Unity CEO Promises ‘Uninterrupted Service’ in Wake of iPhone OS 4.0 TOS Change | Hacker News Reader

Unity CEO Promises ‘Uninterrupted Service’ in Wake of iPhone OS 4.0 TOS Change

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16 pointsbarredo16 comments

This is a very misleading title, the CEO of Unity didn't promise 'Uninterrupted Service'

The only thing he said was:

We have a great relationship with Apple and will do everything we can to comply with Apple’s TOS (also, these are ‘beta TOS’, and these easily get changed) so that we can provide uninterrupted service to our more than 120K users.

Which means he will do everything they can to comply..the final decision is still in Apple's hands.

Well, that is a promise.

Edit because of downvoting:

I'm no expert in English but it seems that http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=promise defines promise as a verbal commitment by one person to another agreeing to do (or not to do) something in the future

Which is what Unity developers just did.

The operative words being "everything we can." If they can't offer that, then they can't. It's a contingency guarantee, not a promise.

And I promise a million dollars to everyone who up votes this comment...doesn't mean I can actually do it. All this article says is the CEO of the company doesn't think Apple will shut them down but it notably stops short of saying they've gotten any guarantees from Apple to that effect.

So it basically says nothing of substance.

I don't understand. 3.3.1 is very clear, is Apple allowed to pick and choose whom they want to enforce that clause on?

I think that's the difference between a company's own terms of service versus a license that carries the weight of law. Apple may keep this language and continue to let Unity3d apps pass with a wink, though if I were a iPhone developer I'd find this uncertainty a bit too risky for business.

It works out a whole lot better during a lawsuit if you can point to something in your TOS or contracts that justifies your behavior.

A more important version of this occurs in the TOS of social websites. You really, really want language that shows your intent to deal harshly / report people who threaten others.

You know the answer to that, but wish you did not.

I wonder who'll be the first to ask Apple to remove a competitor app because of 3.3.1.

Sure, they can do as they please.

Very few people assumed that this would apply to everyone but it does make it very risky base your business on breaking the rules and even more so to have you business make tools that does it.

is Apple allowed to pick and choose whom they want to enforce that clause on?

Of course they are. And as long as your interests are aligned with that of Apple (making high quality apps and selling them for lots of $), they'll keep being approved.

High quality apps that make lots of $ is not enough. The clause isn't about quality. You need to not be competing in a strategically important area to Apple, and the $ amount must exceed Apple's estimation of its opportunity costs of letting you proceed and potentially not doing something else.

What I think this clause indicates is that Apple believes competition at the API and language level is strategically important. Otherwise it wouldn't have been worded the way it is.

What I personally believe is that Apple wants to do a Microsoft the way MS did back in the 90s. Apple wants to lock developers in by forcing them to rely on Apple APIs, and not get creative with the language to evade those APIs.

IANAL but it seems as though a lawsuit would be filed pretty quickly if Apple blocked Adobe's interpreted apps and didn't block Rhomobile/Unity3D/MonoTouch interpreted apps. Seems fair to block possibly harmful technologies, not competitive competitors.

We all got pissed at Microsoft when they were giving themselves preferential treatment, but what if Microsoft had said "eeerrrrmmm, Wordperfect is no longer welcome on Windows, but AbiWord is okay".

Okay, I'll bite. What law is being violated by Apple deciding who they wish to partner with and selectively give advantages (and disadvantages) to.

What an amazing number of people (hackers included) don't understand from the 1999 ruling against Microsoft, is that Microsoft was ruled a Monopoly. Now that, per se, is certainly not illegal, but once you are a Monopoly, a large number of activities that previously were allowed, all of a sudden are now restricted. In the case of Microsoft, it was attempting to leverage a Monopoly in one market (Operating Systems) to takeover another one (Browsers).

Apple is so, so, far away from being a Monopoly in any market that it's laughable. Profitable - yes. But I think they have like something of 25% of Market Share for Smart Phones, and less than 3% of the market for Mobile phones. And Android is aggressively courting developers/users who are interested in their Open and flexible platform.

So, no - Apple is completely free to disallow competitors, and put them at a disadvantage, while allowing the Unity/Rhomobile's of the world.

Of course. And even before 3.3.1 they had the ability to reject your app for any reason they felt like; see Google Voice. This new clause doesn't actually change anything in reality; it just pretends to make the process more objective.

List of apps that use Unity (and other non C/C++/Obj-C/JS languages):

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApLAS6djiVwydGhJMmh...

Here's David's full post about it on the Unity blog: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/04/10/unity-and-the-iphone-os-...

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