iphone development limitation

I hear Apple is "closed" compared to Android.

What exactly are the limitation that iPhon开发者_如何学Ce have?

For example, android can prevent other apps from installing or running and can iPhone do the same thing?

Is there any list of limitations of iPhone(especially compared to android) other than the App Store Review Guidelines?

Thank you.

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Given that they approve or not the Apps. I think guidelines and published restricts are the main ones. But I supposed is closed given that is store and hardware dependent to Apple itself (while Android can be installed on heterogeneous hardware (in theory at least).

As a developer, one thing we (as company) have found is kinda ugly thin (for intellectual property sake) is that can't use closed APIs but to be fair, we also understand the reasons.

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The 'closed' refers to the App Store. All publicly available apps have to go through Apple to be put into the App Store. Apple decides which apps goes in and takes a cut of all sales.

The Android platform doesn't have one particular app store, nor does Google have say on what you can or can not install and doesn't take a cut of your sales.

There are pros and cons to both.

You can also get around the App Store restriction in certain cases if you are willing to build an HTML5 app. You can use a manifest document to allow the iPhone user to download the files directly without going through the app store. Of course, an HTML5 app can't do everything that true native apps can.

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The Apple app store is closed in that you have to pay to get in, and you have no control over whether or not your app will get in too.

The Android stores have their own rules, determined by whoever runs them. So if you don't like one, you can try another one, or heck even make your own.

The Apple SDK is closed. You can't see the source, and (this ties in with the previous point) you can't use some parts of it, even if you know it exists.

The Android SDK is open. You can get all the source files and modify them if you wish to do so.

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Also, as far as I know, you should buy an iMac to develop for iPhone, and maybe registering as a developer to get the last version of the IDE. Correct me if I'm wrong.