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REAL Studio and iOS

Today Apple made a statement about the App Store guidelines. Now they allow third party tools to build applications. Also they provide their guidelines for you to read so you know what rules apply for your app submission. There is a copy on engadget.

Now REAL Software posted on their blog about this. People are happy and expect to see something soon, but well, they may be disappointed.

REAL Software is working on several things currently:
  • The Cocoa target has taken years and it is not even complete.
  • Web Edition is going beta soon.
  • They are working on LLVM compiler/linker.
This projects all take resources. Don't expect an iPhone target before 2012. They are busy doing other things first:
  • Finish the Cocoa target and compile REAL Studio Mac IDE with it.
  • Get Web Edition done and release version 1.0
  • Get LLVM compiler rock solid in RBScript.
  • Write linkers for Mac, Linux and Win32 for use with LLVM.
  • Once Cocoa and LLVM is done, start working on 64 bit support, the number 3rd on the wish list.
  • Build an linker for iPhone apps, sign tools and all the utility needed to compile iPhone apps technically.
  • Port the framework to iOS
  • Add window editors to the IDE which work with iPhone target.
As you see there are a couple of things they have certainly on their wish list.
I personally expect them to give priority first on finish Cocoa. Not sure where Carbon is going with Mac OS X 10.7 or 10.8, but someday it will be dropped. Cocoa target must be working well before that date. Next the Web Edition must go on the market to make sales with it. Before they start with iPhone stuff, the LLVM work must be done. And the compiler as well as the code it generates must be rock solid. Once the LLVM compiler is good and they adjusted their frameworks to work with it, they can write linkers to actually build applications. Apple may have done LLVM linker for Mac and iPhone. Maybe some Linux guys wrote a linker for Linux, but for Windows? They may need to write their own. And having an iPhone compiler/linker alone does not help. We need like the Web Edition to have a new set of controls, a new window editor and a couple of new framework functions. All those touch events must be handled and you certainly don't want to write a declare for every little thing you want to do.

So I hope they get it done, but I don't expect something on the iPhone too soon. I actually prefer having 64 bit support before iPhone support.
What do you think? Used tags:
09 09 10 - 18:10