Apple said Thursday that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines for the mobile operating system empowering thecompany's iPhone and iPad products. Apple's change of heart is all about wireless application neutrality and a welcome détente in the Apple versus Flash brawl, noted Al Hilwa, the director of application software development at IDC.
"It will be well received by the many developers who are skilled in languages and programming tools other than ObjectiveC -- the native language of the iOS SDK," Hilwa said.
"There is now hope that other programming languages can be used to bring applications to the iOS platform."
Adobe To Revamp iPhone Tool
For example, Adobe Systems said is once again working with key industry partners to bring full web browsing with Flash Player 10.1 to a broad range of devices. Adobe's Packager for iPhone -- a feature in the company's Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool -- "is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases."
Developers currently can resurrect Adobe's Packager for iPhone tool and get working with the combinations of AIR and iOS versions that have come out since April, noted Adobe Systems Product Manager Christian Cantrell. "Everything still works perfectly -- it only took me about fifteen minutes to get my environment set up again," Cantrell wrote.
Currently, however, this workflow is far from ideal -- especially for developers who use Flash Builder. "Keep in mind that what you're seeing here represents a very low-level usage of the SDKs, and not what we were ultimately planning on releasing," Cantrell explained.
Once Adobe's tool is re-released, developers will potentially be able to bring thousands of Flash apps to the iPhone and the iPad, Hilwa observed.
"The development is important because it marks a slight shift in the tenor of the discussion around the application neutrality of wireless world," Hilwa explained.
Tearing Down The Wall
According to Adobe Systems, however, Apple's restriction on Flash content running directly in the browser on iOS devices currently remains in place, which means that users still cannot view Flash content or video on the Web when using the iPhone or iPad. "What is not clear from this announcement is whether this détente is open enough for Apple and Adobe to engage around bringing Flash to the iPhone," Hilwa said. "To enable this, Apple and Adobe likely need to partner so that Flash is pre-loaded on the devices or at least downloadable as a plug-in to the iOS browser."
Alternatively, Adobe could try to acquire or partner with a browser into which Flash could be directly integrated and then make the package available to users of Apple's mobile platforms. Still, "Adobe is not likely to invest in this unless it is assured that it is able to bring Flash to the iPhone," Hilwa said. "Thus an active partnership between Apple and Adobe may be the next milestone to watch."
More immediately, Apple's revised developer guidelines mean that other development languages such as Java and .NET can also now be supported without violating any rules. "The changes relax the ban translation layers that are often used in programming languages to make them portable," Hilwa said. "These layers -- sometimes called virtual machines -- have become ubiquitous in modern day programming environments such as Java and Microsoft's .NET."
The relaxation of Apple's developer guidelines also suggests that Silverlight may eventually become available on iOS devices. Hilwa said this would create "new and interesting possible mobile application strategies by the various mobile platform owners such as Oracle, Google and Microsoft -- who also own application development languages and tools."
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