Apple released a statement yesterday (September 9, 2010), saying they “… are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.”
This might be great news. Well, maybe not great news, but good news all the same.
So what does it mean?
Will Flash web content and Silverlight apps run on the iPhone and iPad?
Probably not. The bit that says “… do not download any code.” probably excludes having the Adobe Flash Player or Microsoft Silverlight runtime (and others) on an iPhone or iPad. In order to view a Flash webpage or a Silverlight app you need those components. So ‘no change’ here. This will be a big disappointment to many people. Technologies like Flash and Silverlight enhance the user’s experience on the web and it doesn’t sound like this is being extended to iPhone and iPad users at the moment. That may change in time, but don’t hold your breath – it still seems like Apple would prefer you experience content from the internet via an app on your iPhone or iPad instead of through a web browser. For DCH it means that on an iPhone, users will only see our website as the mobile version rather than the full Flash version. Personally I prefer the full Flash version, and it has some useful added functionality – click the map on the Contact Us page.
Will this give us more iPhone and iPad apps, or even better ones?
Probably, yes! How come? Well, developing using Apple’s Xcode is hard. Especially, if you’re not used to developing on Mac OS X. It’s a steep learning curve, support is hard to find and often poor quality, when compared with that for other development environments. There are a lot of experienced developers out there who use Adobe Flash or Microsoft Visual Studio (and many others), to develop rich internet applications, who will now be able to use the tools they are familiar with to create apps for the iPhone and iPad. That is really good news. Expect to see some new high quality useful apps appearing over the next few months.
Why is all this so important?
Competition. It’s what has driven much of the progress of the internet. Apple’s days of being the only show in town, for a great internet experience on a phone are numbered, if not already over. I think that’s a good thing. There are some good apps in the iTunes Store, but that place is not the be all and end all of the ‘rich internet’, even though Apple would like you to think that it is.
The Android platform has some great internet enabled phones (with Flash website compatibility – and it works really well). Also look out for Windows Phone 7 (I want one), Palm webOS, Symbian, and Blackberry – all these platforms either do or will support Flash players in the near future. I think that’s a good thing. The other thing they all have in common is that it is far easier to develop software for them than it is for an iPhone or iPad. IMHO, but that is my opinion based on writing software since I was 16 years old (ahem, 30 years then).
As the competition (finally) heats up properly in the mobile device arena, maybe Apple will make more announcements opening things up even more. As a health and safety precaution, I advise you not to hold your breath.