Apple puts legal knife into Adobe's CS5 - New iPhone Developer Agreement Bans the Use of Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone Compile

[Tulrin]

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=Tulrin]The AIR runtime is created and then run through a packager for the iPhone which then converts it to native code.

Yes--native code that does not exploit iPhone OS APIs. That's the primary problem.
That is neither here nor there in regards to efficiency and reliability. It is some people's opinion that it is however there is no real hard proof to support such a claim one way or another. There are some very effective and efficient applications that use translation layers. Mozilla Firefox is probably the most well-known.

It is a standard practice to decouple applications from APIs in order to reduce the risk of being tightly coupled to an API that is out of developer's control. Strictly speaking decoupling from an API is not the same as a translation layer however it is a similar concept.

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=Tulrin]If the Apple Developer EULA forbids any third party tools for app development...

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the new EULA does exactly that.
It requires that the original code must be written using C, Objective C or C++. It does not forbid third-party tools per se... but that is my reading of it and I am hardly a lawyer.

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=Tulrin]One other point, I have read a couple of posts on here in regards to Apple's claim that the Flash player is a memory hog and is inefficient.

Actually, a CPU hog, and a source of reliability and security problems.
True but the CPU claim has also been effectively disproved. Reliability and security "problems" have also been exaggerated or dismissed by both sides with the majority of the discussion being anecdotal. Flash has its problems as does any plug-in and there are those that love it and those that hate it. In reality it is just another tool that makes sense in some situations and not so much in others. Personally I am at a loss as to why people tend to personalize technologies since in the end that only makes one have a more narrow mind. “The best tool for the job” should be the attitude of any developer worth their salt.

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=Tulrin]Apple's motives for not allowing Flash on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad have little or nothing to do with performance and have everything to do with their business model.

How so?
Apple does not want any other company to define the framework for native iPhone applications. By allowing third-party meta-frameworks Apple runs the risk of one of them becoming the de facto development standard... as would surely happen if Adobe Flash could compile iPhone apps ( There are 2 million plus Flash developers as opposed to 100k plus iPhone developers). Apple would lose control of their own platform. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective and is well within their rights. If developers don't like it they can vote with their feet.

Google's approach is the exact opposite of Apple's so it will be very interesting to see which was a better strategy.

The last time Apple tried a similar strategy it did not play out well for them and is considered one of the great blunders of the technology business world. Apple actively discouraged game developers from porting games to the Mac, a move they ultimately regretted. Perhaps it will work out differently for them this time around, only time will tell.