[fpc-other] Re: [fpc-pascal] Apple forbids fpc applications on iPhone

[Travis Siegel]

On Apr 9, 2010, at 9:31 AM, Henry Vermaak wrote:
> Really?  I was under the impression that you need to jail break the
> phone to be able to install any app (or get a dev licence, of course).

I don't think you need to jail break anything to put apps on the phone  
that don't come from the store, what's preventing folks from just  
uploading the apps to their phones then executing them as normal?
perhaps there's something I'm not aware of here, but the developer kit  
is free to anyone who has an ADC account, you merely need to register  
with apple to be able to download the developer kit and develop apps.
I have the kit, but haven't written anything, mostly because I  
personally don't see the need to put out useless apps just for the  
purpose of having produced an iphone app.
Sure it gives you bragging rights, but bragging about a number  
guessing game doesn't sound to me to be all that interesting, yet  
that's exactly the kind of thing I've seen, and to be honest, it kind  
of makes me not want to develop apps.
But I guess you'll get that with anything, so I really shouldn't let  
it bother me I suppose.
But anyhow, my guess is that apple just wants to ensure that all apps  
they promote are apps that are completely compatible with the iphone.   
It seems to me that if folks can demonstrate that fpc apps *are* 100  
percent compatible, then apple will allow them as well.
The whole reason for dropping carbon support is because it isn't being  
maintained by apple themselves anymore, and they are (eventually)  
going to have apis that will break under carbon usage.  Also, because  
of the accessibility features in apple's os, which a lot of people now  
depend on, the cocoa interfaces are automatically supported by these  
apis, where carbon apps had to make special efforts to make themselves  
accessible, and most developers did not take the time to do this, and  
as a result, many applications were inaccessible to folks who depended  
on the accessibility features of the os.
I actually applaud apple's efforts in this area (the accessibility  
stuff, not the dropping of api support), because I am one of those  
individuals who depend on the features that allow voiceover to operate  
out of the box on a huge percentage of osx apps right out of the box,  
which is something that cannot be said for any other operating system.
I would love to write full-blown cocoa apps using fpc, but as of yet,  
I've had zero luck in doing so, either because the gui generation kits  
did not work at all, I couldn't get them installed, or they generated  
code that did not comply with apple gui accessibility guidelines, and  
as a result, produced apps that did not work with voiceover, which of  
course leaves me out.  I'm still stuck using command-line apps when  
using fpc, though I have no trouble producing accessible apps when  
using the sfml libraries under C/C++.
Which, really is a shame, but that's what we have to work with.  The  
mono framework (via renasaince) seems to work for some, but I've been  
unable to get it to work on my system, so I'm stuck using terminal  
apps if I want to use fpc.

I'll make sure I complain to apple about not allowing fpc apps though,  
as I see no reason why properly built fpc apps should be excluded.
The reasoning is sound, but sometimes companies tend to carry things  
too far, and I think this is probably one of those times. <sigh>