We’ve had a great video game development tool chain for a couple of years now that currently supports building for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and the Wii. Disclaimer: I don’t work for this company. I just think it’s better than what people are proposing to do with the iPhone target for Flash. The name of the software is Unity (http://www.unity3d.com)

Great post.

So, there, we, are.

But it’s not about what’s easy for the developer, but rather what delivers a consistent UI and experience for the user. It’s not about you, it’s about the user. (read that again)

We don’t want the Mac to become a UI free-for-all. And, just like their own apps have become a UI junk yard filled with let’s-see-how-low-we-can-set-the-bar, Adobe has allowed other developers to do the same with AIR.

Sure, you can say they’ll just use it for puzzle games, but there will most likely be a few who will try to imitate the Cocoa UI, and we’ll have an “uncanny valley” issue, just like with Mac apps ported from other platforms.

It’s cool if you want to use other languages for the iPhone or the Mac, but please make sure to respect the native frameworks and UI. Don’t try to roll your own imitation of it, because it won’t end well. And performance matters, too. It’s not about what’s easy/fast/cheap for you. It’s about making an experience that fits the platform it’s on, and works well, and runs fast.

Flash doesn’t do any of those things.

Don’t bother with more commas though. We are good at parsing!!

However, I still remain suspicious of ‘cross-platform’ development tools – the BBC’s iPlayer app is written in Adobe AIR and – of course – it has a ‘Settings’ tab in the app window, rather than a Preferences under the file menu.

But then I’m suspicious of web apps in the same way – they give too much freedom to designers – there is no ‘Web HIG’.

Which may sound ridiculous, but I’ve become aware how much the strength of OS X is around the consistency between applications – a feeling that operations (like drag’n'drop) will actually work, etc. In contrast, an internal user was surprised when I drag’n'dropped within a Flex application, because it wasn’t something they expected to do within a browser window. Even with HTML 5, until it’s 100% consistently used, it’s going to be a frustrating business of not knowing what behaviours will work on any given page – which means that you tend to fall back on the lowest common denominator.

To me, that’s a step backwards – as if we threw away the idea of standardised keyboard shortcuts and went back to everyone inventing their own (‘a victory for the freedom of developers’). Although that does remind me of cross-platform apps that insist on using CTRL rather than CMD based shortcuts.

Now, as yet, we’re not seeing those differences between mobile phones – I can’t think of gestures that have different meanings.

Anyway, that’s an aside from whether Flash-to-iPhone will be any good, and Windows and the Web says I’m wrong – most people don’t care about consistency between their apps.

I wouldn’t trust that except for quick and dirty apps.

In the end we will have an app store impossible to browse due the massification.

And, yes, that sounds like I’m making fun of the comment from erdenfeind but, heck, I choose to take it in the broader sense and will, in the future, try to rant in a manner more befitting the Internet.