Is MonoTouch now banned on the iPhone? [closed]

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Closed 7 years ago.

A recent post by John Gruber notes that the following legalese:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

Has been revised as follows:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

And makes the following observation:

My reading of this new language is that cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe’s upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited. This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch — a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone.

Does this in fact ban the use of Monotouch for the IPhone?

Answer 1

All Apple is saying is that you must all now use 1980's languages to develop your competition beating state of the art Mobile Applications....

Makes perfect sense. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.

It also stops you from using any 3rd party libraries that you can't guarantee that have been developed in straight C, C++ or Objective C.

So basically it means that you can't buy in Games API's such as Unity.

Answer 2

Update:

Apple has dropped (almost) all technical requirements for languages and libraries for iOS, so MonoTouch is without a doubt a viable solution. See Apple's announcement.

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Most people here simply want to take Apple's document by the word and say "yes, its banned". Well, here's my point of view: at this point, nobody really has any idea if MonoTouch is going to be banned or not, and I'll explain why:

The Apple agreement version 3 (not the latest, the one before) clearly states that its illegal to use any other frameworks to develop applications other than the ones provided by Apple:

3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s). http://adcdownload.apple.com/iphone/iphone_sdk_3.2__final/iphone_sdk_agreement.pdf

Even though that's the case (and was actually the case since 2.x, apple doesn't have any problem accepting applications that do exactly that. For example, ALL EA games use Lua scripts, and lots and lots of people use external libraries that are not native to the iPhone. Even when the iPhone has those native APIs, Apple never had a problem accepting applications with different versions of it, like SQLite.

My point is that saying "YES, they'll be banned" right now is simply WAAY too early. The only clear thing at this point is that Apple could in fact use that to ban apps. Just like they accept Apps today that are against some of their rules, they'll probably continuing doing so.

There's also the fact that are hundreds (or probably a few thousands?) of apps in the store currently running Mono, and Apple will need to accept updates for those apps. Major apps with millions of sales were created using Mono (and Lua), and I doubt they would refund every single user.

Lastly, Enterprise applications are deployed to iPhones without Apple's approval, and that's a big market that MonoTouch is on (I myself develop enterprise apps). There's no way at this point that Apple could ban MonoTouch for those applications, and that will probably be enough to keep MonoTouch alive for a long time.

Answer 3

Just adding my 2 cents. It seems that after reading this part: (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited) there is nothing to discuss. They have expressed them unambiguously. Not only they are banning MonoTouch and Unity3d, it seems they are also banning Titanium Framework. However, after reading this article, i found myself really confused. I am not familiar with US laws, but is it legal? I mean, aren't they breaking some anti-monopoly laws?

Besides all of this, i can't understand their motivation. Not only will they partly lose a developers interest, they will also lose a developers respect, i think.

Answer 4

This google docs spreadsheet has a long list of apps that will be affected by the new agreement. Some noteable ones that have been #1 in the appstore for their category:

• Monopoly
• Lemonade Tycoon
• Skee ball
• The settlers
• Zombieville

One of the funny inclusions is Toy Story.

Answer 5

I spent months of evenings working on ideas for a killer iPhone app in Objective C. My day job is C#. I downloaded MonoTouch C# when it became a viable alternative and have just spent 3 months converting my code to iPhone specific MonoTouch C#. Which stopped me going mad through switching from C#/Objective C.

What do I do now throw it all away and start again or give up!?!

I feel really sorry for the Mono guys. This is plain wrong. It is one thing to stop Adobe who haven't launched their product and have no customers and to stop MonoTouch who do and also have approved product in the AppStore.

Why would anyone want to build a business and invest in Apple when they will take it all away at a moments notice without being answerable or questionable?

Clearly developers and customers of Apple caring for them and their products is a one way street.

Answer 6

Short answer to all that blob in the agreement is YES.

Apple is basically shooting itself in the foot by limiting programs to a few languages:

• C - which is not really suited for application development these days, due to it's low-level nature. It's mostly a systems programming language today.
• C++ - which makes it harder to shoot your phone, but when it happens, it's with a bazooka. Apart from Qt, there aren't any complete application frameworks to use in C++ (and Qt doesn't support iPhone - yet).
• Objective-C - which was invented by Apple and of course will be supported.
• JavaScript running in WebKit - basically a web application.

They are deliberately limiting what tools you can use to develop for iPhone, which will almost certainly get them in serious trouble. I'm sure a good sized chunk of the community will just quit iPhone development and migrate to a different platform like Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android or Maemo, which are totally open - you are free to write your application in LOLCODE.

Apart from possibly making iPhone junk for developers, it also gives Adobe a nice kiss: Apple deliberately blocks Flash from iPad, and now they are also blocking it from iPhone. The nummer is Adobe Flash's CS5 biggest feature is deploying Flash applications to iPhone.

tl;dr: Apple is basically shooting itself in the foot with this move.