[lnichols]

Why focus on Android then? iOS is the app king, and I'd rather see an iOS player before an Android one.

Posted via CB10

[kirkins]

Thought I'd chime in here. I was the one who tipped the story to Gadget Masters and have now come out with the story of how I came to see the 'player' if you want to call it that.

The Story Behind iOS App Player on BlackBerry 10 | The Gadget Masters

What I want to emphasize is that app I saw had several top iOS games compiled into one app. Thus it appeared to be an iOS player, it may in fact just be a system which converts the Objective-C to native Android/BlackBerry but the fact that the founders were able to convert so many top iOS games made the development seem amazing, whether or not you call it an iOS App player doesn't really matter. It's a technology which can get iOS apps running on BlackBerry 10 Quickly!

[kirkins]

I agree. Apple is very particular with their intellectual property, and they have a history of shuttering any Mac clone in the past so the precedence is there for suing the brains out of anyone who tries to use iOS without their permission.

Posted via CB10

Also agree, part of my suspicion as to why the company is operating in stealth mode.

[canu900]

See everybody BlackBerry is the best

Posted via CB10

[BadGoliath42]

Why focus on Android then? iOS is the app king, and I'd rather see an iOS player before an Android one.

Posted via CB10

Android is basically free and open-source. iOS is not, same with BB10.

Posted via CB10

[kirkins]

Alec Saunders confirms that the iOS player exists!

https://twitter.com/asaunders/status/362309233410187264

[Dave Bourque]

All your bases belong to us.

-BlackBerry

Sent from my BB10 smartphone.

[k__dam]

Wow this is big news

Posted via CB10

[masterscarhead1]

I do believe it is very well possible. A dev could easily emulate the iOS environment if he wants to. HOWEVER, it will have to be sideloaded, because BB will never allow it in app world due to copyright infringements.

[masterscarhead1]

Alec Saunders confirms that the iOS player exists!

https://twitter.com/asaunders/status/362309233410187264

I can also confirm that BB10 for PB exists......doesn't mean it's going to be released though

[app_Developer]

What I want to emphasize is that app I saw had several top iOS games compiled into one app. Thus it appeared to be an iOS player, it may in fact just be a system which converts the Objective-C to native Android/BlackBerry but the fact that the founders were able to convert so many top iOS games made the development seem amazing, whether or not you call it an iOS App player doesn't really matter.

Were these games only? That would make sense, because then the "player" would only need to reproduce a small slice of the iOS frameworks to support most games. Supporting OpenGL (or Cocos or similar) type games would be feasible I think.

Business or productivity apps would be an entirely different ballgame though. I can't imagine how a developer could legally or practically reproduce all of the iOS frameworks (UIKit, MapKit, Core Animation, Core Motion, Core Location, etc., etc., etc.) that apps depend on. If they just rip these frameworks off an iPhone, then the C&D letter from Apple will come very quickly.

[masterscarhead1]

Were these games only? That would make sense, because then the "player" would only need to reproduce a small slice of the iOS frameworks to support most games. Supporting OpenGL (or Cocos or similar) type games would be feasible I think.

Business or productivity apps would be an entirely different ballgame though. I can't imagine how a developer could legally or practically reproduce all of the iOS frameworks (UIKit, MapKit, Core Animation, Core Motion, Core Location, etc., etc., etc.) that apps depend on. If they just rip these frameworks off an iPhone, then the C&D letter from Apple will come very quickly.

But at the same time, you could just link many of the functions back to the corresponding one on the BB10 OS. That's what the android player does right now. Need market, open BB world. Need settings? Open BB10 settings. Need camera? Open BB10 camera. This method would work for many apps, excluding those that require the main framework, just like we can't login into google account within the sideloads.
Essentially, you'd just be bridging between the app itself and the BB10 OS, acting like a translator. So unless apple has copyrights to the coding language itself, it theoretically is legal.

[mikeo007]

But at the same time, you could just link many of the functions back to the corresponding one on the BB10 OS. That's what the android player does right now. Need market, open BB world. Need settings? Open BB10 settings. Need camera? Open BB10 camera. This method would work for many apps, excluding those that require the main framework, just like we can't login into google account within the sideloads.
Essentially, you'd just be bridging between the app itself and the BB10 OS, acting like a translator. So unless apple has copyrights to the coding language itself, it theoretically is legal.

BB10 has no compatible equivalent for most of the APIs mentioned (UI kit, core animation, etc). This goes doubly so for some of the new iOS 6 & 7 APIs. They would have to be hard coded which does get into copyright infringement territory.

Then there's the whole xCode TOS that you is pretty stringent. If you make something in xCode, it can only be used on OSX or iOS. Compiling for use on another platform is a violation.

That's why the tool in question is just a code translator as the source link now reveals.

There was an iOS emulator over a year ago, and it completely vanished. Guess why

[kirkins]

I didn't look through the app list but was told by the founder that they are currently looking for mainly game developers for their beta program right now.

Though as Reebe shows other types of apps can work too, assuming they aren't using too many Apple specific APIs as @App_Developer mentioned.

[app_Developer]

But at the same time, you could just link many of the functions back to the corresponding one on the BB10 OS. That's what the android player does right now. Need market, open BB world. Need settings? Open BB10 settings. Need camera? Open BB10 camera. This method would work for many apps, excluding those that require the main framework, just like we can't login into google account within the sideloads.
Essentially, you'd just be bridging between the app itself and the BB10 OS, acting like a translator. So unless apple has copyrights to the coding language itself, it theoretically is legal.

That's much easier said than done.

Let's take one example: CoreLocation. That's just one small example. You have to support every API call in CL, as well as all of the delegate call backs. Half the features in CoreLocation are still not available to Cascades developers!

Then look at UIKit. There are 100's of APIs there that developers use. You're going to make all those 100's of APIs work in exactly the same way as they do on iOS?

The language isn't the big issue (there are open source implementations of the runtime), the issue is the thousands of different API calls and all of their delegate callbacks. You're talking about a project the size and scope of Wine, and look how many years (decades actually) that it took Wine to become decent (and it's still not that great)

[kirkins]

Also for everyone who is talking about how awesome it would be if we could 'side-load' using this process. Unfortunately as long as this company owns the iOS Player(or porting tool) it's not going to happen. Their business model is to collect a % of revenue generated from apps which use their tools to port to Android/BB10.

The only way that would be possible is if BlackBerry bought the technology and made it available like the Android Player.

[app_Developer]

I didn't look through the app list but was told by the founder that they are currently looking for mainly game developers for their beta program right now.

Though as Reebe shows other types of apps can work too, assuming they aren't using too many Apple specific APIs as @App_Developer mentioned.

Yeah, games that are written to OpenGL or Cocos2D or something make perfect sense. That i can see working, for the same reason that it was easy to port Angry Birds to PBOS. Games like that use a very narrow set of APIs, and OpenGL APIs are already present in BB10.

[masterscarhead1]

Hmmm. You guys are obviously more knowledgeable than I am in this field.
I guess an emulation environment can be made to a certain extent. Just like the runtime on PB for android, it is very limited, and has very few functions and apps that can work. But I guess, for games at the very least, I guess it would be feasible. As for the other "productive" apps, most of them are on android anyways, so I don't think there really is a need for that.

[Kobe Barksdale]

correct me if I'm wrong but isn't We Chat App and iOS port? reason why I say so is if you try to connect it via Facebook on the BB10 the mobile facebook page "facebook for iOS" instead of the usual "facebook for Android" we are accustomed to seeing with the Android ports. Is anyone using We Chat app?

[Bla1ze]

We've been down this road before... it ends with a dark closing scene and people go missing along with their information.

[meltbox360]

Also for everyone who is talking about how awesome it would be if we could 'side-load' using this process. Unfortunately as long as this company owns the iOS Player(or porting tool) it's not going to happen. Their business model is to collect a % of revenue generated from apps which use their tools to port to Android/BB10.

The only way that would be possible is if BlackBerry bought the technology and made it available like the Android Player.

In my opinion this would be an excellent investment. Although it does create more UI fragmentation.

[meltbox360]

Double post... much later Dx

[MPF94025]

If developers could make minor adjustments in their apps to port to BB10 OS, and collect $$ for the sale of the BB World app, why wouldn't they do so? Why have an end user have to do some tweak, then rely on them sideloading the app? Seems like something is missing from the equation.

There are many developers for iOS and Android, and as far as I'm aware iOS does not restrict what other platforms a developer can work with.

[UnlimitedEra]

Too bad apple's gonna sue somebody


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