iPhone OS 4.0: New License closing doors to GLBasic?

[fjsantosb]

Hi there,

Certainly is a very worry decisition from Apple for this developer community. But the resolution of, so much speculations, can be really fast. If the new agreement has been ammended allready, let's see what happen with the next GLBasic App that someone send to Apple for review.
I really hope that Apple don't close doors to GLBasic!!

King Regards, fjsantos.

[Kuron]

ItÃ,´s the lock-in-effect that matters.

I do not follow.  They named the languages:  Objective C, C, and C++.  These are not proprietary to Apple and are among the most common cross-platform languages.

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine

Thats the thing why apple reduced language support too objc/++, c/++ and JS. nothing more.

By accident, you changed what Apple said.  Apple did not say "and" js, they said "or" js and specified js only for browser based apps. 

My reading, is normal iPhone apps can only be written in Objective C, C or C++, not JavaScript.  JavaScript can only be used if the app will be executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine (which is what the iPhone's browser uses).

GLBasic probably never would have had an issue with the changes Apple made.  However since we have had a user go rogue and "I just emailed to Apple to see what their official word on this is." you can be sure the s-stirrer may very well have opened up a can of worms for Gernot to deal with.  I am not sure how this user expects Gernot, the folks at Unity or any other product to automatically be in compliance with a change Apple made to their license just yesterday.  Under the terms of Apple's license, it would not apply to GLB, anyway.  It would apply to the developer who actually uses GLB to make games for the iPhone.  It should have been left up to Gernot to consult his lawyer to clarify the situation that Apple has presented.

Frankly, since GLB is just acting as a preprocessor and not a compiler, I do not see any issue for GLB.

I tend to agree with this comment from another site:

What Apple is saying here is, if youââ,¬â,,¢re going to write a native iPhone app, then you need to target our platform (which GLB does); if you want to do something else, then target the iPhone with an optimized web app (Apple's javascript reference). I.e., the iPhone OS supports two software platforms: Cocoa Touch and the web. Apple isnââ,¬â,,¢t going to let anyone else build a meta-platform on top of Cocoa Touch (what adobe was trying to do).

Words in italics in the quote above were added by me for clarification.

[trucidare]

they said javascript must be run in webkit, so you can write your app in javascript, with a new JS lib from apple you can use all frameworks.

on my list for Santa is a new ipod and a mac for kittie

[jaywat]

let's see what happen with the next GLBasic App that someone send to Apple for review.

Well, don't know if you can extrapolate anything from this, but we submitted our v1.1 update before the License change, and it went into review after we signed the new agreement, and was duly passed in hours.

And don't know if you can extrapolate anything from this, but we submitted our free version before we submitted the 1.1 update, and it went into review a full 24 hours later, and has been 'in review' for, well, about 15 hours now. But they could have just gone home for the weekend, I guess!

[Kuron]

is it difficult to use plain ANSI-C on a platform whose API is predominantly Objective-C?

Objective-C can compile straight C code with no problem, and you can include C code in an Objective-C class.

Well, don't know if you can extrapolate anything from this, but we submitted our v1.1 update before the License change, and it went into review after we signed the new agreement, and was duly passed in hours.

Actually, the license hasn't changed yet, so you are safe.  The new license and the 4.0 version of the SDK are both beta and will not be made final until sometime this summer.

[Kuron]

how difficult is it to use the various iPhone APIs (those written in ObjC) when I'd prefer to use plain 'ol vanilla C for my own developments?

I do not develop for the iPhone, but since Apple is recommending C as a language to use for development, I do not imagine you would have any problems at all.  It is my understanding that Apple has designed the APIs to be equally accessible for C, C++ and Objective-C.

[bigsofty]

Actually, even when using Obj-C, some frameworks need to be used with with procedural-c, OpenGLES, OpenAL for example and can't be used be used directly by obj-c.

Unfortunately, I think the Unity guys will have more problems than GLB will have with this new license, Unity uses .Net Mono as their main cross-platform API, GLB does not use any middleware API like this, as it accesses the XCode SDK frameworks directly.

[bigsofty]

Come to think about this, it may be advantageous, to have an all 'C' GLBasic project setting in GLBasic... 

[okee]

However since we have had a user go rogue and "I just emailed to Apple to see what their official word on this is." you can be sure the s-stirrer may very well have opened up a can of worms for Gernot to deal with.

If you'd read his message:

Dont worry. I didnt mention glb a bit. It is not my iphone tool of choice anyway. But as someone who is interested in develop legally for that platform, i would certain need a clarification on this subject from apple.

[Kuron]

However since we have had a user go rogue and "I just emailed to Apple to see what their official word on this is." you can be sure the s-stirrer may very well have opened up a can of worms for Gernot to deal with.

If you'd read his message:

Dont worry. I didnt mention glb a bit. It is not my iphone tool of choice anyway. But as someone who is interested in develop legally for that platform, i would certain need a clarification on this subject from apple.

Yes, I did read his message.  He should have let Gernot handle it.  For Apple to answer any question like this, the only way they could provide an accurate answer is to ask him which product or tool he was using.  Also, as you quoted, he made the insinuation GLB may not be doing things legally.  Gernot isn't the slime on a slugs butt that Mike is used to dealing with in other communities.

[Kuron]

Interesting info quoting Steve Jobs.

[mykyl66]

That link seems to imply that GlBasic is an issue. If it output the c code so we could finalise our apps in xcode and add in the features directly within xcode without having to wait on Gernot adding them perhaps that would allow us to continue.

I say the above because Steve Jobs directly states that this link (http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331) is very close to the reasons and I quote this - "And, obviously, such a meta-platform would be out of Appleââ,¬â,,¢s control. Consider a world where some other companyââ,¬â,,¢s cross-platform toolkit proved wildly popular. Then Apple releases major new features to iPhone OS, and that other companyââ,¬â,,¢s toolkit is slow to adopt them. At that point, itââ,¬â,,¢s the other company that controls when third-party apps can make use of these features."

I know I can view the c code generated by GlBasic so is it possible when creating the xcode project to have it fully viewable and editable in xcode when opened in xcode? That way I have the benefit of creating the base application in glbasic and the speed it allows this and the ability to add features directly afterwards in xcode so as to add whatever new features Apple release whenever I need them?

I guess this would also allow me to test directly in the simulator as well then.

Cheers

Mike R

[Hark0]

Hi Gernot...

Any official new, comment...


TIA from Barcelona.

[bigsofty]

There is no compatibility layer API, no .Net Mono or its equivalent, GLB convert to straight C static libs (It could easily allow for the user C code to be left uncompiled too) which are then linked in XCode on a MAC.


What worries me more, is the long term consequences of TOS change... whats next, "All Apple developers MUST prove to have been wearing a tin hat during the development of their app!". Joking aside, it looks like Steve says "Jump!" and from now on we ask "How high?".


Also, the argument that, its there game, we play by their rules is also invalid IMHO. How many people here have out-laid a tonne of money to get their iPhone development up and running based on their previous TOS? I don't think these kind of changes are completely legal for an established developers currently contracted with Apple. New developers, have the choice of examining a problematic TOS before investing money into a venture. But old ones, who signed up under different TOS, do no have the luxury of choice, esp. when the rug is pulled from beneath them in this manner.

[Ozden79]

I would also love to hear Gernot's thoughts on this issue?

The TOS can be interpreted so elastic that even some strict IPhone/Objective-C frameworks, such as Cocos2D, can be count as middle layer as they prevent the users to directly work with OpenGL for graphics, etc. and put a layer to achieve things that are not available out of the box in the IPhone API itself.

Also in the current state of the generated files, there is even no need to check the function calls, etc. as the file names directly tells that they are created in something called "GLBasic" .