Adobe Flash Apps Banned on the iPhone: Apple Changes License Agreement

Apple recently changed the License agreement for iPhone developers, stating in section 3.3.1:

"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript."

This means that apps for the iPhone must be written only in the native format for iPhone - developers are not allowed to use 3rd Party "Middleware" to build apps, which of course includes Flash. This is a rather bold step by Apple, because it means that Adobe are now having to ditch their implementation of Flash for the iPhone (but recent news has hinted that an anti-trust lawsuit will be taken against Apple by Adobe).  This change means that all the middleware tools, including PhoneGap, Flash, Unity and many more will not be allowed.  Apple have given the reason for the change as:

“We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.”

At Web Comms, we believe in high quality apps, so agree with the decision taken by Apple. We have always believed that the iPhone is such a unique device, that to get the most from it you need to write apps specifically for it. We have looked into tools such as Phone Gap which allow you to "write once, run anywhere", but the apps are then limited to the lowest common denominator of all the smart phones.