Silverlight request: Make it work for iPhone apps

Obviously Silverlight runs on OS X. That much we know, since developers like me use it for non-development tasks instead of Windows. How difficult would it be to adapt it to stand-alone apps on the iPhone? Even if it had to include the runtime and base library (at a few megabytes), it would still be pretty cool, and we wouldn't have to use Xcode (which I'm not impressed with).

17 Comments

  • The iphone has a restriction that makes it impossible for developers to have apps that run interpreted code. Even if this was allowed, apple and microsoft aren't very excited to get into some kind of business relationship. You'll see flash way before you see silverlight.

  • Citation needed?

  • It wasn't hard to find on Google: http://mcdevzone.com/2008/03/07/iphone-sdk-restrictions/

  • Is .NET code really "interpreted" in the strictest sense of the word? When I think interpreted, I think script, which IL is definitely not.

  • Silverlight is not adapted to mobile platforms.
    It is too heavy, too memory consuming, performance hog.

    The day the phones will have the same power as our desktop have today, maybe. But then Silverlight will not be relevant anymore I guess.

  • That sounds more like opinion than fact. I'd like to know why you think those things.

  • MS is working on a mobile edition of Silverlight as you can see here:http://silverlight.net/learn/mobile.aspx. Symbian S60 and WindowsMobile will be first, if the iPhone comes later depends on the marketing strategies of Apple.
    I don't see any technical reason why SL would not work on the iPhone.

  • Is the problem with Silverlight on iPhone similar to that with Flash?
    Both offer the possibility of creating applications without needing the app store.

  • I don't think Apple would allow this, as noted... it would mean you could create applications without going through the App Store, thus harming Apple's monopoly.

  • Simply do your research and you'll see its Apple that has stopped these technologies from appearing on the iphone.

  • "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 and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

  • The author should just suck it up and learn to program for the iPhone.

  • @Roger: Thanks for contributing nothing.

    You guys keep coming up with a bunch of non-technical reasons why it can't work, which I find not relevant. Apple is licensing ActiveSync in Snow Leopard, so I wouldn't exactly call their relationship with Microsoft as poor. And regarding the terms, so what? Those can't be changed? So you make SL a sanctioned framework to code against, or one that is simply compiled in with the app. With the App Store gatekeepers, it's not like this stuff isn't being watched.

  • What would it contribute to the platform that isn't already there? Just because YOU don't like to write Xcode shouldn't be reason enough to support other languages.

  • Why are people so anxious to make this a religious issue? It would seem to me that the more tools and languages can be used for a particular platform, the more successful that platform is. Think about it. That's why the Web works so well. From Perl to ASP.NET to Rails, using everything from Notepad to Visual Studio, it all supports the same platform.

  • If you're looking for support for everything from Perl to ASP.NET to Rails, you're looking at the wrong platform. The Web is open, Apple is not.

  • If you're going to interpret that literally, then I don't know if there's any point in engaging in conversation with you.

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