Now this does not mean flash will be on the iphone or ipad any time soon, or anytime I figure short of going through jailbreak, but the possibility that Flash programmers using AS3 may be able to compile their code to work on the iPhone / iPad.  This would be great news if the rumors come true.  Now how much did Adobe have to do with getting the FTC to look at this issue and move on it we do not know, but this could be a great win for Adobe as well as the tons of ActionScript programmers out there.

Now what are the odds of this actually going through? Actually pretty good.  I never thought the reason for blocking other SDK’s was weak and the business win was pretty limited.  Now that does not mean you still would not have to buy a sdk license, so there are still blocks or at least hurdles Apple can put in the way, but it pain the FTC could cause may not be worth it.  We’ll see, and my fingers are crossed!

Not sure what I’m talking about?  Get the back story here.

image from iphonebuzz.com

There has been many arguments that Apple needed to do this to protect to the product, all of which are basically rubbish since the resulting code is compliant to the API, its really a business decision. And as I said, I can see the merit in the decision. By keeping control over the developers to do things the Apple way not only provides more control but provides more profit by forcing some dev’s to make a choice to between learning coco or some other mobile SKD language.  It also forces smaller dev house to choose which platform to develop for, and right now, the iPhone is king.  So if you are a small shop and can only afford to dev to one target, you are going to build for Apple and thus will NOT build for Android or Windows or whatever.

Now the is a possibility this could backfire.  If Android gets a larger marker share then Apple, then dev house will create for Android first, Apple second.  But that day seem quite far off.

Rest in peace iPhone Flash; we hardly knew ye.

{UPDATE} Adobe is looking  into the new SDK language. They continue to develop Packager for iPhone OS which will debut in Flash CS5

This really make me mad.  Part of the agreement for iphone 4.0 app development is that you cannot use outside libraries.  In English, you can only develop from the iPhone SDK.

Here is the actual language..

“The language from the agreement, which is section 3.3.1: Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. 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).”

So basically as I read it, any app using a compatibility layer or tool like flash to iphone or java to iphone is verboten. What does this mean for the 3D engine unity3D?  Is that no longer allowed too?  This is pretty much aimed at Adobe and the new feature in CS5 that will allow you to create an iphone app using actionscript 3.  Poof!  Gone.  This is the worst news ever.  Why should intermediary code matter as long as the actual execution code is still compliant??

I wonder if we are looking at a lawsuit over this.. What a crock.

… Its 24 hours and I’m still mad.  I mean, what if Comcast said they would only show movies that were shot with Panasonic cameras?