Last spring, everyone saw the Apple-Flash player fight begin, but now it has ended. Apple shocked the app developer world Thursday when it announced the business is soothing controversial restrictions on the tools programmers are allowed to use to create iPhone and iPad apps. App authorization guidelines can be released to the public also. Apple declared this as well. Adobe's common app toolkit is now part of Steve Job's app acceptance process although Apple didn't actually announce Flash was the reason for the change. As soon as news reported Apple's statement, Adobe stock skyrocketed.
All about the feud between Apple and Flash
Apple made a list of approved languages that iPhone and iPad apps could be made on, which is why last April, the Apple/Flash fight started. Apple's policy made it so Adobe Flash CS5 Flash Packager couldn't be used on the iPhone and iPad. This comes from PC World. Adobe CS5 was mostly used for the iPhone with the Flash Packager. It was made for one reason. It was designed to be a cross platform toolkit for other iPhone platforms as Adobe Flash. But Steve Jobs would have none of it. That has changed. It was different before. On Thursday, all was forgiven. Developers have it easy with Flash now. They can make apps to run on Apple's iOS when publishing it once and also run it on Google's Android.
Public viewing Apple's app approval process
The public now has the option of see Apple's modified approval process for apps. Apple is publishing its App Store Review Guidelines, a formerly secret set of rules determining whether a developer's app is approved for the iPhone or iPad. Wired reports that uncertainty about App Store approval has been keeping a lot of top flight development talent from creating iPhone and iPad apps and leading to a proliferation of "fart apps" (junk applications). Developers had no idea if they had done something wrong in an app until they got a rejection from Apple, until Thursday. Thousands of dollars used to make the app and months of time were wasted. Programmers just want to know what the rules are, although what they're does not really matter, says Wired.
Why Apple made a different decision
Apple will open app development to Adobe Flash and other third-party tools and make App Store Review Guidelines public -- but the business did not say why. Bloggers have been making decisions on what they think happened. Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune is just one of these people. The leading theories, as outlined by DeWitt, are developer feedback, competition and regulation. It wasn't as a result of feedback he says. This is because Apple typically does no matter what it wants and does not care about others. There is a good chance the Android-powered smartphones and Android tablets are part of this. Apple likely feels threatened by it all. And finally, the Apple/Flash feud attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which has been investigating Apple's ban on cross-development platforms. Apple isn't as lucky as Adobe. Adobe got what it wanted.
Further reading
PC World
pcworld.com/article/205114/apple_lifts_app_store_approval_shroud_for_developers.html?tk=hp_new
Wired
wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/09/apple-lifts-app-store-flash-ban-publishes-app-review-rules/
Fortune
tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/09/why-did-apple-lift-its-ban-on-flash/
