Digital Workshop

I have a number of apps created in Opus Pro XE. I guess I'm correct in assuming there's no way they can be ported across to an i-Pad?

Anyone know of software I could use for this purpose by lifting out my content and transferring it?

OK. I know it's a 'pie in the sky' dream - but just in case pigs can fly I have asked the question.

John

Hi john,
Not a chance -- If you want something to run natively on the iPad/iPhone...

Those of us that were going to use cross platform compilers had the door closed when Apple recently changed the iPhone/iPad Developer agreements to stop them being used...

Apple wants exclusivity, and is making it as difficult as possible to port anything to or from the iPad/iphone; they want you to use Xcode, Objective-C for native apps, or WebKit.

You can still target them through the browser, optimized for Safari...

Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply and info.

Intrigued by your comments about Safari - could you expand a little for me? I'm not a programmer but do wonder if you have opened the door a crack for me! I have to confess I haven't used my Opus Pro for a while, but vaguely remember something about saving for web(?).

John

Hi John,
when I mentioned using Safari, I meant using web technologies like XHTML and CSS styled for the smaller screen sizes used in these Apple devices.
Sorry I didn't make that clear.
Opus is not really useful when targeting Apple products like the iPad.

Paul

Paul,

Thanks for your reply. Hope springs eternal, but I guess Apple are in the business of throttling it where it doesn't suit them!

Still, it was worth checking out.

John

If we did do some kind of iPad/iPhone player, we'd fall foul of exactly the same restriction. Of course Opus can create Flash, and Flash from Opus works perfectly well on my cheap Nokia phone and pretty much everything else. I'm fairly certain it'd work perfectly well on an iPhone/iPad too, but you'll have to take that up with Steve Jobs.

Just read the Engadget review of the i-Pad. They state:

'The iPad browser doesn't support Flash, and won't support Flash, perhaps ever. Apple has not only turned away from what is the industry standard for rich media in webpages, but it instead is pushing a newer standard called HTML5.'

John

John's right! There was a BIG news story about 2 weeks ago where Apple announced it will NOT support Flash. There must have been a "bad" meeting over the license fees...

While Apple/Jobs is reported to have pressed Adobe some time ago to 'improve and advance' Flash, that does not mean Jobs was ever sincerely interested in using Flash even if Adobe pulled all stops to evolve it. One of the things that characterizes Jobs, and Apple marketing strategy, is to not be a follower... not support standards if it amounts to being a 'me-too'. There is more margin and upside by going a separate road. And a possibility of more control. But it is a gamble.

The real question is 'what pivotal position is Apple aiming to secure five years or more out...'? Who does it want to align with then? ( I think it's GPU's and related realtime processing IP/software ).


Interesting read: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/14 ... ride_fail/

Hello everybody,

I have a question about apps that could be sold via the apple appstore. Are these only apps that were created as native iPhone/iPad applications? Or is it possible to sell apps that consists of HTML-content for the iPhone/iPad-webbrowser?

Sorry for the silly question but it's not really easy to find the needed informations. Apple is not really helpful with informations related to their products.

Thanks in advance

T.

Hi,

Maybe this will shed some light:

http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/

HTH

Kind Regards,

... thanks a lot for that. I will order the book. It sounds very promising.

T.

Happy this seems useful.

Spurred on by this material, I also did some further online searching about deployment in the iTunes store. It appears there are an enormous number of tools that will take a web app authored in HTML, CSS and JS, add various levels of iPhone functionality and package it for the author to submit for "approval" to the iTunes store. Most of these SDK's are by monthly/yearly subscription and compile in the "cloud."

The only other conclusion I came to in searching was that this has become a very (over-?) crowded field with a huge number of developers jumping in to try to get their app to become the next great blockbuster iPhone/iPad app.

Depending on content and such factors as user interaction, navigation, for those wanting to deploy to the iPhone/iPad platforms, the best choice may be a web app developed in HTML, CSS and JS that is optimized for Safari, etc. (see Paul's posting above and the ebook author's discussion).

Kind Regards,

Apple have changed the rules again...

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/09 ... ement.html

Should make Flash CS5 usable for building iPhone/iPad apps...

cheers
Paul

Described in more detail by The Register. They've also released more details on the approval rules.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/09/new_ios_rules/

I'm not sure I'd want to put a lot of time and effort into developing something without knowing for sure if I'd be allowed to sell it at the end.