How do you make teachers angry? Take an app out of the App Store

Scratch is also available on OS X, Windoze and Ubuntu Linux. It's not exactly the end of Scratch. The locked down nature of the iPad will just help ensure that these other platforms don't go away.

haha, interesting!
Totally, cause if it's easy, it's no good. While we're at it, let's have a class on basic computing for old people using nothing but the Terminal.----maybe this is a good idea.
well, but this may be not the fundamental solution. Ipad and iphone always need apps running, such as "Top 10 Best Free iPad Apps"(http://www.ifunia.com/ipad-column/top-10-best-free-ipad-apps.html ) on line.

There was recent concern over where our next generation of developers are going to come from....where will they "cut their teeth" and get the basic concepts they need to turn into developers? Scratch is the perfect answer to this, and what does Apple do? Cut off the developers it is going to need in 10-20 years' time to keep it alive. DUMB.

@LD. no the tool has nothing to do with it. It is about the code. Top to bottom in native language, no private APIs etc.

if I make a WYSIWYG tool that exports into the proper code there's no issue. Plus if doesn't say 'made with XXX tool' how is Apple going to know. they won't.

2. If the app enables the potential creation of "viruses" or hijacking user info - banned.

In which case Scratch or Flash might still be banned.

Excellent idea.

While other commenters have been going back and forth with each other about "breaking the rules", you actually propose a solution. My biggest gripe about the current iPad is that I can't run any software I want on it. For the masses the limitations makes some sense, but for some of us a locked down computer is severely limiting.

To all those who dont know:


idiot is a word derived from the Greek , idiōtēs ("person lacking professional skill

Anybody that has had something to do with Steve Jobs ,knows for sure
that idiocy and genius are not self excluding, his sales policies have always been bad bad bad ,for everybody except Apple.

Scratch is excellent. I'm an iPhone developer and my third grade daughter loves learning to code with MIT's amazing (and free) software. I see no reason why Apple cannot update their policy to allow educational apps like this to exist peacefully on our iDevices. I'm amazed at the stuff an eight year old can do. She's comfortable working with variables and objects, and other fundamental programming concepts-- and I've really taught her almost nothing, she's just inferred it all from goofing around with Scratch.

I support Apple's push to developer all App store-bound applications in Objective-C (or C / C++), this makes sense. No flash app exported into an iPhone app is going to follow the Human Interface Guidelines, and they will generally be awful. But why applications that allow you to run interpreted code have such trouble making it to the store I don't fully understand. Of course there are many emulation-based apps already on the store, and they're a good thing to have. This restriction is probably doing more harm than good. Is a Scratch player app, or even (gasp) a Flash player app, really destructive in some way that I'm failing to grasp?

The guy's name is McIntosh? Ironic.