iGame Radio

Thursday’s iPhone OS 4.0 announcement included a controversial change to the developer agreement, as seen in this post by John Gruber in which he pointed to a particular clause in the agreement, 3.3.1, which states:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

That last phrase, “Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited” became the dominating conversation in the forums of many game middleware tool sites, such as Unity3D, Torque 2D for iPhone, and GameSalad, about whether games developed using them would no longer be allowed on the App Store.

GarageGames, developer of iTorque (the Torque 2D for the iPhone engine) is confident that users of the tool should have no concern with games being rejected from the App Store. In a conversation we had with Michael Perry, Associate Producer for iTorque, he stated that he believes that iTorque still falls well within the 3.3.1 framework.

“Our source engine, which is completely open to licensees, was written originally in C++,” Perry said. “We have a platform layer dedicated to the iPhone, which is completely written in Objective C. Both parts of the engine are bound to each other, with no intermediate layer. At any time a programmer can directly access native API calls from the iPhone SDK. You can not get anymore direct than that.”

As with other middleware developers, Perry does not yet have confirmation from Apple that iTorque is in the clear. But he stated that iTorque’s flexibility would make it easy to alter to conform to Apple’s requirements should it need to.

“If for any reason we have to change the way iTorque functions to comply with the current license agreements, or future changes, we are ready,” Perry said. “Apple’s iPhone SDK is very easy to work with, and modifying iTorque to work with any changes is easy for our team and for our licensees.”

Perry also felt that Apple’s reasons for doing so, while controversial, could not be for reasons of cutting middleware companies out of the picture. “Will it put some software out? Possibly. Will it put every middleware provider out? I don’t see Apple making that kind of move. The addition of the Game Center shows their commitment to game developers, and game engines like iTorque allow people to work with the iPhone SDK at a higher level and get games to the app store faster. They can’t be against that.”

Perry said he was pleased with the iPhone OS 4.0 large list of new features, the Game Center, and the overall attention to criticism with action, rather than words. Having already downloaded the preview SDK, he said that he was “very pleased with the new functionality and how well it’s been exposed.”

“The surprise of a game center and iAd were like icing on the cake. These are not subtle notations. Apple is really getting behind game developers and gamers with this update.”