Apple sticks it to Flash again. CS5 iPhone packager now prohibited

Apple sticks it to Flash again. CS5 iPhone packager now prohibitedWhen Apple’s against something, they’re really against it. I mean so flat out against it that they take every single chance they get to stick it to their detractors, and “enemies.”

Adobe thought they were on to something. CS5 is supposed to have a cross compiler for flash that would allow developers to continue developing flash applications, and then port them to the iPhone so that developers can get their applications approved in the process.

So, how’s Apple sticking it to flash developers? Apparently, cross-compiled applications are now “banned” from the AppStore. Adobe recently announced on their website that, “Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 will include a Packager for iPhone that will let you publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications for iPhone. These applications can be delivered to iPhone users through the Apple App Store.”

Well, as of Thursday at 4:37PM EST, it’s against Apple’s SDK. Don’t believe us? Check out section 3.3.1 of the Developer Program License Agreement.

Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited

Looks like Apple’s twisting the knife in Adobe’s back. .

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About Joshua Schnell

Man, Myth, and Legend, Joshua is the Editor-In-Chief, and founder of Macgasm. He produces two podcasts, Macgasm TV, and The AppOrchard, and can be heard on CBC Radio once every couple of years.

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John Morgan

My only gripe (and correct me if I'm wrong here) is that we all knew a long time ago that Adobe was working on a way to export CS5 AS3 apps to iPhone. No doubt Apple has been in the know a long time. They waited until the last minute to make this change. They should have advised Adobe from the beginning that they would not allow this. Regardless of whether this was a last minute decision or not, it has by and large been perceived by the public as a decision made a long time ago and announced at the last minute for the purpose of sticking it to Adobe. That may not be true, but that's the perception and likely the reality (in my opinion). My opinions could be misplaced though. Hard to tell.

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William Whitcomb

Since I like to develop with flash and the new Adobe program Flash Catalyst, wouldn't it be simple to package to Flex/AIR and hand it over to a developer to tweak the code to Apple's liking?

I'm an artist, not a programmer and I like the hand-off strategy so both are doing what they do best.

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matt smith

I teach programming at a third level college - I teach Flash game development - I moved over to all Apple kit a few years ago (mobile me, iphone, macbook pro etc. I love the intergration and design)

I was about to get an iPad and Adobe Flash CS 5 and start developing apps with the packager - I'm now thinking of moving to Linix and Java and leave these big companies to mess each other around - Apple is becoming worse than Microsoft was, and they're pretty stupid with this move, since I think they've crossed the line by kicking developers in the teeth.

Apple - I was about to push for my college to get another Apple lab and have all our BSc computing students learn some of their degree on Macs ... I'm now rethinking that move seriously ... which will impact a hundred or computing graduates from my college every year - you stupid, greedy, bullies Apple - I would reckon you have a month or two to realise that you've gone too far, apologise sincerely and retract this move, otherwise LOTS of developers all round the world will be leaving apple development forever ...

Final comment - Adobe, reduce the price of the licences for schools and colleges - if you didn't charge so much I'd already be teaching AS 3 with CS 4 rather than Flash 8, and am still begging for hard to get funding to upgrade our Flash licences at the college ... SVG and HTML 5 are free, and so would Silverlight be if I wanted to go the Microsoft route with their educational agreements ... don't get too greedy you can see where that leads to with Apple ...

.. matt ..
p.s.
why do I make all this work for myself - I should probably just teach in C or Java on any platform and stop trying to help my students work with all these fun new technologies :-)

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Joshua Schnell

I understand your complaints, and I certainly feel your pain, but Apple's not really doing anything new here.

Microsoft wouldn't let people use third party code on their XBox platform, and Nintendo or Sony wouldn't let flash on their handheld devices either. It's pretty common in the computing world that a hardware manufacturer would force software developers to use proprietary languages for their devices. People are just annoyed because everyone wants to develop for the largest mobile application platform, and to do so some have to learn another programming language to do so.

As for Java development, I took a number of java courses while in university, and outside of teaching students the ins and outs of object oriented programming, I've yet to use the language at all. In my opinion, it would be a disservice to students if you took modern and useful languages and traded them off for something that they would rarely use.

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RJ

And I was just on my way to but another Iphone for my Wife. Also to ask my boss for a macbook. Well if this is true, ill start looking for an android phone, maybe Xperia and an I7 core PC. Baaaad move Apple!!

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TS

Actually, Apple is sticking it to developers. Enjoy it while it last Apple. No Developers = No App Store = No World Domination. Back to MS I go :(

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Colin Burns

Does this mean that methods such as http://phonegap.com/ are also banned? Or is this targetted squarely at Adobe & Flash?

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P Couture

They just also banned Unity3D, Unreal, Ogre and Torque 3D with this move - Great job Stevie.

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chris

Don't know about the rest, but OGRE is a C++ library, it should be ok.

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John Meadows

It's not just Adobe getting hit; presumably toolkits such as Nimblekit and MonoTouch will now be banned as well :-(.

If Microsoft tried to pull this stunt they'd be crucified; I'm willing to bet that Apple will get the kid glove treatment from the fanboy legion, as usual.

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Joshua Schnell

I kind of agree. I'm not going to act like an apologist. ;) It's dirty that they turned around and did this, but i'm not exactly surprised either. All along it's been, "play by our rules, or don't play at all!" I figured it was going to happen sooner or later.

I've been saying all along that the real reason flash isn't on the iPhone is because Apple doesn't want flash apps contending with their AppStore.

It's a sad day.

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Trackbacks

  1. uberVU - social comments says:
    April 8, 2010 at 5:48 PM

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by bassguy: http://su.pr/3H5rgo – Adobe’ cross compiler is now against Apple’s SDK agreement….

  2. Apple blocking CS5 iPhone Technology says:
    April 12, 2010 at 4:22 PM

    [...] and http://www.macgasm.net/2010/04/08/apple-sticks-it-to-flash-again-cs5-iphone-packager-now-prohibited/ [...]