And yeah, Apple's stated that Flash-authored apps are verboten, native code or not. And everybody's coming up with a conspiracy theory and everybody's got their magnifying glass out to parse Section 3.3.1 of the license agreement to see if it screws Flash specifically or the dozen other non-XCode iPhone app-builders. And I've heard everything from "it's okay as long as XCode is in the pipeline somewhere" (bzzzt) to "it's because Flash is the only thing that can author IPA files from Windows" (true, but also bzzzt).
Fact is, you can parse all day. Section 3.3.1 of the agreement means whatever Apple wants it to mean right now. Remember the earlier "No Third Party Libraries" wording that Apple used to deny (and later accept) PhoneGap-authored apps? That wording made no damn sense and was clearly written by marketers and lawyers who tried to translate a five minute description from a programmer into something that they could use to refuse ports.
If you've been a C programmer for any length of time, you know what exactly what a "Third Party Library" is. It's a piece of object code from someone else that you link in along with your OS-vendor's runtime library to create your app. A good example would be something like Scoreloop or OpenFeint which add shared high score capabilities to iPhone games. Thing is, Apple is just fine with those, even though they're clearly violating the agreement, as they're according-to-hoyle Third Party Libraries. Apple's content police did not interpret "No Third Party Libraries" to mean "No Third Party Libraries". Instead they translated it as "no interpreting anything, no matter how well you hide it", which is why stuff like classic game system emulators aren't available on an iPhone even if they don't use any "third party libraries".
And this new 3.3.1 clause will be interpreted just as broadly. Apple's got no problem selectively enforcing their license, which is why their "you cannot compete with the built-in apps" clause applies to Google's Google Voice app but not to the dozens of Calculators and Weather widgets out there.
The fact is this. Apple blundered badly with the App Store and their third-party development program. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to say "We have a zillion apps for the iPhone" and "We have great apps for the iPhone".
And to their credit, they managed to get both. They've got over 100,000 iPhone apps. And they've got great iPhone apps.
Maybe one percent of 'em are great.
Actually only about one percent of 'em could even be considered good. Literally 99% of the App Store is utter garbage. And I'm not just talking about games that aren't very fun. I'm talking about junk that is a complete ripoff. Things like public domain books loaded into scrollable text fields and sold as e-books. Bitmaps of girls in bikinis collected into scrolling fields and sold as "sexy apps". Legions of "Super Ultimate Tic Tac Toe" games that are nothing but the sample game from somesuch "how to program for iPhone" book with a new splash screen and a description that suggests that you're getting something worth money.
And Apple's been trying to purge that stuff, but they haven't even scratched the surface.
Don't believe me? Then here's an exercise.
1. Go to http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/search/
2. Type "fart" in the search box.
3. Click the "see all" link so you don't just see the top-shelf fart apps.
4. Click "next".
5. Goto step 4.
Yes, there are literally HUNDREDS of apps on the iPhone that play fart sound effects. Or record fart sound effects. Or play animations of something farting. Or that send farts effects to people via email. Or that change your ringtone into a fart.
Fact is, Apple didn't want to go down the road of the Atari 2600 and/or Windows Mobile, both of which didn't control their app-stream and suffered under a glut of bad non-signed apps. So they set up a well-designed software and server system that would allow them to control what could appear on the phone, and then they handed over that system to a group of content police who followed a script that would allow a $1000 app that does nothing but display a single bitmap but kicks apps for minor UI consistency violations.
Couple that with the fact that there is no "try and buy" mechanism and no way to get a refund, and you have a perfect infrastructure for people to upload crap written in a matter of hours and then sold for a tidy profit to people with twelve credit cards and zero common sense.
(proof that the bulk of App Store customers have twelve credit cards and zero common sense ">here)
So Apple ended up with a lot of apps. And crap. A lot of crap. A whole lot of crap. And if Steve Jobs had a button on his desk labeled "Delete 99% of the apps in the app store without triggering a class-action lawsuit and an investigation from a half-dozen governments.", he'd press it until his finger hurt.
But he doesn't. There's not a good way to kill "Bunny Farts LE Momoko Fart" (99 cents) and keep "Plants Vs. Zombies" ($2.99). So Apple is gonna slow the tide by cutting off limbs where they can. Yes some quality games are gonna get dumped on general principle, but it's going to greatly slow Apple's climb to 200,000 apps (99.5% of which are crap) and 300,000 apps (99.7% of which are crap).
All that being said, let's look at some other systems and how they handled third-party libraries. When I went to GDC a month ago, I went to a presentation on app stores. And I saw a comparison. One thing I noted was that WiiWare (Nintendo's downloadable app store for Wii games) had only 200 apps. My first thought was "boy, that's a flop. iPhone has 500 times as much stuff". Then when I got home I looked at the games on WiiWare. There weren't five good games and 195 fart jokes. There were 200 games that all looked pretty good. And that's because you don't just pay some token amount to join the developer club, start writing, then hand off your game to a kid following a script looking for verboten API calls and improper button bevels. You need to propose your project, in writing, to Nintendo and, if approved, you'll get access to the development tools. And Nintendo's gonna watch the milestones. It's not a "make whatever you want and we'll tell you if we like it when it's done" process.
And you think that's restrictive? Let's look at Leap's third party development program for Leapster and Didj handheld games for kids. Actually let's not look because there isn't one. Even though it's an open secret that they're running Flash internally, you can't make games for 'em. That's because Leap wanted complete control of the end product.
And that's how things work. If you want your platform to have high quality offerings, you're going to need to filter for quality and control the development process halfway (as with WiiWare) or all of the way (as with Leap). If you want your platform to have lots of apps, you can fling open the barn doors and hope you'll get a rush of developers and a pile of apps.
But you can't have both. And you can't shut the barn door later without starting over from scratch and dumping all previous content (i.e. Windows Mobile 7 phones). Shutting out Flash and/or other runtime systems will absolutely prevent more crap from appearing in the App Store. But it'll also prevent some good apps from appearing in the App Store. And if your choice at this point is "stay at 99% crap" versus "go to 99.5% crap", it's a good conclusion that you've already made mistakes that you're not gonna unmake.
As for myself? Well, there are other tablet and phone platforms out there. Ones that not only don't mind Flash content but are actually enthused to have it. Ones that (from personal experience) run Flash content better than iPhones could anyway.
And there's the web. My mobile games are being rewritten from the ground up. They play better and they look better. And I'm gonna back-port those improvements to my web games. So in addition to Portable Pop Pies for AIR-enabled smartphones, you're gonna see Pop Pies 3 which looks way nicer than my previous stuff.
So don't weep for my situation. If Apple doesn't want my games, it's a loss for both of us. I can't say that my rinky-dink little games will sell any phones, but I have gotten several emails from people looking for my games on mobile, and if my answer is "They're on Android and Pre, but not iPhone", or "They're on the Google Pad but not the iPad", that's gonna tip the scales just a bit.
