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iPhone OS4 today

Discussion in 'iOS and tvOS' started by maxfax2009, Apr 8, 2010.

  1. sigsom

    sigsom

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    I completely agree, we have 7 months and almost $20k invested into a game that is nearly complete that we showed to some people at the GDC for release very soon. If Unity went out of the iphone business we would have almost no options to complete the game other than program a complete game from scratch from OBJ-C. I'm not so sure we could ever recover the money invested if we had to build a game engine from the ground up at this point in the cycle. Hey thats what Unity was for! To lower the overall costs and time of development.
     
  2. jhocking

    jhocking

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    That battle is to a certain extent pushing back against how Microsoft tried to own web video. I know you're probably thinking "huh? what does microsoft have to do with anything" but seriously it's complicated, read this:

    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/06/ogg_theora_h_264_and_the_html_5_browser_squabble.html

    The author of that article is very biased, so read the parts that say "In 1997 Company A did X" and ignore the parts that say "and that's why they are pig-dogs while Apple rulez!!!"

    Anyway, long story short Apple's beef is with Flash specifically, not Adobe generally. The problems started before Adobe purchased Macromedia, so they just kind of inherited Apple's ire as part of that purchase.

    ADDITION: Man this thread is long, I just got to this post
    Well yeah, refer to the article I just posted; back in the 90s Microsoft propped up Flash to kill Apple's Quicktime. And it's not that Adobe made Flash crap on Macs, but that Macromedia did it and Adobe bought Macromedia.



    The majority of graphics design firms use Mac.
     
  3. PuriPuri

    PuriPuri

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    The following quote is from this TUAW article:http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/08/iphone-os-4-0-dev-agreement-blocks-using-flash-or-unity-as-ides/.

    It looks like Unity may be allowed if I'm reading the quote correctly.

    Hopefully we'll hear something official in the next few days -- I'm getting close to finishing my Unity iPhone project that I've been working on for the past year.
     
  4. giyomu

    giyomu

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    I just don't put all my eggs in a same basket .. I am certainly not concerned as big dev here.
    but I still think that for now you just should let a day or so go and see what come up..or revise your business plan..
     
  5. galent

    galent

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    Ahh, watched the movie, got some rest, now.. for some more concise thoughts on this.

    I'll assume that $20K is just capital expenses and your time is *free*, unless you're calculating your time at around $2 per hour ;) . My thinking is in line with yours, for the costs vs returns of developing a game engine, render engine, etc... just for the iPhone/iPad is just not worth the expense. For that kind of money, I could easily go after PSP or Nintendo, and have a much higher expected return rate, more support from the dev program(s), and reliable sales channels (yes I'm simplifying here, but ... I've talked with Sony and Nintendo, and all requirements aside, they offer more than Apple). I also, automatically jump on board the 'big game maker's band wagon', that the app store with it's constant downward price pressure is nearly un-viable unless you fall into a couple of categories:

    1) you're making a very simple game (to start) and you possess the required skills to build it on your own free time.

    or

    2) you have a decent pipeline of games to make so you can spread the costs over enough titles, and ideally you have established franchises to drive your prices into more reasonable zones (still less than mobile game platforms, but still).

    Thank the gaming gods my next project isn't iPhone based... I do have one speced for iPhone, but, I can change target platforms.

    Cheers,

    Galen
     
  6. Foxxis

    Foxxis

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    Gruber also writes that if forced to bet, he would think Unity falls on the wrong side of the rule as code is written in C#. The "must be originally writen in obj-C, etc."-rule may be the killer here as far as Unity is concerned.

    However, before anything can proceed (at least as far as we're concerned) there needs to be a clear statement on this from Unity and preferably also Apple (even though unlikely).
    It's impossible to have a situation where developers spend time and money on a project which may be DOA, depending on how Apple choses to enforce vague rules.
     
  7. Foxxis

    Foxxis

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    I understand that *you* are not concerned. I do find it a bit arrogant and condescending of you to jump into the discussion and recommend people not to speculate and just wait.
     
  8. giyomu

    giyomu

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    As i understand that "you " and other are highly concerned about.
    Don't get me wrong, I also have some game project on and that won't make me really feel good to get forced to give up all the time and effort i put in.
    But by experience the fire that come from such things and all the discussion around which sometime start to derive in a more speculative thought don't make any good too.

    but as unity user same as you , i am in same boat here..;)
     
  9. sama-van

    sama-van

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    Wow this is hot here! :eek:


    I am not sure speaking lot about it will change something...


    But if Unity sell a product (iphone licence) and this product doesn't work with the apple store...
    ...I think clients they bought a licence Unity-iPhone and spend lot of money can complaint for damage to Unity company, isn't it?

    There is law on this world... I do not know it at all... but they are lawyer too trying to defend the right things...
    Let say lawyer defends your cause... and judge will choose the right cause. Maybe... :D


    But anyway!!


    If Unity didn't have any license agreement with Apple company, it looks damn weird now...
    I am speaking about a paper, contract, something saying unity will develop a middle for Apple product... no???... yes????? they did??? didn't???


    We call that "swindling" affair when there is not contract, isn't it?


    I accept and agree Unity is a good tool of development.
    But things have to be right.
    You cannot sell a good tool if things are not official and clean with Apple.


    This is like Photoshop.
    They are using iphone as good publicity selling more of Photoship CS5 license.
    But who said they signed official contract with Apple? Maybe Apple read the news like you and me on internet... and start to change they rule!
    Yeah because if Adobe contracted with Apple, nobody have to be worry!


    Then what is the story from the beginning?

    Who is right? who is wrong?


    Apple choosing who can publish on their own store, plateform, product, own copyright?...

    .... I think they do all they want if there is no contract with another company....


    Or other company like Unity, Adobe, Shiva, etc... using iPhone as good marketing product selling middleware application for this platform?..

    ..Maybe they cannot do that....



    I think that :

    You all guys, if apple wants to kick Unity applications, create a list, a very complete list online. Contact a lawyer, and get back your money from Unity :)



    But I really think Unity will not stay here watching the cows :D, maybe do not be worry...
    Depend of how much they are ready to pay to Apple creating a right contract and license :D
     
  10. jbud

    jbud

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  11. VIC20

    VIC20

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    I think as long as UT is selling unity iphone there is no reason for panic. First thing they would do is take it offline, otherwise they would have another problem by selling something that just does not work as advertised which could quickly end in sue for damage if a team buys several copies of unity iphone and starts developing for the trash bin. Even if they would just been forced to pay the money for the licenses back for people who bought it since the new agreement is out. (most companies would try to get more because their damage is really higher) Just the possibly high number of lawsuits could damage UT.

    anyway...!PANIC! :eek:
     
  12. ivanmoen

    ivanmoen

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    Just another example that Apple can do whatever they want. I love the tools/toys they create, but don’t really like the company that much.

    If Unity is locked out of the app store, I’m not going to complain to Unity Tech… but I am going to throw away my mac...
     
  13. n0mad

    n0mad

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    If Unity is excluded by Apple, I swear I will boycott ANYTHING from Apple for the rest of my life.
     
  14. Brian-Kehrer

    Brian-Kehrer

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    "People of Earth, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. Plans for development of the outlying regions of the galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you"
     
  15. VIC20

    VIC20

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    Same here, in the last 20 years I've supported Apple during their darkest days and made more than 20 people switchers. But I can also say "Good bye, seriously" like Mr. Jobs said to IBM. The only good thing is that they did that BEFORE the the iPad comes out in europe.

    Maybe we should prepare a list of ALL unity made iphone titles and create a protest note signed by all the unity developers. It's easy to get attention with this. Spiegel online, germanys biggest news site and news magazine already reported about the change of AppStore rules: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,688064,00.html in these days they will bring anything iPad related into the news because of the current hype.

    Unity Apps already generated millions of revenue for Apple, when the iPhone users realize some of their favorite games will be banned in the future the forums and blogs will get hot, which is the worst PR Apple could get during the iPad start. They can not ignore that they would be in danger to lose x-thousand of possible customers because of the bad PR.

    Guess we are possibly enough people to pay for one page in the NYT :D
     
  16. mudloop

    mudloop

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    lol :)
     
  17. tau

    tau

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    RIOT!!! Everybody, make your pike, molis and pipe bombs, then book next flight to Apple's office - that's the only way!!!! We are all trained with L4D, so let's put our skills into action! (did anybody see the second pistol?)


    p.s. I had too much coffee...
     
  18. VIC20

    VIC20

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    We need an audience with Kim Jong iI, then our words are backed by nuclear weapons.
     
  19. mattimus

    mattimus

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    What I am failing to comprehend is exactly why Apple would do this in the first place. The flash thing, I understand. It's childish, petty, and IMHO a poor business choice, but I see where they are coming from. Unity though? How long have Unity apps been in the top 50? And not just for a week or two, I'm talking months / years. Some Unity apps like Zombieville have been chart toppers for a long time.

    Yes, we are using Unity instead of obj-c. We still have to pay for the toolkit through our yearly license fee. It's not like we're buying Unity instead of Xcode. On the contrary, I (and I'm sure many others) have bought the iphone toolkit BECAUSE it worked with Unity.

    If the whole goal is to prevent shovelware, get a better review process. Don't just ban tools that can possibly produce mediocre software. Come to think of it, wasn't iFart made with obj-c?

    After coming home from my 40 hour day job, I have been putting in an additional 25-30 hours a week for the last 8 months on my current project. If they ban Unity I'm gonna go into a serious nerd rage.
     
  20. jbud

    jbud

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  21. codinghero

    codinghero

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    Flash is definitely not Adobe's "bread and butter." That title goes to their CS Suite, namely Photoshop and Illustrator. And what's the story with calling Bill Gates Satan? The 90's are over, man. Microsoft isn't the bad guy anymore. Steve Jobs is a way bigger c*** that Bill ever was.

    Also, Flash runs like crap on OSX, not Macs in general. Current Macs are just PC's with a different OS, remember? A few things to note here: OSX is BSD-based which is Unix-based. Linux is also Unix-based. Flash also runs like hell on Linux. Maybe OSX has crappy video drivers and that's why most modern games also run like hell just like Linux? Who knows, but it's not like Flash is the only piece of software that has issues on OSX. Yet at some press event Steve Jobs makes a point of calling Adobe lazy and saying that Flash is a dying technology. Maybe he's still pissy because Flash all but killed the Quicktime plugin?

    Thanks for the response. I always figured Unity and MonoTouch still included the .NET runtime for class libs, but others' posts were stating otherwise. From your post it sounds like the runtime itself is, in-fact, included in the builds then?

    @dreamora, a runtime whether static or not, is still a compatibility layer since it allows native functions to access foreign libs.
     
  22. fallingbrickwork

    fallingbrickwork

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    I seem to be a bit late getting to this 'Wake', 15 pages and i can't read through them all.

    Everyone does have a 'doom and gloom' fear of the worst (which may be justified), but I always say... Don't worry about what is going to happen, just watch was does happen.

    I'm sure if there is a way forward then UT will do what is necessary.

    The 'pain in the backside' for me is that I have been scrimping to buy the Unity 3.0 upgrade (my licence includes iPhone Basic) and the day I get the money together I read this news about the iPhone. Don't want to upgrade my licence until further news (maybe there is an option to upgrade only my Unity Pro section of the licence?!)

    I'm sure we'll be the first to get the info when UT knows what is happening.

    Regards,
    Matt.
     
  23. LeoNgai

    LeoNgai

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    Right now the cloud is still unclear and all we are doing right now are guessing. My experience tells me there is always solution to address this kind of issue: Solution please and no complain. Let's think of the worst case senario that Unity is blocked by Apple due to using Assemble language but not Object C.

    Here is a typical example to address it: If Unity iPhone is able outputs Object C code project, that would fully meet the requirements of Apple. However, Unity may feel reluctant to do so because doing so will leak the secret of Unity iPhone. If so, why not ask Unity to create a website for Unity developers to upload their project files and it will automatically transparently complie link them into iPhone binary format for you by signing the private key rendered by you?

    Just my 2 cents.
     
  24. StarManta

    StarManta

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    First two statements: true, but irrelevant.
    Next statement: Flash runs like hell on OSX and Linux for two entirely separate reasons. It runs like hell on Linux but it doesn't officially exist on Linux. Flash on Linux is reverse-engineered.
    EDIT: OK, after Googling it appears that is no longer the case. It was a reverse-engineered plugin the last time I cared about Linux. So they are now crappy for the same reason, neglect by Adobe.

    Flat-out lies. What other game runs anywhere near as badly as Flash does? Name one. Games perform virtually identically on both platforms (assuming they're available natively on both platforms, of course). Even in a simulated Windows environment like Parallels or Crossover, the performance gap is not huge - maybe 30-40% difference. Flash runs 7 to 10 times slower on OSX than it does on Windows. It also crashes more than simulated environments... which says a lot. No, Flash's performance flaws (that really isn't a strong enough word) are squarely on Adobe's shoulders.
     
  25. angel38

    angel38

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    in my opinion, Unity is not reliable to develop on other platforms.

    poor who bought the addons.
     
  26. codinghero

    codinghero

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    Because people like me aren't going to want to give anyone access to the source code and assets they worked so hard on, just like Unity don't want to give us access to their source code.

    One way Unity could sidestep the compatibility layer issue would be to only allow UnityScript on the iPhone. Yes, that would suck balls of steel, but they'd still be able to sell their product. Unfortunately I'd guess that C# coders make up a decent percentage of their user base. :|
     
  27. Jehsup

    Jehsup

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    Interesting times for sure. I would cool down on the lawsuit talk against Unity. They sold and you bought a product that works on intended platform at the time of purchase. As mentioned if\when this is no longer the case I am sure they would yank Unity iPhone from being purchaseable. No middleware provider could have seen this "potential" bombshell coming from Apple. I would imagine that if the worst case is indeed true, and Unity would be banned on the OS, that they would either work to correct the issues with Unity iPhone so that it works with new agreement AND\OR provide discounted sidegrades for Android support (when it is available in v3).

    As a platform android and iphone are going in opposite directions anyway.

    Edit: Don't get me wrong. I too am at the end of an iPhone development project and I stand to lose invested time and money as several of you others have mentioned.
     
  28. Morgan

    Morgan

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    Agreed—talk against UT is highly misguided. Whether this is the dire change it appears, or just bad wording, it’s Apple’s fault alone. UT is on our side here. They’ve gone the extra mile for their developers time and time again, and right now they’re working for us on this: seeking clear answers from Apple.

    Hopefully the answer will be that you CAN use middleware with Xcode... you just can’t use middleware INSTEAD of Xcode like Adobe has done. But until we know, I’m worried.

    (In fact, maybe if Adobe worked with Xcode like Unity does, Apple might not even have banned them. I would think Apple’s beef is specifically with 1) Flash vs HTML5 in browsers, and 2) bypassing Xcode and any innovations like Accelerator that Apple wants to introduce for it—not with Adobe as a company. This could be a little like Palm synching to iTunes: they did it in a clever but clearly “wrong" way, spoofing iPhones’ USB IDs, and Apple stopped them. Meanwhile Blackberry did it the “right" way, via the library XML, and Apple has never made a peep. Adobe bypassing Xcode sounds a lot like what Palm did: technically cool and interesting, but asking for trouble. Trouble to be felt by their customers. So let’s hope Unity is like Blackberry in this case!)
     
  29. galent

    galent

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    Time and effort are painful to lose in something like this, but investment... let's face it most small businesses (of any type) couldn't take a $20k loss at all without collapsing. You're not just talking about dev time. In many cases the game is designed for the platform, and business, marketing, and other plans all revolve around known quantities in that target market.

    Now, I imagine if your business model were completely focused on iPhone then this is more terrible than a diversified plan. The good news (if there's any), is if this goes south on us, we bought ... Unity. For me, the cross-platform support was one of the strongest selling points when I bought in (before there was a iPhone version). So, your game, assets, prefabs, time, etc.. doesn't have to go to waste. Yes, android support is coming, if you still fancy the mobile market (I'm personally not sold on the sales channels yet, but...).

    My main pain if this is doesn't work out, is the dollars invested in the next update. (I was looking forward to taking a crack at the iPad as a close second). I do have faith that Unity will do something for people who bought the update in the event they can't pull out the Apple support issues.

    Sue Unity? When did that talk start? On what grounds? Third party vendors are not responsible for changes to a developer license by the primary supplier (or a lot of Microsoft third party developers owe many people a lot of money ;) ). It's not a clear case of fraud and theft, like George Lucas owes me 3 hours of my life for Star Wars episode 1 for example :twisted: )

    Cheers,

    Galen
     
  30. VIC20

    VIC20

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    From what I've read nobody talked about to doing this.

    It's just the question what will happen to the developers who bought and might buy unity iphone since yesterday as there is no warning for them. Anyone who starts today with unity iphone without reading this thread might invest time and money in a game they probably can not release.

    The fact that you still can buy unity iphone gives me hope that the world will still be there when I awake tomorrow.
     
  31. Taytus

    Taytus

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    so basically...nobody knows..
     
  32. VIC20

    VIC20

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    Apple knows it
     
  33. Troy-Dawson

    Troy-Dawson

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    It's not childish, petty, or a poor business choice for Apple to want to lock in its app developers to Apple-provided toolsets. Evil, yes. If it helps, Apple is going after Flash (and perhaps mono and lua) for the same reason Microsoft tried to extirpate cross-platform Java from the Windows ecosystem.

    It's all about platform defense (hey, that'd make a great game).

    Unity though? How long have Unity apps been in the top 50? And not just for a week or two, I'm talking months / years. Some Unity apps like Zombieville have been chart toppers for a long time.

    AFAICT the fact that a Windows 7 and Android version of Zombieville is/will be but a mouseclick away is the strategic problem Steve is looking at here.

    When Apple had 5% of the market, porting to iPhone was a good thing. But Apple had 98% of the download market last year. Anything that makes it easier for iPhone content to go over the wall to Apple's competitors is a Bad Thing.

    Yes, we are using Unity instead of obj-c. We still have to pay for the toolkit through our yearly license fee. It's not like we're buying Unity instead of Xcode. On the contrary, I (and I'm sure many others) have bought the iphone toolkit BECAUSE it worked with Unity.


    Apple has $40B in the bank and is making over a billion a month. They don't care about our $100/yr registration fees.

    After coming home from my 40 hour day job, I have been putting in an additional 25-30 hours a week for the last 8 months on my current project. If they ban Unity I'm gonna go into a serious nerd rage.

    I'll be as pissed off as I've ever been pissed off in my life.
     
  34. MadMax

    MadMax

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    Not after adobe stops making Photoshop for Mac. The management will switch to windows. Probably using boot camp at first.

    Remember the whole no 64-bit Photoshop on Mac. We are already moving in this direction.
     
  35. Foxxis

    Foxxis

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    Not if Apple releases a replacement within a relatively short timeframe. Let's face it, Photoshop haven't evolved that much in recent years and has never been a very complicated application.

    Anyway, this is way off topic.
     
  36. Discord

    Discord

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    Are you kidding me? There have been plenty of successful games for other platforms besides the iPhone.
     
  37. AmazingRuss

    AmazingRuss

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    Such a kerfluffle. That's what you people get for reading those stupid agreements carefully :D
     
  38. Phil W

    Phil W

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    I'm laughing :)
     
  39. funxed

    funxed

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    The really killer thing about this is I doubt Apple will make a firm comment on Unity or any other technology directly. They'll just vaguely point people to the existing wording, so everyone will be left in a state of FUD (fear, uncertainty doubt) if they are using any middleware at all on the iPhone.

    Screw 'em. I'm done buying and developing for Apple products. They've become worse (in terms of attempts for iron fisted control and unfair business practices) in the past 2 years than Microsoft ever was, even in their prime.
     
  40. Eric5h5

    Eric5h5

    Volunteer Moderator Moderator

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    Don't ever be deluded into thinking that. They're still profoundly evil, Gates has left anyway so he has nothing much to do with it, and Steve Ballmer is a complete tool. Microsoft's thoroughly DRM-infested operating systems make Apple look like a puppy dog in comparison; MS is trying hard to make the entire computing world be controlled by them, not just a phone. They suffer from severe standards-phobia, trying every single time to force their own crap down everyone's throats no matter how inferior it is to what's already out there, screwing everybody over in the process (witness the latest OOXML fiasco).

    As evil as Apple can be, MS is far worse. It's ingrained into their entire corporate culture. Distracting people with nice shiny dev tools doesn't somehow make them all better; they will screw you over hard without a second thought given half a chance.

    --Eric
     
  41. MadMax

    MadMax

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    Microsoft has never tried to be only manufacture of PC hardware. They do not come close to Apple's level of control.
     
  42. n0mad

    n0mad

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    Got some news (don't know if they were already mentionned here but still) :

    French site www.macgeneration.com took it personal, and sent a mail to Unity team in order to know if everything would still be ok.

    Here is what Caitlyn answered (manually translated, sorry for typos) :

    Thank you so much Unity .... for being so professional ...

    You really deserve to be the first.
     
  43. Morgan

    Morgan

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    Maybe—or maybe Steve (et al) are not thinking fully about games at all.

    If they want the iPhone to have nothing but iPhone-exclusive game titles, nothing that’s found on other platforms, that would be pretty weird. (And not at all in line with the games they’ve promoted in the past.)

    Beyond the browser issue (vs. HTML5) I would think they’d be worried about tons of Flash developers taking the “easy way” and using their Windows PCs without Xcode to generate poor-performing Flash apps, flooding the App Store with shovelware apps that sound good but use a non-standard UI and feel like unpolished Android apps. And that don’t take advantage of any OS or SDK innovation Apple offers (like Game Center, Accelerate, Location Services, whatever) UNLESS Adobe, eventually, gradually, gets around to supporting it in their next big release. The number of real Xcode developers would be lessened, and Apple’s ability to innovate successfully in their own OS and SDK would be lessened too. I can see that being a legitimate threat—first to Apple, but ultimately even for developers and users too, if the platform advances more slowly due to the Adobe anchor around its neck. Now—that scenario is no sure bet, but it’s surely enough of a risk to take action to prevent it.

    Unity is not the same kind of threat for many reasons:

    1. It’s just for games (and 3D), not for general-purpose apps like Flash/Flex is sometimes (mis)used for. Not for video players, either.

    2. It’s not entrenched on the web and presents no threat to Safari stability or battery. Users, en masse, are never going to think they need mobile Safari to have Unity support. Even as they come to love Unity mobile games, they’ll want them as real apps, not web pages.

    3. Unity updates and improves at a rapid pace, taking advantage of new Apple technologies when possible.

    4. It requires a Mac and uses Xcode. (In fact, for what it’s worth, it CAME from the Mac.) So anything UT doesn’t implement, people can add for themselves in Xcode just as Apple would like.

    5. Unity has been around a while on iPhone already, and brought the App Store good things that Apple has themselves featured at times.

    6. Unity has no massive developer base to rival Flash’s. The power of Flash developers to mess up the iPhone platform may be real. The power of Unity to do so is not.

    7. Unity appeals to artists, small teams, and other parties who are just NOT going to be able to release their game if coded from scratch in Xcode. It’s not like we can just jump to raw Xcode and make our own physics and rendering systems from scratch with the same quality results! So we don’t reduce the number of “pure" Xcode developers much at all. (In fact, Unity is a gateway drug to Xcode for some.)

    So I don’t think Apple’s afraid of Unity. I just hope they see ENOUGH benefit to Unity to be worth treading carefully in the fight they DO care about (Flash on the web, and Adobe bypassing Xcode).

    Maybe Unity plus all the other kinds of apps affected are, as a group, important enough to be worth Apple’s consideration. (Even if that means just a small clarification or re-wording.)
     
  44. Foxxis

    Foxxis

    Joined:
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    Posts:
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    I agree 100%. If this has not been their intent, they would have communicated their reasoning by now. I am quite sure Unity has been working since this became known trying to get a clear answer. Since more than 24 hours has passed it is quite clear that there is no clear answer, at least not at the moment.

    This absolutely...er..inhales the reproductive organ of a four legged mammal.

    I feel for companies and teams having invested time in Unity iPhone projects and now have to wait and see what the verdict is. I bought our first Unity iPhone advanced seat yesterday, so the only thing I have riding on it is license money. Still, having to halt plans on day one due to this is not what I had in mind.

    Anyway, I'm starting to repeat myself so I'll try to keep quiet and wait this out.
     
  45. MikaMobile

    MikaMobile

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2009
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    Not necessarily. :p

    I think this was a poorly phrased, hastily added addendum targeting flash, and they didn't realize the broader implications of what it would mean to folks like us.

    The intent behind this change is the question - if its just to keep people using mac+Xcode for development, then we're in safe territory. But it's also possible that they want to avoid having any middleware become the de-facto solution for iPhone development. For instance, what if 90% of all iPhone games were made with Unity? Then when Apple adds a new feature to OS 4.0 or 5.0, it isn't REALLY added until Unity supports it... further, certain features added to Unity could dictate the future course of user expectations on the device as a whole. This is a dangerous lack of control over their own OS that Apple fears. They may also be targeting middleware that makes it easy to port to competing devices, forcing developers to be married to Xcode or simply shove-off.

    But the reason I'm not worried.... is that there are better, less offensive solutions to these problems. They could simply have a stricter review process to ensure that whatever functionality and user experience conventions they expect out of an iPhone app are present - if you make pop up menus, they behave like iPhone OS menus, mandatory Game Center support, etc. etc. If exclusivity is the issue, let me sign a damn exclusivity agreement and keep using my awesome tools! It's not like we're all gonna port our stuff to android at the drop of a hat - it'd take weeks of my time to do that, weeks I'd rather be spending on an iPad or iPhone game!

    Anyway, I'm not too worried... but if the worst does come to pass, I'm gonna raise a riot. I've personally made Apple hundreds of thousands of dollars and intend to raise some hell if they can't come to a sensible solution to whatever "problem" they're trying to fix.
     
  46. codinghero

    codinghero

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2009
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    @Eric5h5, wow nice little tirade there, dude. At least Microsoft is only cutthroat on a business level. Apple is scum on a personal level. I've never heard of a Zune exploding or catching fire leading to Microsoft contacting the owner of said Zune personally to tell them that they would replace the device for the price of shipping as long as they signed a waiver declining personal damages and a legal contract promising to never disclose details of the event or agreements. I also don't recall a time when the owner of said Zune did contact the media and was immediately served with a cease and desist under threat of severe legal action by Microsoft's legal jackals.

    Sorry, dude, Apple is rotten.
     
  47. Eric5h5

    Eric5h5

    Volunteer Moderator Moderator

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    They do try to be the only software supplier though. That's much worse. Apple wants complete control of their stuff in their corner of the world; MS wants control over everybody's stuff everywhere.

    At any rate, it's a bit disconcerting that there's been no further word yet. I know these things aren't necessarily resolved instantly, which is why it's only a bit disconcerting instead of a lot....

    --Eric
     
  48. maxfax2009

    maxfax2009

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    Feb 4, 2009
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    410
  49. Eric5h5

    Eric5h5

    Volunteer Moderator Moderator

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    Yes, and MS is worse. Don't tell me you're a fanboi or something.

    --Eric
     
  50. taumel

    taumel

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2005
    Posts:
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    At least on the level i'm operating Apple often is much more restrictive than Microsoft these days. I'm all in for Woz but Jobs? Nah...

    I could add arguments to prove all this but i'll spare myself the time. I just was kind of surprised that even a sensible woman like Eric5h5 jumped on such a train.