Is there anyone who actually makes a living off of iPhone development that was affected by any of this? Can anyone honestly speak to this being a problem?
Presumably these would all be affected.
--Actual DeveloperSo based on that - yes, it will affect some iPhone developers, and the argument that this move by Apple is about quality is bogus.
There are many developers that would love to take trade places with those 10 apps in the top 100. If I knew something like Doodle Jump was written on the .NET platform, I'd probably jump at the chance to make a similar clone in hopes of taking it's place.
It's poor business to rewrite an app for no reason. How many months will it take to rewrite these apps just to achieve the exact level of functionality they have now? What if the developer has no Objective-C experience at all (which, given the choice of MonoTouch, might be likely). What a massive waste of time and money for nothing.
> I'd probably jump at the chance to make a similar clone in hopes of taking it's place.
On a forum full of developers, this attitude sort of disgusts me. Here are these poor developers having the rug pulled out from the under them but it doesn't matter because we're all replaceable cogs and someone will be there to take their place. That stinks.
It sure does, but it's (unfortunately) probably reality in this situation.
I was honestly looking at cost quotes to port a couple customers to a flash multi platform situation, but now that work is shot.
On the upside, quite a few HN people asked for quotes after having similar dreams shut down, but more work from old customers is almost always easier, more predictable and cheaper than dealing with a crop of new potential customers. A few weeks from now I might say different depending on how much we land.
I do think I will use Flash as an Android platform, especially if it has a Java plugin library. The lack of a visual designer on Android is one of it's biggest weaknesses.