Will RunRev be Allowed for iPhone/iPad?

[vamp07]

If the end result is that I can't use rev to develop for the ipad and iPhone I will be very disappointed. Having said that I can't help but agree with apple's logic. What if rev could be reworked to output html5 code?

[ukaussie]

I think Apple's decision is not unexpected but very disappointing. It's not unexpected because Jobs is a control freak. On one hand this approach has definitely contributed to the success of Apple products since his return, but of course there is a bad side also (as we are now experiencing). But i find it mostly disappointing, with more than a touch of irony thrown in. That's because the Mac was supposed to be the computer for the rest of us. That is, the original Mac was all about making things easy for non-techno geeks! Jump ahead a few years to iLife....it's all about making things easy for people to do, that you don't have to be a Photoshop guru to edit photos, you can use the much-easier iPhoto.....you don't have to be a Hollywood director to edit movies, you can use iMovie, and so on. So i find it very ironic that Apple are now saying that easy-to-use products are not allowed and they actually PREFER the harder option. Crikey!!

I remember when iWeb was launched and all of the 'proper' web developers were complaining how 'messy' the HTML output from iWeb was! Double-standards I hear you say?

Grant.

[pevensen]

I read Richard's article about developing for 75% of the market. While it may be true that 75% of smart phones aren't iPhones, I would be interested in numbers based on app sales. Do non-iPhone apps account for 75% of software sales? I would be surprised if they did. The iTunes app store is a great distribution mechanism. It makes it easy to buy and sell apps. I bought very few apps for my Palm. I know Android has the market place, but it currently is only 9% of the market. How many people buy apps for RIM? If they do, do they buy as much as iPhone users?

That leads to another issue: these statistics are for smartphones. The numbers don't include iPod touches or iPads. When you lump together all the iPhone OS devices, is the Apple market share really only 25%?

I am very disappointed with section 3.3.1. As a long-time Revolution user, I was looking forward to using my skills to develop for the iPhone/touch/iPad. I hope RunRev can work things out so RevMobile is "legal."

My point in the this post is that while still having "75% of the market open" sounds good, is 75% an accurate number when you consider actual revenues and include touches and iPads?

[paul_gr]

Number of apps sold in the appstore doesn't count for much if most of them sell at 99c each...
I'd like to see the dollar value of appstore sales, and the average sales per developer...

But we are never going to see those figures...

Paul

[InfoCentral]

So the short of it all is that Apple products are currently out and doesn't look good. Apple can by no means make an exception for RevMobile because that would open a whole slue of lawsuits. What Apple could do is encourage RunRev to sell RevMobile to them and then resale Apple RevMobile back to developers as another alternative.

So here is what I would do if I was Apple in this current situation. I would tell developers that you knew we were all about closed source in regards to hardware, software, and sales. You invested a lot of time and money in creating development tools for our products knowing this and here is the deal. We will pay you twenty-five cents on the dollar and you sell us your development product in the final finish form. If not then you eat everything. Got it! We are APPLE, and we are self contained. There are no third parites, you buy your hardware from us only, you will buy your software from us, you will sell your little apps only through us, and you will develop with and use what we tell you.

[richmond62]

Can you imagine spending buckets of time, effort and money developing a car and then saying that only Canadians can drive it?

I wonder how long it will be until Apple change their minds; although they would never put it like that - it would have to
phrased in some sort of way that made it look as if Steve Jobs were playing Lady Bountiful rather than giving in to the
inevitable opprobium.

[Rob2]

Number of apps sold in the appstore doesn't count for much if most of them sell at 99c each...
I'd like to see the dollar value of appstore sales, and the average sales per developer...

But we are never going to see those figures...

Paul

Estimates here..... http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/21/estimate ... 72k-a-day/

What is the graphics performance like on revmobile because the media/studio version seems pretty dire to me.

[FourthWorld]

Interesting math in the article:

By their reasoning, the top paid app in the store sells about 5k copies per day, with the number two app selling about 3k, the number three app about 2.5k, and so on. Vimov estimates that everyone in the top 100 list, when you add them all together, is making about US$304,058 on any given day. The shelf drops off from there -- in the top 1000, developers are making about $372,000, and past that, they're obviously making less.

If I read that right, here's the breakdown:

The top 100 are collectively making $304k/day and the top 1000 are making $372k/day, which means that those who are in the top 1000 but below the top 100 (the lower 900) are collectively making only $68k. Split that among 900 apps and that's $75.50 per app per day.

And then there are the other 180,000 apps. With the top 100 making $304k and the next 900 making $68k, at that dropoff rate we can expect the second best-selling 1000 apps in the AppStore to make about $17k, and the third best-selling 1000 to make about 4k.

Then it goes down from there for the other 150,000 apps, ranging from $4 per day per app down to zero.

Meanwhile, the current minimum wage in California is $8/hr. In an eight-hour day a worker with very few skills can make $64.

[jeffInt]

Hang on a sec, so now your arguing you never thought/wanted to use Run Rev to programme the Iphone?

[FourthWorld]

Hang on a sec, so now your arguing you never thought/wanted to use Run Rev to programme the Iphone?

I'm not sure if that's directed at me, because I can't figure out how what I wrote could relate to it.

But if it is, on the contrary, I would enjoy writing for iPhone OS -- provided I can leverage my investment by using modern high-level tools to also deploy to other devices.

If Apple allows this, great. But if not, it doesn't seem it would be the end of the world.

[InfoCentral]

Of course there is always the DROID that will need some apps...

[RRobert]

"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.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform."

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Robert

[paul_gr]

This paragraph from Jobs article:

"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."

Contains enough information for anyone to make the reasonable assumption that the restrictions will be extended to OSX as well -- sooner or later.

Paul

[RRobert]

Contains enough information for anyone to make the reasonable assumption that the restrictions will be extended to OSX as well -- sooner or later.

I dont think so. But related to the iPhone OS you heard the company’s position. And the arguments are reasonable whether you agree or not.

Rest assured that we will be doing everything possible to ensure a speedy and positive resolution that allows you to deliver outstanding apps on the revMobile platform in full compliance with Apple policies.

I will be posting further information as I get it over the coming days.

[...]

Kind regards,
Kevin

The quote is one month old. Did someone heard anything new on the topic?

Robert

[FourthWorld]

On the discussion list Kevin noted about a week ago that negotiations were still in progress:

Rest assured that we will be doing everything possible to ensure a speedy
and positive resolution that allows you to deliver outstanding apps on the
revMobile platform in full compliance with Apple policies.

I will be posting further information as I get it over the coming days.

Full message here:
http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-r ... 37568.html

Hopefully it won't be much longer until we have an answer.