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.