're control freaks, well, maybe it's because we're so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products." More here: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/apples-app-store-review-guidelines-we-dont-need-any-more-far/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/apples-app-store-review-g...

Legion 16y ago

I'm skimming the guidelines, and I don't see a restriction on one of the most well-known app rejections: duplicating functionality of built-in apps. I noticed that guideline 2.11 states, "Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them", but that seems intended for preventing a bunch of near-duplicate 3rd party apps, not the "Thou Shalt Not Write a New Mail Client" commandment. I wonder, does this "relaxation" include relaxing that restriction?

trjordan 16y ago
10.2 Apps that look similar to apps bundled on the iPhone, including the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore, will be rejected. This may be as simple as thinking their users don't know how to tell the real Mail.app from your 3rd-party Mail.app. If they can't tell the difference after installing yours, they may be confused or otherwise left behind when Apple updates Mail.app with some shiny new feature you don't have. If they're not sophisticated, they'll blame Apple, not the developer, for a lousy core functionality.
- Legion 16y ago
  Good eye. I was skimming for things like "duplicate functionality". Interesting that this just seems to restrict looking like the built-in apps.

insulanus 16y ago

How fitting that the link to the appstore guidelines is not in the press release!

akshayubhat 16y ago

no more 3.3.1 that's good. Finally sanity prevails over "interface decides programming paradigm/language argument".

butterfi 16y ago

This may be a move by apple to keep the influx of apps available to iOS, as developers move into the Android space. Given Androids growth, this may be a way for Apple to avoid what happened on the PC platform in the 80's/90's.

doki_pen 16y ago

What I find really funny is that a certain breed of fanboy applauded the restrictions in the first place, saying that they were needed. Yet I don't see anyone complaining now that the restriction is removed!

nanairo 16y ago
raises small hand sheepishly :) I didn't like the old system at all: I'm very happy that Apple has finally deemed a good idea to release the review policies. However I would have much rather seen Apple giving users another way to install their apps, and turned the store into a nice, curated, deal. In particular I am a bit worried about floods of badly designed apps, maybe because they used some cross-platform framework. Sure, I can ignore those, but the point is that it will still increase the noise/signal ratio. Mmm... maybe Apple should have a tiered system in the App store. Hence why I thought that if they allowed anyone to install any app they want some other way (even though with big signs saying "DANGER DANGER") then they could keep curating the app store without risking anyone's anger. But, oh well... shrugs edit: actually as jdz2 said above, as long as they keep curating the new apps, I don't really care if they were built from CS5 or brainfuck... but the first point is important.

elai 16y ago

I hope they add searchability to in app purchases soon. If you make travel guides for many countries, it looks like you can't sell them as separate apps easily anymore. If someone searches for Bali, it's going to get missed if you make a travel guide for Bali and 50 other regions.

brownleej 16y ago
Couldn't you just list all the countries you support in the app description?
- elai 16y ago
  No, app descriptions are not searchable anymore. Instead you have to insert max 100 characters of keywords and that, and the app title and a few other small things are what are searched. Thats what you would of done quite a while ago when they searched the entire app description. It's half the reason why you see spam apps in the first place. Would you call lonely planet doing the same as spam apps or not, not taking in consideration they do the same with their books?

jsz0 16y ago

I'm still concerned about the "look & feel" problem of shoddy ports using Flash or whatever but rejecting apps with bad UIs on a case-by-case basis should protect users equally as well.

wtracy 16y ago

What's with 4.2 and 4.3? I can't build an app that lets my app drive a toy car around via GPS? (That would actually be pretty cool!) I can't build an app that taxi drivers can use to interact with their dispatchers and report their location via GPS? I can see that those sorts of apps would be likely to run afoul of some other problems, but I don't see how that in and of itself should be a reason for rejection.

iron_ball 16y ago
I imagine Apple and AT&T don't want their consumer device to become part of the infrastructure of a major and potentially critical business. Same with the EMS thing. Just too many potential legal risks.
blasdel 16y ago
Liability is a bitch! I do notice that they left out the standard clause about operating Nuclear facilities, but that's probably present in the clickwrap for just using the device at all.

technomancy 16y ago

So now instead of developing for a platform run by a megalomaniac dictator who never listens, you can develop for a platform run by a megalomaniac dictator who rarely listens to the demands of developers. Sign me up!

gmlk 16y ago

I don't think this actually changes anything? Apple still bans under section 1 and I think 10.1 any app that don't have a consistent iOS look and feel and behavior. The requirement to only use native widgets is still enforced. So, either the app developer gives the app a native user experience; Or the middleware developer makes it so that any app using his middleware is always conform the guidelines? As far as I can tell this still rules out any simple use of the simple and generic cross-platform middleware layers?

allwein 16y ago
You are incorrect. You are not required to use native widgets. What it does enforce, however, is that if you use the native widgets, you have to use them in a way that's consistent with the HIG. As a quick example, you shouldn't use a tab bar controller where the tab buttons perform an action on the current view(like save, or cancel). A tab bar controller is only for switching between views.
- gmlk 16y ago
  That still doesn't change much to my argument: If the app does not behave exactly like a proper iOS app should Apple is going to reject it. So we can forget about a simple cross-platform middleware layer that can create the same app for multiple platforms, however this is maybe less a problem for games then other applications?

ataggart 16y ago

It's 2010; is there any valid reason why a web page announcing a change to another document doesn't link to that document? Assuming this[1] is it, what exactly counts as a "private API" per section 3.3.1. Isn't any code I write a private API, thus calls to it a are violation? And how is that compatible with the allowance in 3.3.2 to package an interpreter into the app? [1]http://developer.apple.com/programs/terms/ios/standard/ios_standard_agreement_20100909.pdf http://developer.apple.com/programs/terms/ios/standard/ios_s...

allwein 16y ago
This strawman comes up every time we have a discussion about the developer agreement. The section referencing "private" APIs is talking about Apple specific APIs which have not been publicly documented. In Apple nomenclature, Public="class, methods, and properties are documented in the reference library and exposed for developers to use." Private="undocumented and exposed for Apple internal purposes only". Basically, if you can find it mentioned in the documentation, you can freely use it. If you had to do a class dump or use introspection to even find the method out, it's probably private.

tumult 16y ago

Awesome. Thank you, Apple. Just throwing my comment into this thread in case anyone there is reading. Some of us really appreciate this move.

new2 16y ago

The death of Objective-C as far as iOS development goes?

msbarnett 16y ago
Seems unlikely. It's always been possible to create Mac apps in, say, C++ using Carbon or Qt, but ObjC/Cocoa has remained very popular despite that. It's an exceptionally good and low friction framework that people tend to like. Most of the anti-Objective-C sentiment seems to come from people offended at the notion that they might be required to learn something new rather than stay forever in their comfort zone.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I think a lot of the complaints about having to use ObjC come from folks that (a) find it inferior to one or more languages they already know (Python, Ruby, etc.) and/or (b) feel it is somewhat of a platform ghetto (effectively only used on iOS and Mac) and therefore not as efficient use of one's time investment as another language and stack that you can use on many other platforms, and for many other types of applications. The biggest problem with Objective-C, in my opinion, is that the syntax and philosophy is a step backwards in time in terms of programmer friendliness. It is so much more verbose and clunky compared to Python, for example. Use Python's built-in dictionary type a while, then be forced to use Objective-C's dictionaries. Yikes. Then the memory model is more complex and more prone to error due to inconsistent lifecyles and naming conventions. The XCode/iOS project model, build generation and signing crud is just nasty compared to how you can develop and deliver web apps to production in, say, Python, or even desktop apps. It's just a nasty and overly complicated rat's nest of special cases. I counted once and an iPhone app has something like 8+ different names or identifiers, each used in subtly different ways in different places, just asking for confusion and conflict. I ship a desktop app or web app and I have effectively one or two identities to deal with, and no Apple hoop-jumping to do, no publication delays, no long silly list of things I can and cannot do, etc.: heaven in comparison. And no it's not about learning something new. I'm personally on like my 8th language used professionally, and love learning new things. But sometimes "new" things are worse than what you already know. In that case, learning that new thing is bad, and a poor use of your time. I've learned enough Objective-C to be productive, but also enough to know it's a step backward from some other tools in my toolbox, so bad use of my time in an ideal world. I'm thrilled about Apple's change today because it raises hope I might be able to use a sexier language than ObjC/C/C++.

benologist 16y ago

I make Flash games, about 5 months ago I asked http://www.oneappatatime.com/ http://www.oneappatatime.com/ to port one of my games, just before the shit hit the fan. It actually got approved today too! http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/square-there/id367085960?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/square-there/id367085960?mt=8

drivebyacct2 16y ago

Developers are forced to the Apple's Push Network? Huh.

sambe 16y ago

Definitely a positive step, but doesn't make (some of) them any less weird. The one about not using GPS to control remote planes and following one about not using for dispatch seems very odd. I'm sure there are plenty of people that could make use of this, and hardly seems harmful. Likewise the kids-only attitude - why bother having ratings at all? Do we really have to confirm 18 years old for a dictionary and yet be forbidden adult material? But strangest of all that I've read so far: "Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected" Doesn't this ban all real-world purchases? Ordering books from Amazon App...?

drewse 16y ago

I think this yet another step in Apple's progress in refining the App Store for both the consumer and the developer. Every thing Apple does with the App Store is taken one baby step at a time, but their baby steps have added up. If you look back at how different the App Store was when it came out, you'll notice how far it's come since then. These review guidelines that Apple recently posted were not needed by most developers, and will still only be relevant to those 1% of developers whose apps are controversial or unlucky enough to get rejected. However, since this has been covered so much by the publicity (just like the iPhone 4 antennagate issue and Adobe-Apple war), Apple felt the need to succumb to the media. Sure, it was not that big of a thing in the first place to just publish their review guidelines, but isn't it unusual that Apple is having to quiet down the media more and more often these days? Apple shouldn't have to do this, but with people taking everything out of proportion (all these issues only affect the small minority), it's hard for them to ignore it. What do you think?