Second version of FPC for iPhone SDK 2.x available

[savage]

More news from Jonas...

As promised last week, I've released a small update to the FPC for iPhone SDK 2.x. The changes since the previous release are:

* Mention that you need a certificate from Apple to run self-written applications on an iPhone/iPod Touch
* Installation script mentions its location whenever it aborts
* Link to wiki page with more information
* Xcode template now ignores FPC configuration files
* Xcode template handles Xcode reassembling previously compiled files (e.g., in case the current SDK is switched)

So apart from a couple of tweaks to the Xcode template, most changes are only to the documentation and the text printed by the installation script. The included FPC version is identical to the one of the previous version.

The download link is:
ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/fpc/snapshot/v23/arm-macosx/fpc-2.3.1v2.arm-iphone.dmg

Also see the wiki page (thanks, Dmitry) for more information, especially if you did not use FPC for iPhone SDK before:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/iPhone/iPod_development

Enjoy,

Jonas
PS: there is no "upgrade" package available because this distribution is handled like the other snapshots for simplicity reasons (and I also don't think there are that many people who already downloaded the first release)

[Momor]

Believe me : this ROCKS. It's allowing me to code on the PC, and port on the iPhone.

I'm currently working on 2 games with it, I'll keep you informed about the validation process with Apple.

[savage]

Believe me : this ROCKS. It's allowing me to code on the PC, and port on the iPhone.

I'm currently working on 2 games with it, I'll keep you informed about the validation process with Apple.


So how's it going?

[WILL]

Count me in as wanting to know. Id love to have an iPhone title in the works. :)

[Momor]

Hey Dudes,

Sorry for the lack of news, but I had to work on a few iPhone apps for some guys - yeah made with FPC !

It's working GREAT. Here's my latest App Store publishing :

http://www.momorprods.com/quizzparty

I've written my own little wrapper which seamlessly allows me to code & test the app on PC, and compile and final test the app on iPhone.

Thanks for this goodness !

[Stoney]

Can you give some more information on the technical details of your wrapper? Are you using SDL, Objective-Pascal or something completely different?
Would you consider releasing your wrapper as open-source?

[savage]

This is great news and CONGRATULATIONS!

I'm currently using MonoTouch to write an iPhone game with the idea of possibly switching to XNA so that we can port it to Windows Phone 7. I may switch to FreePascal if it is easier.

A couple of questions. Are your iPhone games selling? How much does Apple take off each sale, roughly?

Dom.



Hey Dudes,

Sorry for the lack of news, but I had to work on a few iPhone apps for some guys - yeah made with FPC !

It's working GREAT. Here's my latest App Store publishing :

http://www.momorprods.com/quizzparty

I've written my own little wrapper which seamlessly allows me to code & test the app on PC, and compile and final test the app on iPhone.

Thanks for this goodness !

[paul_nicholls]

Hey Dudes,

Sorry for the lack of news, but I had to work on a few iPhone apps for some guys - yeah made with FPC !

It's working GREAT. Here's my latest App Store publishing :

http://www.momorprods.com/quizzparty

I've written my own little wrapper which seamlessly allows me to code & test the app on PC, and compile and final test the app on iPhone.

Thanks for this goodness !



Nice work!

I for one would definitely what to know how you are creating an iPhone game on the PC when I thought you required a Mac :)

It would be great to be able to make, if not properly test, a game on the PC using freepascal that will also work on an iPhone...

cheers,
Paul

[savage]

I'm guessing that on PC the game makes OpenGL calls while on iPhone is make OpenGL ES calls. If that is abstracted correctly, the same code base should work on both. Just need to account for multi-touch and screen resolutions then.

[Momor]

Oh so, to answer your questions:

- QuizzParty sells modestly, for some reason it works honestly in France (around 40 sales per week and the lite version reached #2 with 1,100 downloads a day) but did nearly nothing with the english version ... probably the worlwide market is extremely overloaded

- I've made a wrapper unit which encapsulates PC (OpenGL + WinMM + SDL_Input) and iPhone (OpenGL-ES + C calls to framework functions) calls for all the low-levels functions I needed. The PC and XCode main application loop are different, but at the end the core application loop, logic, sound and display remain the same code.

As a last test, I did use FreePascal to make a test iPad app, and it works extremely well. Let's hope that the SDK TOS will be updated in a great way.

[paul_nicholls]

Oh so, to answer your questions:

- QuizzParty sells modestly, for some reason it works honestly in France (around 40 sales per week and the lite version reached #2 with 1,100 downloads a day) but did nearly nothing with the english version ... probably the worlwide market is extremely overloaded

- I've made a wrapper unit which encapsulates PC (OpenGL + WinMM + SDL_Input) and iPhone (OpenGL-ES + C calls to framework functions) calls for all the low-levels functions I needed. The PC and XCode main application loop are different, but at the end the core application loop, logic, sound and display remain the same code.

As a last test, I did use FreePascal to make a test iPad app, and it works extremely well. Let's hope that the SDK TOS will be updated in a great way.


Thanks for the info Momor :)

cheers,
Paul

[deathshadow]

Silly question, but are we even allowed to use free pascal to develop for the iPhone?

You know, that whole new EULA which pretty much says if you aren't using THEIR compilers you can **** right off? Admittedly FPC does tie in through xCode to a degree, but does that get it around that pesky new EULA that's telling the people who want to use mono/C# to go **** themselves?

Just saying...

[savage]

Silly question, but are we even allowed to use free pascal to develop for the iPhone?


FreePascal is allowed to use the iPhone 3.x SDK without any problems.
Based on the iPhone 4.x SDK's EULA, it would seem that all non Apple compiled apps are banned from being sold on the App Store.

That being said, this app - http://itunes.apple.com/app/child-timer/id364855357?mt=8 - which is written in C# with MonoTouch, accepted the 4.x EULA and has been approved. I'm not sure how the FreePascal integration works, but apparently it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between a MonoTouch iPhone app and a native Objective C iPhone app as they both compile down to native iPhone instructions. What I've heard is that MonoTouch apps are slightly bigger in size, due to compiling and including the .NET runtime into each app.