[fictorial]

The title and blurb is misleading.

You need permission from Apple on an application by application basis. Interpreted code is to be used in a "minor way" for "minor features". Thus, writing an entire iOS app in an interpreted language (such as Lua) does not seem likely to be allowed.

I'm not a lawyer though. Of course, Apple is fickle and contradicts itself often. Indeed, I would not be surprised to find Titanium gets free reign and Corona does not, or vice versa.

[flatline]

Why go to all the work to embed an interpreter when it only has "minor" uses? I can't see any reason to embed something as large as Lua in a mobile app if you aren't going to make good use of it - I would think this would include only something like parsing/interpreting algebraic expressions, e.g. for a calculator. I guess since it's on a case by case basis though, it could mean anything, and they could decide it means something different than it originally did at a later date.

[raganwald]

Well, consider a "Core Wars" game. The players program their entities using an interpreted language but the game overall is in Javascript, Objective C, or C++. That's the kind of thing they're talking about. It's minor in the sense of interactions with the API, but it may seem major in another sense that programming entities is the purpose of the game.

[masklinn]

> Thus, writing an entire iOS app in an interpreted language (such as Lua) does not seem likely to be allowed.

Indeed, this is pretty much specifically tailored towards games (which are scripted using e.g. Lua but not entirely written in it) or things like emulators.

Apparently, Apple has decided to go over Jobs's dislike for games and let them grow further on the platform.

[lallysingh]

games are selling a lot of iPod touches.

[masklinn]

Yes, but that doesn't mean Jobs likes games on his beautiful slab of glass. His initial reaction to them, back in the early days of the SDK (pre-release and right after release) was basically one of disgust.

[ZeroGravitas]

The BBC Micro Men docu-drama touches on this aspect of the Spectrum vs BBC Micro competition in eighties Britain.

Sinclair is disgusted that his amazing machine is popular because of pointless games and Chris Curry is depressed because his machine has so few games and so becomes more niche.

Funny how history repeats itself

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92

[nailer]

Exactly. And the blog's explanation of beign used for game scripting as a minor feature falls short: can anyone imagine what Half Life would be like without scripted events?

[Qz]

Imagine Half Life without 3d graphics. Now you see why scripting is a 'minor' feature.

[zaphar]

Minor? Those scripted events are easily just as important as the 3d graphics. Without them it's just a fancy screensaver.

[cturner]

    Imagine Half Life without 3d graphics

It'd probably a fair bit like this: http://doom.chaosforge.org/

Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year 2009