Any updated new in regards to using game engines

Not sure about the others your mentioned but Cocos2d would not fall under this category of threatened since it uses strictly Objective-C (C & C++ also permissible with Apple) and it's just a framework that would still require the use of Xcode to develop the apps/games.

The way I understand it is that Apple does not like having 3rd party applications used to develop the app like GameSalad, which take the place of Xcode for the most part. As for when or if this is going to be well enforced, I'm not sure.

 

Cocos2d is definitely still ok. It's just a collection of open source Objective-C classes that make it easy to have scenes, sprites, animations, and all that good stuff needed to make 2d games.

I don't know what the official stance Apple is taking on the other ones. It seems like the only third party engine they're actually talking about is Flash CS5, though their new ToS technically bans all of them. But I just got two new apps approved in the App Store in the last week and a half that I made in Windows with Airplay SDK (http://www.airplaysdk.com), so they're not rejecting non-Objective-C stuff yet that I know of. I don't believe Apple has actually kicked anything off the App Store yet either (not even the Flash CS5 games that they've already approved).

The two apps that just got approved are Cryptose and Cryptose Lite: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=53272

 

There has be no news at all from Apple regarding this topic. Only Steve jobs keeps on releasing his missinformational emails about flash being not able to handle touch input (pure nonsense) or all "intermediate layers produce bad apps". I personally think internally Apple is really debatting and rethinking the passages that caused all this mess, but again, no new info ATM.
Apple did'nt answer the (not so calm i presume) info-requests they got from many iPhone Developers, except sending a template answer saying "will forward your request internally". The fact that apps made with the engines in question still get approvement (Unity apps stil get approved and even featured by Apple currently) does'nt give any assurance that this might be true in the future...
Essentially all this makes clear how an ignorant, rude and ruthless company Apple really is, at least when speaking of their way to handle depending business partner and developer relationship. Some companies are in business-limbo because of this mess with the TOS, and additionaly don't forget the other companies, which were building some service infra structure arround the Appstore (Statistics, Gaming community plattforms like Openfeint etc... ) seem to be wiped out with those changes too....

 

Not sure about Unity, but other than Cocos 2D, Gamesalad also seems fine. Here's their press release. Scroll down to the "... Case of iPhone OS 4.0" section

http://gamesalad.com/blog/2010/04/12/gamesalad-0-8-5-notes-johnny-constellation-iphone-os-4-0/

 

Your statements are simple assertions and it is apparent that you do not have actual first hand knowledge of the issue.

Flash doesn't properly handle touch input for touch devices. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp- touch input doesn't have a 'mouseover'. The region is either touched or it isn't. So all these menus that popup with a mouseover don't work properly on touch devices.

Furthermore, nobody has said that 'intermediate layers produce bad apps'. That is your own perception. The problem with Flash, is that it allows apps to be made WITHOUT proper a proper testing environment. With the release of Flash, thousands of developers could swamp the store with apps that do not function properly on the iPhone, since proper and adequate testing is not performed. This is a problem.

No the current XCode/OS X requirement do not ensure that proper testing is done on a device. But I do not know a single developer that has released a game without testing on a device.

Now, I have Flash Builder (provided to me from Adobe), I have several Flash games and engines that can be tested. I have a jailbroken iPhone. Are there any specific tests that you want to disprove? Specifically, send me ANY FLA file, and I will compile and put it on my device to see how it performs. I also have almost a decade of experience with Flash Lite on various ARM architectures.

 

Actually, Jobs did say that. And it's a perfectly reasonable argument. There's no Wii Remote APIs in Flash for the Wii platform. But there are APIs in Javascript.

Similarly, Apple-specific features like Multi-touch, accelerometer support, orientation sensing, network gaming support, image processing, multimedia integration, document handling, etc. are all at the mercy of Adobe when using Flash. Sure, they may support multi-touch, but is the full range of events supported? They may support MP3s and FLVs as is their standard, but how difficult is it to pull in Apple supported formats? Can you integrate with the user's iTunes library? Can you pull in and display a PDF document? How about a word processing or spreadsheet document? Can you directly access the OpenGL or OpenAL layer?

The point is that putting middleware in leaves you at the mercy of the middleware maker. The calculation to use such middleware generally seems fine up front but ends up costing dearly in the long run. (Case in point: During the hey-day of Windows I remember many shops developing VB apps for the speed of development only to find maintenance costs shoot through the roof once they attempted to extend the products and/or provide a more professional look and feel.)

Jobs' point is that he wants to keep developers from shooting themselves in the foot to ensure the quality of the platform.

Which is unfortunately impossible. As anyone who has worked in corporate America can tell you, there are plenty of people out there who like to shoot themselves in the foot, hop around in excruciating pain, re-chamber, and repeat with the other foot. Saving people from their own ignorance or stupidity tends to only make them mad at you.

See Spacefrog for a perfect example. Having not experienced the pain, he's reticent to believe that Flash is a horrendously poor platform. Jobs attempts to force the issue have only strengthened his resolve. Had he been more gently shown the perils and allowed to make up his own mind, it's possible he would be arguing the precise opposite at this moment.

 

Mad is exactly what people should be. Anyone who has done anything at all in America, corporate or otherwise, should also be able to tell you that the country was founded on the concept of freedom. As a former citizen of a communist nation, I can attest to the fact that taking away people's choices for the good of the people never, ever works. Too bad Jobs can't grasp that concept.

 

We aren't talking about violation of civil liberties, nor human rights violations or even consumer violations here. Coming from a former communist nation, I would think that you could derive a significant difference between restricting a population and restricting a platform. Apparently not.

Let me give you a hint: restricting population can result in people dying and suffering, while restricting a platform keeps people from... viewing Flash. Apparently we don't bigger issues to worry about in the USA?

If you are going to go apeshit and get all fanatical about something, how about doing something that makes a ****ing difference? I would suggest that people get off their fat asses and DO something about the Healthcare issue, or in the very least the Patriot Act.

For the fifteen-millionth time, if ANYONE, and I mean ANYBODY IN THE WORLD can present me an FLA, I will compile and make it available for iPhone. Let's test this in the real world. From my own personal tests, Flash isn't worth a crap on mobile devices.

So let's make this even easier. I have a Sony PSP. Provide me with a link to a Flash game, and I will test it out. If the game is designed specifically for PSP, that's all the better. Let's see what we can do.

And yet, everyone just stands there with their thumb in their asses. Because NOBODY has proof to back up their claims that Flash would be worth a shit on iPhone.

 

I keep trying to explain exactly why I'm in such a big huff about this. Let me just try one more time.

This is NOT about how well Flash works. It about bad, poorly phrased, restrictive rules. The new TOS is restrictive for all the wrong reasons. In my opinion, it should be the user who decides whether to run something on a platform that he owns, not the corporation that produces the platform. If the user wants to run something that's buggy, that is his or her choice.

It's bad to force people to use only the best, most efficient tools, because that creates the problem of some person or group of people having to decide just what qualifies a tool to be good enough. Do you see the slew of problems that creates?

Furthermore, this isn't a life and death situation, but it's had a financial impact on a lot of people. Aside from people at Adobe, a lot of developers who used third-party engines were affected by this. A lot of people suspended their projects, not knowing if they would be able to publish them to iPhone anymore. And what about the companies who made, distributed, and supported those third-party engines for profit?

 

I am one of those that is affected. I am one that could benefit GREATLY by Flash being available on iPhone. I am still in favor of what Apple is doing, even if that means I am pushed out of the platform.

A developers personal financial situation should no way determine the direction of a platform. These are the risks, and there are no guarantees. People need to grow up and understand that a system of entitlement does not work.

NOTHING in our entire system works on the principal of absolute freedom. What if i arbitrarily decided that I like the color red better, and decided that I should use my freedoms to drive through red lights and stop at green lights? What if the restaurant you eat at decided it will flex it's freedom muscle and avoid those restrictions imposed by the health board? Yes, these are serious health and safety risks, but my point is that freedom does not mean the ability to do whatever the hell you want without consequences.

And finally, you do not OWN the platform, unless you happen to own stock in Apple. You have a license to use the platform, and guess what? That license is restricted by guidelines set forth by the people that DO own the platform. If you don't like it, choose a different platform.

At this point, only Flash has been targeted. Both Airplay and Wax have apps that have been approved, and Cocos2D was never at risk. Other frameworks will comply with the new TOS, or they will be brushed aside. I fail to see where there is a significant downside to all this. Even if this forces the failure of the iPhone, how is that a downside? It is simple evolution of technology.

 

They are controlling the platform alright, changing the rules arbitrarily to prevent what they see as competition at the cost payed by their own developer community, which by the way is greatly responsible for making that platform so popular in the first place. I now tend to believe those estimates that Android will become a No. 1 mobile OS by 2012.

If I understand correctly Microsoft got into antitrust troubles shipping IE with Windows, how come IPhone OS comes with Safari and no other web browser is allowed?

 

Opera came out about a month ago

 

What creeps me out is that Adobe went to great lengths to comply with the original TOS. Apple changed the rules after the fact with some vague wording that (as has been noted) could be used to declare things like Unity illegal. This doesn't affect me personally. I wasn't looking forward to having a flood of Flash-to-iPhone apps appearing in the AppStore competing with my own stuff. But I still think it sets a frightening precedent. Giving Steve Jobs the benefit of the doubt, let's say that he really believes all the reasons he gives as justification for banning Adobe's development tool. Is Apple going to retroactively ban the 100+ Flash apps that have already been approved? Is Apple going to impose these same standards on other (non-Flash) apps? Maybe all games that don't run at 50fps will be banned. Maybe Apple will ban CPU-intensive games that drain the battery quickly. Maybe Apple will start banning any submitted Apps that aren't considered "amazing, powerful, fun and useful" in the eyes of their review board.

As far as I'm concerned, with this statement, you've lost any shred of credibility you had in this thread.

 

Flickitty, I'm glad we are discussing this. It's an immensely important topic, and it's nice getting to see the other side of things.

I feel that your examples are a bit off the mark, though. A guy running red lights is very quickly checked by the consequences of his own actions. The restaurant is considerably closer to what Apple is doing, in that there are no immediate consequences for them to be afraid of. However, that's why the health board exists. A health inspector would shut that restaurant down, there may be lawsuits if people were harmed, and so on.

What's worrisome about Apple is that they are making a choice that's detrimental to a number of people, and for the time being, the law is on their side. The consequence is that some developers could leave for another platform, but there is no safeguard that would check Apple's actions in a timely manner. They could make another decision detrimental to your business, and mine. And then another. And another. They could force any given developer off their platform due to nothing more than personal bias. The more they are allowed to do that, the more precedence it sets for their corporation, and others like it, to make damaging decisions.

You're right in that I don't own the platform, but the fact that I'm not an owner should not grant them the right to make unreasonable decisions. Any service that you pay for is expected to be performed in good faith. That means the entity you are working with is supposed to act with consideration to your interests, not otherwise.

Of course I have the freedom to take my business to a number of other platforms, but I strongly oppose what Apple is doing here regardless of whether or not I chose to do that. The bottom line is that it is setting a bad precedence. If other companies follow Apple's lead and start changing the rules in destructive ways simply because they wish to cultivate a certain image for their platform, either one of us could be forced out of the business entirely. I can't speak for you, but as this is my only source of income, it could indeed become a matter of life and death for me.

 

Agreed. Apple has put a lot of developers, including myself, in a state of panic. I do not enjoy "partnering" with a company that behaves in this manner. They could have at least given us some warning. As of right now, we still do not know where we stand with the new TOS. This is dispicable behavior, but that's what Apple does.

On the other hand, I am one who hates Flash, as a user and a developer. I think Flash will become obsolete very soon.

 

This is totally irrelevant. Unity games still get approved, and even get regurarily featured on the Appstore by Apple themself. TOS 4 rules will apply to OS4 only anyway, so they are currently even not applicable...
What happens after the release of OS out of beta is totally uncertain.
And i guess you are playing the hard boy who does'nt care here because your are'nt really affected. Are you selfemployed ? Trying to make a living with your iPhone coding ? Do you have any tool investments, any projects affected which are already several months in production ? You surely do not sound as if...