Steve Jobs responds directly to developer over new iPhone SDK rules, cites blog for explanation
By Paul Miller 
posted April 10th 2010 8:48PM
posted April 10th 2010 8:48PM
Plenty ink has already been spilled about the new restrictions in clause 3.3.1 of the new iPhone SDK terms of use. The new wording disallows developers to use third party, cross platform development tools (like Flash CS5) to build their apps, and plenty of folks (like Adobe) are angered by it. Now it seems Steve Jobs has chimed in as well. Developer Greg Slepak reached out to Steve, citing the large outpouring of negativity on the topic, including a post by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who Greg calls Apple's "biggest fan." Steve apparently responded, citing a newer post by Gruber that explains Apple's theoretical reasoning for locking down the platform like this. Steve called the post "very insightful." When Greg replied, raising some very legitimate defense that highly popular, important apps like Mozilla Firefox are built with cross platform frameworks, Steve Jobs had a slightly less terse response:On Greg's blog he breaks down some of Gruber's claims and makes a pretty compelling case for third party toolkits -- important examples of which can be found all over the Mac and Windows landscape. We get the feeling his impassioned pleas, and the oft-bandied threat of developer migration, will fall on deaf ears at Apple as always, but at least he helps shape this debate somewhat, which will no doubt rage on for months and years to come. Check out the full conversation between Greg and Steve, including Greg's final response, after the break.We've been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
Greg:
Steve:Hi Steve,
Lots of people are pissed off at Apple's mandate that applications be "originally written" in C/C++/Objective-C. If you go, for example, to the Hacker News homepage right now:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/>
You'll see that most of the front page stories about this new restriction, with #1 being: "Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad" with (currently) 243 upvotes. The top 5 stories are all negative reactions to the TOS, and there are several others below them as well. Not a single positive reaction, even from John Gruber, your biggest fan.
I love your product, but your SDK TOS are growing on it like an invisible cancer.
Sincerely,
Greg
We think John Gruber's post is very insightful and not negative:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331
Steve
Greg:
Steve:Sorry. I didn't catch that post, but I finished it just now.
I still think it undermines Apple. You didn't need this clause to get to where you are now with the iPhone's market share, adding it just makes people lose respect for you and run for the hills, as a commenter to that article stated:
"So what Apple does not want is for some other company to establish a de facto standard software platform on top of Cocoa Touch. Not Adobe's Flash. Not .NET (through MonoTouch). If that were to happen, there's no lock-in advantage."
And that makes Apple evil. At least, it does in the sense that Google uses the term in "don't be evil" – I believe pg translated "evil" as something along the lines of "trying to compete by means other than making the best product and marketing it honestly".
From a developer's point of view, you're limiting creativity itself. Gruber is wrong, there are plenty of [applications] written using cross-platform frameworks that are amazing, that he himself has praised. Mozilla's Firefox just being one of them.
I don't think Apple has much to gain with 3.3.1, quite the opposite actually.
Sincerely,
Greg
We've been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
Greg:
The Mac has only been helped by the fact that Firefox, Ableton Live, and hundreds of other high-quality applications can run on it thanks to the fact that developers have a choice as to what tools they can use on it.
Crappy developers will make crappy apps regardless of how many layers there are, and it doesn't make sense to limit source-to-source conversion tools like Unity3D and others. They're all building apps through the iPhone developer tools in the end so the situation isn't even comparable to the Mac where applications can completely avoid using Apple's frameworks by replacing them with others.
In my opinion, 3.3.1 only serves to make the platform less attractive to legitimate developers, giving them reason to write their software for competing platforms instead.
Thanks for considering this.
Sincerely,
Greg
Apple continues to play with fire. Its an incredible company, with incredible products and a great leadership team. But as they say... hubris comes before the fall!
Jobs is right... "We've been here before". We've seen this story play out... Company "X" is flying high, loved by consumers and developers. Then, they get greedy and over play their had in an attempt to maintain control. Sooner or later, it becomes too much. The only question is typically when... not if.
We humans rarely seem to learn from history.
Apple isn't forcing anyone to make iPhone apps. If you want to play in their sandbox, then play by their rules. Otherwise, stop your cryin'.
@jeremynmo agreed. i have to say that, while I don't fully support apple's decision, I'm sure developers won't immediately jump ship to other platforms
@jeremynmo That would be a valid point only if Apple didn't decide to change the rules mid-game. And worse: for arbitrary reasons. With WP7, it was clear from the start that you won't be able to write native apps. While that's a shame, it really is a case of "if you don't like it, leave it". But here, companies like Adobe and Novell presumably spent millions developing these tools, developers paid money to use them, spent months creating apps, only for Apple to suddenly go "Hi. We just decided you can just fuck off, thank you". And not for good reasons either.
@jeremynmo Exactly. It's the exact same thing with gaming consoles. Weird that you don't see anyone whining about not being able to write a game in Flash and just export it and having it running on the PS3. Damn Sony and their lockdown policies...
Seriously, Apple has every right to keep their platform from being flooded with (even more) useless apps. If you want a phone with a completely open marketplace with no quality control whatsoever, go for Android.
@theplotlessplot
Sorry. As far as gaming consoles are concerned, you are exactly wrong. There are TONS of tools for creating games that can output code for multiple consoles. Unreal Engine from Epic can generate PS3 and Xbox 360 games. This is exactly the same as using Adobe Flash Air to create Android and iPhone apps.
@jeremynmo What PervertRyan said.
A lot of hard work, time and money from Adobe, Flash developers and other non-Flash developers down the drain. Apple gave no grace period or no warning whatsoever. Thats the problem.
Its an ambush for Adobe! And the developers (civilians) died in the cross-fire.
@theplotlessplot
Hah! Dead wrong. One of the tools that will presumably be hurt by this is unity3d, which outputs to Mac/pc desktop, web deployment, android, wii and in a few weeks playstation 3. Likewise, adobe air/flash provides a build once, deploy everywhere approach covering Mac/pc desktop, all mobile devices except apple's and more. Using either tool above, a developer stand to make WAY more than through the app store because they can leverage one asset way more, and aren't constrained by apple's ridiculous approval policies.
See, all these other tools are playing well with others, Apple is the odd man out and they're going to pay a price for that arrogance.
@theplotlessplot
"Weird that you don't see anyone whining about not being able to write a game in Flash and just export it and having it running on the PS3."
Maybe because the PS3 supports flash and they don't need to do any conversion?
@mrpixel What do you mean, no grace period or warning? The new os hits in 2-4 months. There's your grace period.
As to why.. Multitasking!!! Anything flash derived multitasks poorly on a dual core 2+ ghz desktop with gigs of ram. How will it do on a single 600mhz arm derivative with only 256 mb ram? Apple is protecting the app ecosystem from resource hogs, and drew a line in the sand to do so.
Developer to Steve: I need all of those frameworks that you carry around in your pocket, like so many nickels and dimes.
This is awful. I say just rid the clause. Jeez...
I honestly can't stand Steve Jobs... I love my iPod Touch, but there's a lot of stuff wrong with it (of which, unfortunately, Jailbreaking only fixes some) and I certainly hate Apple...
@Shokz Why do you hate Apple? Did they touch as a child? Did they kill your grandma?
Hate is a strong word my friend.
@Matt l
Nah, they are raping us as adults, kind of sad I know.
@Matt l Strongly dislike? How's that one?
Let's just say they've never played nice...
Good riddance to shitty flash apps.
@Rotcod Mood
exactly.
That Flash-to-iPhone app feature will single handedly turn the App Store into the equivalent of the comments section on Youtube with even the Average Joe getting his 5 calculator apps and 6 clock apps in there, each for 99 cents. Too much 'noise', very little 'signal' and a colossal waste of time for everyone involved.
Also, running all these garbage apps through the App Store Quality Control will delay the approval process even the legitimately useful ones.
Ironically, using this feature itself will turn it useless. When App Store is filled with even more crap than it is now, the average price of apps which has already been driven down to $1.99, will be driven further down all way to $0 and then Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone feature stops being useful. The App Store is dead when the average price gets to $0.
Necessary move, and glad Apple had the balls to go with it. It's anyway not the end of the world as people who wanna be 'lazy' with their programming can jump ship to Android etc when Adobe launches the Flash-to-Android feature. Unlike Apple, Google is fine with the quality of their App Store going down the drain as they don't take a cut of the app sales in their Android store(30% of the 'paid' app sales goes to the Carriers, which is a damn smart move by Google » http://j.mp/dq9l91). Their entire business is based on 'low-cost high-volume' and the more the apps the greater the volume of content and thus the more it resembles the chaos-filled, open-to-anyone Internet. And they know how to make money off of the internet.
@vjk2005
Do you have any clue what you are talking about? The app store is already filled with crap as you mention and none of that was developed using a Flash development tool. What makes you think that the amount of crap will increase dramatically? You have to still spend the money for a iPhone developer license and presumably for the Flash dev tool as well. Just another idiotic fanboy comment.
@vjk2005 Completely agree. Keeping it restricted to objective c / c / c++ keeps that bar to entry sufficiently high. The iPhone OS is a revolution in computing. It's sufficiently locked-down making it a thriving ecosystem for developers. For example, when was the last time a developer sold a flash based app to a consumer on a whim.
Both Apple and Adobe need a kick in the ass. Apple because they want to own everything in sight. Adobe because of their poor development of Flash. Put the two companies together and you end up with zero progress for the consumer. Vote with your wallets and don't feel Apple money. As for Flash, install Silverlight and hope web designers realize how much better it is in every way. If you can use HTML5 video then use that also.
So if using MonoTouch, for example, results in a substandard app like Jobs claims, then simply don't approve it? Isn't that what the approval process is for? And you can write crappy, slow apps using the Apple-approved tools as well, and if they get rejected, as they should be, then why can't apps that have been developed using other tools simply be judged on that as well? You're full of shit, Apple.
You can go with Symbian and MeeGo, which are fully open and use commonly distributed app toolkits.
What amazes me the most is how Apple boasts how they have all these app in their app store written in multiple languages. Yet now they want to change the rules that got them to the top of the list. I think this move will push more devs to work on other platforms where they have more freedom.
@Augie you think developers care more about freedom than money?
@appleipad
Just look at the open source community. Developers are principle driven people, believe it or not.
Ha ha. I love how terse Steve is.
I am loving this new addition. This is EXCELLENT news.
Just makes Android rise to the top that much faster.
Thanks Steve! :)
Android will eventually kill Apple. I don't even have a smartphone but it is obvious! Keep pushing your luck Apple, you will eventually fall. And is it me or does the new Windows 7 phone just feel, not right?
Don't downrank me :( ! Just my opinion
@Mike Vick
Yeah Google will allow any crap to run on their system since they care about advertising dollars and not about the success or failure of Android.
@assb10yr
??? Android is what it should be... Free to develop and adopted by anyone not just themselves.
It's weird that people treat this as a dick move by Apple when they're actually fighting for an open, standards-based Web experience.
Adobe have a monopoly over RIAs with the Flash platform and Apple (along with Google and others) are trying to make the Web more accessible to everyone, both from a user and a developer standpoint.
Also, keeping Flash developers from flooding the AppStore with meaningless applications written in Flash and inefficiently ported to ObjC seems like a great move.
I'm all for HTML5 and a Web without proprietary platforms. If Flash devs stopped whining and started adapting to what will certainly be the future Web standard, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Keep going, Apple/Google/whoever.
@theplotlessplot Dude what Adobe's doing with Flash/CS5 is looking wayyy better than what HTML5 can do on mobile phones which is not that much and is definitely not a bright apple future
@Alexpeegs Whatever Flash does, HTML 5 can do it without hogging your CPU and significantly decreasing your battery life.
Remember, we're talking about mobile devices that already have low battery life to begin with.
I fully support Apple's decision to stick with an open standard like HTML 5 and to keep inefficiently "ported" apps written in Flash from the AppStore.
@theplotlessplot So you want to live in a locked world in a locked house with a locked app store you realize people use Flash because It can do more than HTML5 can. I mean seriously I've tried HTML5 on my PC and it has crashed and never played any videos on any website so I gave up on it because Flash always works for me.
@theplotlessplot
"Also, keeping Flash developers from flooding the AppStore with meaningless applications written in Flash and inefficiently ported to ObjC seems like a great move."
Are you assuming all of the non-flash apps is meaningful? You should try to look in Apple marketplace again. Lets face it, Apple wants to prioritize things here and block third parties from entering. Dick move, and it's bad for both consumer and developer as well but only benefits Apple of course.
@theplotlessplot
There's nothing "open" about Apple. If Apple believed in an open system the concept of "jailbreaking" your Apple controlled devices wouldn't even exist. Apple is only in favor of open systems when it suits their needs like taking on a much more established player and attempting to portray them as the evil empire.
The problem for Apple is that they're not the little guy anymore and so it rings completely false when they try to portray Adobe as the big bad empire that they are trying to fight. In fact to most people it seems clear that Apple is now the schoolyard bully forcing everyone in the industry to live by their rules. It's truly pathetic to see every website on the Internet bending over backwards to get an app out on Apple's devices simply because Apple's crippled mobile web browser blocks out standards like Flash, Java, and Silverlight.
@theplotlessplot
"Whatever Flash does, HTML 5 can do it without hogging your CPU and significantly decreasing your battery life."
People keep saying this, but wheres the proof? Have you ever seen same app coded with flash and html 5, and then compared how resource hogs they have been?
The few examples ive seen show that HTML 5 is bigger resource hog than flash.
@theplotlessplot
HTML5 not a CPU hog??
As an example Windows Vista + Chrome +3Gz C2D.
HTML5 video = 50% CPU
Flash video = 45% CPU
Flash 10.1 RC Hardware Acceleration = 20% CPU
http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2010/03/22/
By the way this article is not about the Flash Player.
@cool8man Flash and Silverlight are standards? Get a clue... Just because something is used by the majority of the people, it doesn't make it a standard. Flash and Silverlight are proprietary technologies owned by Adobe and Microsoft, respectively.
The Web should be open and no company should have control of a specific technology.
Apple isn't trying to control anything Web-related, they're trying to make the Web a fair ground.
Regarding the iPhone, Apple has the right to keep buggy, inefficient code out of their platform and I, for one, am glad they're doing it. There are enough useless apps as it is. If the flood gates were to be opened for Flash developers, the AppStore would soon be exactly like the cluttered, zero quality-control marketplace that is the Android Market.
@theplotlessplot
"Whatever Flash does, HTML 5 can do it without hogging your CPU and significantly decreasing your battery life."
You're obviously not a developer, for iPhone, web OR flash. Therefore, shut your piehole and go comment on things you actually understand.
Better yet, why don't you post a link for us that is pure html5 doing the things flash can do? No?
@cool8man "it seems clear that Apple is now the schoolyard bully forcing everyone in the industry to live by their rules."
Let me fix this for you. They are forcing those developing for their products to live by their rules. Hardly everyone in the industry.
@cool8man "There's nothing "open" about Apple."
Like WebKit?
"The problem for Apple is that they're not the little guy anymore and so it rings completely false when they try to portray Adobe as the big bad empire that they are trying to fight".
When did they portray them as the big bad empire?
"Apple's crippled mobile web browser blocks out standards like Flash, Java, and Silverlight."
Flash is a de facto standard, and Silverlight is nothing for now.
@theplotlessplot I'm glad you have an open mind and aren't just following the standard apple lines (Mindlessly repeat this with me: the internet WILL be a better place without flash. Flash has NOTHING to offer). You can't imagine some good apps resulting from flash developers? You really think all flash developers have the same skills and ideas? And you also think that limiting flash will limit these bad ideas on the iphone? You already said so yourself, the appstore has a ton of crap apps, how would this be really any different?
@theplotlessplot Actually, you're dead wrong on both counts. Flash uses fewer resources than HTML5 and has more capabilities.
@theplotlessplot Apple fans, please please please stop with all "Apple is pushing for an Open Internet" nonsense.
There is ONE, and one reason only why Flash is not available on the iPhone OS; if you can play games and run applications using Flash in the browser for free, why would you pay £3 for them in the App Store?
And by the way, I own a G5 Mac & a Macbook Pro, so I don't speak as a "hater", just someone who can see through the smoke & mirrors Jobs likes to use...
Irony? Apple's browser is built on top of WebKit, a cross platform layout engine Apple helps develop.
By these standards is Apple's own browser in violate?
Steve Jobs has just committed 2 sins: Greed and Pride. Let's see how things will begin to unravel.
@darkmax
Maybe MS comes by to give them a little Se7en treatment?
Dear Steve Jobs
Screw You
Screw Apple
Piss Off