Uh-Oh: iPhone OS 4.0 SDK May Forbid Adobe’s CS5 Flash Compiler
As excited as developers and users alike are to hear the details of iPhone OS 4.0, their appears to be at least one group that will be grumbling -- Adobe and its Flash users who were counting on the company’s forthcoming CS5 compiler to convert their work to the iPhone.Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has a posted a report after examining the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which has undergone a change with the arrival of iPhone OS 4.0. In particular, he notes an addition to Section 3.3.1 which appears to forbid the use of compilers, such as the one Adobe is planning to preview next week as part of its upcoming Flash Professional CS5.Section 3.3.1 used to read: “Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.” With the arrival of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK, Apple has added the following to the same section: “Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).”“My reading of this new language is that cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe’s upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited,” Gruber writes in response to the change. “This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch -- a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone. It’s unclear what this means for tools like Titanium and PhoneGap, which let developers write JavaScript code that runs in WebKit inside a native iPhone app wrapper.”It remains to be seen how Apple will treat such Adobe Flash-compiled apps when they start to show up, but Gruber is quick to note that he doesn’t think Cupertino is expressly singling out Flash CS5. “What Apple doesn’t want,” Gruber summarizes, “is for anyone other than Apple to define the framework for native iPhone apps.“If you’re going to write a native iPhone app,” Gruber concludes, “then you ought to use our tools, our frameworks, and follow our advice; if you want to do something else, then target the iPhone with an optimized web app.” Given that Adobe is announcing their Creative Suite 5 details on Monday during a live webcast, it will be interesting to see how they circumvent this new obstacle.(Image courtesy of MobilitySite.com)
http://www.maclife.com/article/news/uhoh_iphone_os_40_sdk_may_forbid_adobe%E2%80%99s_cs5_flash_compiler
