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No Third-party Apps on iPhone Says Jobs
wyldeone writes "In an interview with the New York Times, Steve Jobs confirms reports that the recently-announced iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. According to Jobs, 'These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them.' In a similar vein, Jobs said in a MSNBC article that, 'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.'"
Right. So Sprint's network is going down every day because of some poorly written application on my Treo? This kind of absurd argument merely clouds the issues. This is about Jobs' control issues, not anything technical. I would be fine if they just released an sdk saying, essentially, anyone who wants to install 3rd party applications is on their own. The best, most stable programs developed could be accepted into Apple's Special Developer Program, which would make "official" releases. I have a problem with the status quo as described by Jobs (i.e., where only "approved" applications make it onto the iPhone) because it leaves the fate of potentially very useful applications to the political realities of Apple's relationship with Cingular (this means no VoIP). On my Treo, however, (if it supported WiFi, that is) there would be no way for Sprint or any carrier to stop me from installing a VoIP application; or, more dangerously, an application that allows me to convert an mp3 into a ringtone with out shelling out something ridiculous for the cell phone company's ringtones. It's these sort of applications that are made completely impossible through Jobs' program, and the biggest flaw with it. Another major flaw is that this sort of thing usually cuts out the small timers. PDA programs do not take an enormous amount development effort, therefore making them perfect for small developers; it's one of the few environments left where big development studios don't have a huge advantage. However, any sort of program (which likely would have a closed, expensive development platform as opposed to the cheap, open PalmOS and Windows Mobile SDKs) would almost certainly be prohibitively priced to anyone but these large development houses. In any case, much of the glamor of the iPhone has worn off since it has become clear that third-party applications were out. The device itself is beautiful, but it is the unexpected uses that make these devices so powerful and useful. On my Treo, I control my IR utilities using universal remote software, I have an instant-messaging client, a voice-activated launcher. All applications developed by third-parties and probably uses of the phone unexpected by Palm. I can only hope that Jobs realizes that he does not see perfectly into the minds of all consumers and does not know what we all want or need.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
And AT&T didn't want to see their network go down because someone connected an evil non-AT&T phone to it.
The proper translation of this statement of course is "We don't want anybody do be able to do anything on our network unless we're making money from it apart from the fee we charge for the bandwidth."
Stupid telecom companies will never learn. They don't want to create a free market of any kind. Anytime they make any protest involving having a free market, they're being rank hypocrites.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The word "irony" is way overused, but these words, coming from a guy who started his company with money earned by selling blue boxes to defraud the phone company, belong in irony's fucking dictionary entry.
I won't buy your phone if I can't write code for it, Steve. I'm sure you're heartbroken. Me and Woz will just be over here in the corner, crying in our beards.
yeah, sure, that's bad and all, but what about 3rd party widgets? i mean, are they *completely* shooting themselves in the foot?
What does this have to do with being homosexual or happy and joyful? I don't understand.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
That argument makes no sense. If a poorly written application running on one mobile phone has the potential to bring down the west coast network then logically a malicous hacker should be able to bring down that same network. Anything a malfunctioning application can do a mean nasty coder can do much more reliably. If there is the possiblity that an application can do that by -accident- then it should be relatively easy for a skilled engineer to do it deliberately.
It sounds to me like he was just fishing for excuses about why hes not allowing third party apps. It isnt necessarily a bad thing that they arent allowed but that excuse is bogus.
What he was saying "no" to is having a plethora of buggy software out there that would endanger the user experience of the phone. I still expect to see non-Apple and non-Cingular developers having access to the tools to build applications for the iPhone. Now it's just a matter of sorting out the protocol (as in "administrative process") for getting the application that I write for my 100 users, installed onto the iPhones that we're going to buy, for the purpose of using them as small tablet computers.
One easy way is to provide the ability for user-added applications to run with lower privileges (just like they can already under Mac OS X - I can run my own programs as me, but not as "root" or any other user). Though that opens up the avenue for local root escalation vulnerabilities to be exploited.
Of course, for my immediate needs it would be enough to have some way to scan barcodes and interact with web pages. But then, Steve is pushing the line that it's the phone reinvented, not a tablet PC.
Granted I'm not the prototypical candidate for one of these:
- I'm from South Africa and
- I'm a Geek,
but added to the fact that it doesn't have 3G (which all of it's competitors at this price-point does have) this becomes a no-show for me at least.Part Time Philosopher, Oft Times Romantic, Full Time Unix Geek
This is a critical issue for me. There's no way I'm spending $600 for a piece of hardware with that many capabilities if I can't run any software I want on it and develop for it myself. This COULD HAVE been a revolution in computing, but instead, it'll just be another phone, and a crippled one at that. While it might be a fantastic phone, I don't spend $600 for a phone. I do, however, spend $600 for a general purpose portable computing device that happens to feature cell phone capabilities, with beautiful design, all the hardware I need, and running a great OS.
Jobs brings up the issue of running apps that will interfere with the phone capabilities, but I'm sure a bright engineer over at Apple (or maybe two if that's what it takes) could figure out how to give priority to the phone process, and make sure it gets attention when it needs to. This is just BS. I guess I'm getting myself a "free" S-E w800i for a couple more years until Jobs comes to his senses. iPhone, we hardly knew ye...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
I already hacked my RAZR V3i to do more than the iPhone will supposedly be able to do -- a FREAKING YEAR AGO. Don't believe me? Head over to the Motox forums and see what we can do with Motorola phones. iWhatever, I don't care and havn't since 1996 when Apple screwed me and a few million folks over regarding Rhapsody.
Shame there's no "+1 Flamebait"
If you're going to be elitist, it would help to be elite.
OK. As the information about the iPhone has started to come in after the announcement, I am decidedly off the bandwagon at this point.
This is stupid. Why do people put up with Apple and these games? If MSFT or Sony pulled this crap, the entire Slashdot universe would reign fury on these companies. But Apple? I'll read 1000 posts about "wait and see" and about how Steve Jobs is protecting us from ourselves.
Apple needs to get over it and open this up. At $600, if you can't even get the geeks excited, this product has 0 chance of succeeding.
Arrogant bastard
I have Windows based K-Jam i-mate. The appeal is I no longer have to carry a PDA and my phone has handy apps like a Russian-English dictionary. Great for traveling. Windows works ok most of the time but still has the classic windows problems so I was looking forward to being able to get a more usable platform. I use Windows, Linux and Mac laptops and based on the usability of them I was keen to get an iPhone. However if I can't load on the apps I choose, or create, then whats the point? The product is not worthy of comparison with the likes of the i-mate or Treo. What stupid way to ruin what looked to be dream product. I think DOA is the right term, good luck selling them now...
Please could you shutdown the Internet right now before some poorly written application destroy it ?
It seems Jobs think his users and followers are idiots...
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
If you had to pick one single aspect that separates a "smart phone" from a "phone", the best indicator would probably be the ability to run arbitary software. Smart phones can do it: Treo, Symbian, WindowsCEPocketLiteWhatever, and various Japanese ones can all run user-installed software. Dumb phones can't; they just run a closed OS and usually just run that same software until the user throws away the phone and gets a new one.
The iPhone does appear to be a dazzling reinvention of the dumb phone. It does the same things my RAZR does: pictures, email, sorta browse the web, SMS, etc. I don't use, or just barely use, any of these features on my RAZR because the RAZR sucks at all of them. I junked my Treo 650 and got the RAZR because I wanted something that just made calls. So, in a limited way, it is cool that Apple is apparently going to best crappy phones like my RAZR, and make such features work reasonably. It even adds like 3 more features, such as google maps. So I'm sure they would dominate the dumbphone market with the iPhone, if it weren't for the fact that it has that smart phone price tag.
But, despite what anybody (e.g., Jobs) might say, smart phones are a hell of a lot more like computers than they are like iPods. After reading (ahem!) the article, I think we are kind of getting a glimpse of the hubris of the old Steve Jobs who wanted to see trucks full of sand coming in one side of the factory, where Apple would make its own silicon and assemble 100% Apple computers. Closed, proprietary systems can work for something like the iPod, but the reason is that iPods are only for doing one thing: playing media, mostly music.
A "smart phone", on the other hand, does many things. It is able to not only browse the web, but also, on a case-by-case basis, SSH into remote machines, view PDF content, view Flash content, run flash-card software for studying, run English-to-Japanese-Chinese-Arabic-Whatever dictionary software, count calories, time events, serve as a podium-top teleprompter for making speeches, record bibliographic data while researching in the library, play retro Missile Command and Dig-Diug clones, play MahJong, display recipes and cocktail how-tos, track ovulation, and so on, and so on.
Apple might be cool, but there is no way in hell that any single company can fill the software needs of a diverse user base.
So there are only three real potential outcomes here:
a.) Apple keeps it locked tight and is content to sell a very expensive but very elegant dumb phone.
b.) Lobbying by users, developers, and corporate purchases convince Apple that they need to offer a way to load third-party software... third party developers will certainly fill the void, and quickly if the iPhone's OS is really anything remotely like the developer-friendly Mac OS X.
c.) Some kind of middle ground is reached whereby developers pay Apple for the privilege of compatibility--like what they've managed to do with the iPod dock connector.
As a potential customer, I can say that I was 100% ready to buy some of these initially, until I heard about this very surprising position taken by Apple. Now, I don't know. It's possible I would buy one, but $600 is a lot to spend for what is an admittedly elegant but extremely limited feature set.
Although I do have a dollar here that says hackers will figure it out whatever Apple does...
But the executive summary is that this is a bummer for users and has legitimately dissipated the bulk of the excitement that surrounded the iPhone launch. I think most users naturally assumed it would run a diverse set of applications, so at first it seemed like an ultra-portable mini-Mac. Now, it's more like an ultra-portable mini-Mac that only runs iLife. The former is a lot more exciting than the latter.
What they probably mean is "no applications unless you pay through the nose to Cingular or Apple for them." And they probably painted themselves in that corner with the price.
Let's face it, the fact that cell phones so far did less is _not_ because Nokia and others are stupid. Psion alone has quite a lot of experience in making stuff that goes from phones to good PDAs (including some decent office tools, for a PDA) to a sort of a micro-laptop. They figured out by now what the users want, and believe me, the thought of using a touch-screen _did_ occur to them before too. (The Psion 5 did a great job of using both touch screen and keyboard, for example.) Anyone who thinks it took Jobs to show everyone how to scroll a map on a touch screen, needs a bit of a reality check.
The reason why cell phones were limited devices has to do with cost, power consumption and "how much do we think the market would pay for it" issues. Most of the market wants to get their phone almost for free, and in fact often get some other stuff with it too. Then the contract recoups most of that, but then it means the phone itself can't cost thousands, because even with the contract and fleecing them for ringtones and SMS, there's only so much money you'll have to pay for phones _and_ the telco infrastructure _and_ other operating costs _and_ hopefully make a small profit, or at least not make a big loss.
So the more money you want a telco to pay to subsidize your phone, the more hope you must give them that they'll actually get that money back one way or another. E.g., you pack an IRC client on it to give them some hope that some idiot kid will rake up a huge phone bill while spending hours on IRC with a crap number pad as a keyboard. Or you give them an exclusivity contract, in which they practically pay you advertising money for a reason for people to switch to their network. That's worth more money, but even that has a limited upper limit. Or you try to lock it down and give them a "see, but they'll have to buy this and that only from you" hope. Which is obviously what Apple is doing here.
So at the end of the day, that's about how much a traditional phone can cost. That's why you can only pack so much CPU, RAM and everything in it.
Why the iPhone does more is probably because it costs an arm and a leg to produce. Being launched with an exclusive contract and still be left with a huge price tag anyway already hinted at that, but it's details like these that hint at exactly how huge the price must be. Cingular probably ends up paying a heck of a lot to subsidize Apple's gizmo, and they needed a heck of a reason to do that. Enter the "what if we completely locked it down, so people have to buy _everything_ from you?" factor.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Cisco, which owns the iPhone trademark, has announced what they want for it.
An "open approach". Interoperability.
Fundamentally we wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future. In our view, the network provides the basis to make this happen--it provides the foundation of innovation that allows converged devices to deliver the services that consumers want. Our goal was to take that to the next level by facilitating collaboration with Apple. And we wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony. That's it. Openness and clarity. - Cisco's general counsel.
Cringely points out that the original Jobs MacIntosh bombed because he locked out third-party hardware vendors. Now Jobs is doing the same with the iPhone, but this time locking out third-party software vendors. The only real question here is "Will this stop people from buying the iPhone?" Won't worry Grandma or little Bobby, but would it bother your tech savy user? Jobs is betting it won't.
Cringely also predicts it'll be renamed the 'Apple Phone', and says Apple was negotiating with Cisco over the iPhone name before the announcement so it's not like they didn't know. He suggests its a publicity play.
If Mac OS X is truly the foundation of the iPhone, buggy apps shouldn't be able to do the things you and Steve are warning against. Stability of the phone or network shouldn't be jeopardized by renegade user-installed applications because the OS and the networking protocol should lock them down to acceptable behavior.
I was fully going to switch to this phone in June. No joke. But this statement by Jobs has certainly installed boundaries for my imagination running wild with this device's potential. Specifically, I'm betting Apple will restrict 3rd-party-apps to prevent skype-like apps from being installed. Don't want to give the consumer TOO good of a deal.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Thank Heaven these people only have 5% share of PC market. If they had the power, they would be worse than MS!
Maybe Pear or something...It was a long time ago when they actually published the full schematics and source code of their Apple II ROMs. Of Course, if Jobs had any real say, that would have never have happened. He constantly was trying to close the systems more and more (the Apple III was closed). Woz told him to stick it in the early days, but then he left and we got the Mac. In every case, the closed systems flopped while the old, but open, Apple II kept the company afloat for years until they convinced everyone that open was bad. Well, they did a good job. No one seems to really care that their iPods are completely unprogrammable, and that their phone can only run software from JAMDAT. Meanwhile, the whole idea of making computers work for you instead of the other way around has gone the way of BASIC interpreters. People are being USED instead of being USERS. It is a real shame, and I think it bodes very poorly for the future of computing. I dread the day that ALL systems are closed and only a privileged few will be able to program them in any meaningful way.
It is such an incredible shame that such an enticing machine is all look, but no touch. It's like being given a piano and told that you can't try and play it, only look at it. It's just wrong in so many ways.
Well, I guess Jobs thinks that I should be happy that he is saving me from myself. Unfortuntely, it seems the rest of world IS happy about it and that just makes me even more depressed.
I never liked that guy... he still owes woz some money for breakout...
Thanks,
Mike
That something would come along so soon and make the PS3 look like a sound investment.
I mean, where are these "Desktop Class Apps" touted in the keynote? All I see on the phone is Calender, Maps, Notes and a Web Browser. That's it? And we're supposed to be excited it took OSX to run those? How can this phone *not* be considered a tablet PC/phone?
Argh.
The relevant quote...
In other words, the reporter doesn't know squat about the actual circumstances regarding third-party apps and is blowing farts in the wind, making speculative and general statements in the hope that someone will imagine that he's right when something he says turns out to vaguely resemble the truth.
Actually, no. The proper translation of this statement of course is "Our network security is so poor that we cannot take the risk of anybody connecting to it in a programmatic fashion".
Openmoko.com.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
My optimism about iPhone as a tablet just reduced substantially. If I can't program it its of no interest to me. Heck, I imagined a minor bit of programming that I'd like to have on an iPhone as I was driving back from a Chorus rehearsal tonight. Unless Apple has already thought of it, I'd be out of luck.
I'll be interested again when they repackage it as a Mac mini-tablet computer.
Everything I saw in the videos was great, especially the part about many Mac apps working with it. As it stands now, I'm sure I can do more with a Nokia 770 or 800.
There will still be a large market for this phone. Most people cannot program and would not be interested in doing so on their cell phone. But with this decision Apple has given up a secondary market that might have kickstarted their sales.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
The obvious answer to iPhone closedness is OpemMoko's openness. Vote with your dollars: go buy an OpenMoko when they hit the market in a few months. http://openmoko.com/
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
So how powerful is the inbuilt web browser?
If it can run java applets near full-screen then I don't see why you can't implement a whole
heap of stuff that way. Sure, no VoIP or offline games, but I can't see why you couldn't run
SSH clients or custom internet based apps that way.
Sure I'm not interested in a device costing that much that I can't write stuff that runs offline for (and in NZ
it'll cost $unfeasible to use our shitty mobile networks), but there looks like *some* ability there
to run custom apps.
- MugginsM
The US- wireless carriers are all scared shitless of a device like this.
Sorry, you just don't have this kind of shit dictated by European phone networks. Phones sold here (with and without plans) have no such restrictions.
They also don't have any restrictions in uploading your sounds, images, movies or (in case of smartphones) applications.
They also don't come with criplled Bluetooth stacks or some of the other stunts of which US carriers seem so fond of pulling off.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
You seem to have little to no experience with Apple's handheld devices. The entire iPodLinux project was started because, among other things, there is no native support for Vorbis or FLAC in the iPod firmware. If people do not hack the devices and write the code, there won't be any support for unpatented free formats. There will only be locked AAC audio and MP4 video. MP3 will appear (with the inferior Fraunhofer codec) because of popular demand, but that's it.
(Note: Fraunhofer is ironically not the highest quality encoder for MP3s anymore. LAME is considered much higher quality.)
~ C.
In the very same article, however, he goes on to say:
"That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
Steve's obviously playing control freak here, but I can understand his reasoning. Sony does the same thing for the PlayStation platform. An SDK ~is~ available, if you pay the huge fee for it, and Sony still gets to decide if your title is good enough to get their PlayStation branding. If the iPhone is going to work as a product for Apple, it really does have to work just as smoothly as its demo. Just like Sony, Apple gets to vet/check software before it goes out into the wide world.
The hacker geeks aren't going to like it, but, hey, it didn't stop Sony from owning the world with this very same model for the PSX and PS2.
Oh, and you can bet your bottom dollar this isn't the only device in this area that Apple will be bringing out. Expect to see this techology in a more hackable, computer-like form very soon.
I say let the iPhone be an iPhone -- that's what's it's going to be good at.
Using the holy grail of OSes...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
...and he sure as hell has spent more time thinking about this than I have. And yet, I still think this is very much the wrong move. Look at the success Nokia is having with the 770 and soon the 800. I will go so far as to say the only reason that device is successful is they were smart enough to build it on Linux (Debian), release an API (for the bits they even needed to do the API for -- e.g., their customised window manager), and foster a development community. That was just effing smart. Instead of the device having very limited functionality, it has -- with very little effort -- a rich set of open source software available for it. Sure, some of that's going to crash it, but there are clear distinctions between Nokia-tested and certified software and the things you download from Joe Blogg's website, and You Are Warned every time you install something. I just wish they'd put a phone module in it, but it can bluetooth to my phone, so...
As for the bit about Cingular's network going down: Bullshit. (Pardon my English.) Do an API to the phone functionality it provides, test that, and that's an end to it. If the network's that delicate, that's a useful thing to know and fix, because sure as heck someone will take advantage of it (using something other than an iPhone) otherwise.
This has the feel of something being forced by the phone companies, even if Apple is historically fairly closed (OS/X being the big -- and welcome -- exception). And yet, frankly, this is going to be the Must Have Item for a large number of high-quality customers (Christmas 2007, start saving now kids), what network can afford not to support it?
Something that made me smile during the launch was "you don't need Exchange Server anymore"!
Well.. What if I WANT Exchange Server?
It's no good going against RIM without supporting, for better or worse, one of the most widely used corporate email systems there is. I can't see my boss being happy about me forwarding everything I have to a Yahoo account. I couldn't if I wanted to as all internet email sites are blocked. This is *not* a Blackberry-killer.
And I don't buy Jobs' argument that these smart phones are difficult to use, he just sounds like a marketing guy.
Oh disclaimer: I'm normally a fan boi.
After the initial elation, I'm crashing back down to reality.
:(
The price tag didn't seem that scary at first. My brand new Nokia N70 costs 400E off the shelf.* With a 2-year plan, that came down to 55E, pretty damn affordable for a near-Smartphone. I didn't understand, at first, that the iPhone's price (500$ or 600$) included the 2-year plan! As I fully expect Cingular to charge for services (the very services the iPhone is so cool about) on top of that, the price has suddenly leapt straight out of my potential budget (and I'm a gadget lover with a good pay!).
No 3G? Well, there's no camera on the iPhone, so you won't be suffering bad video-conferencing. And if you're only use text e-mails, that's OK. Too bad for the "our browser isn't crippled and text-only!" hype. At those speeds, you'll want to go back to WAP.
And now no 3rd party apps? Their lame excuses don't even surprise me. I guess they're perfectly understandable for the mid-to-high level risk-averse manager. Whatever. However, I expect they'll catch up by selling apps for the iPhone. This is the final straw that confirms the iPhone beyond "barely affordable but classy social symbol" the iPod was so good to hit, and right into "outrageously priced executive toy".
Happy Feeling's gone
I'm not predicting a flop or anything. I think it'll revolutionize the way we use "phones" if other companies can get the hint, and I sure hope they'll do it quickly. All of a sudden the interface of my N70 seems awfully clunky...
*Yep, I live in Europe, which means the iPhone won't be available to me anytime soon anyhow.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Jobs is explicit quoted as saying:
Nowhere does it say there will be no third party apps available.
Maybe I am missing the point of Widgets, but on the iPhone, wouldn't their primary use come from being connected to the Internet, anyway? I don't use Widgets very extensively in Dashboard, but it seems they'd mostly be useful for tracking simple things: hockey scores, movie times, etc. I guess games are one aspect where network connectivity is unnecessary. If it were cached properly, would it matter?
We see both sides of Mr. Jobs here.. The perfectionist that drove the absolutely wonderful user interface of the iPhone. The attention to detail, and unwillingness to stop at "good enough" just drips off that interface.
Then, we see the arrogant Jobs, insisting on a closed platform, locking out third party software. His statements about it being more like an iPod than a computer are ludicrous. The input capabilities of an iPod are non-existant, making third party software almost irrelevant. A closed iPhone will be hamstrung from the start.
I really like the UI. But, I'll probably wait a bit for the Video iPod version, with no phone features. The inability to load my own software (i.e. have full control of the device I pay for) is a big drawback, as is the two year commitment to Cingular. (And, no.. I'm not an Apple nay-sayer. I own two iPods and three Macs. I'm just not a fan of completely closed systems.)
This is just speculation, but I'm pretty sure that what they are aming for is administrative power of what gets released and whats not. Just like Nindtendo/Sony/MS have a firm grip over what gets published for their (gaming) hardware.
After all, the hardware is a one time fee, controling the software sales (earning royalties on everything sold for the device) is the big revenue stream.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
While geeks and techies will whinge, the iPhone will sell like hotcakes. People don't want to fiddle around adding stuff to their products, they just want products that do what they are supposed to do well, out of the box. Sure, there are people who like adding features, add-ons and 'hacks', but Joe Blow doesn't.
Take cars, for example. The average buyer won't change anything but the tires and oil (maybe the C.D player). iPods seem to have done all right without software changes, despite the cries of 'no OGG!'. As long as the car drives, handles, and plays CDs O.K, then people are happy. As long as your iPod plays music all right, people are happy. And as long as the iPhone does everything it says it will at reasonable price, people will be happy.
You can use lots of programmable third party phones with Cingular: the Treos, the Nokia E61/E62, etc. The E61 even runs VoIP, and you program it in C/C++.
The source of the restriction must be Apple, not Cingular.
Funny is, I was hoping for Opera Mobile right after I saw "Zinio reader" style web browsing.
;)
We like Safari on Desktop but Opera Mobile is like 5 years ahead of competition on that business.
I wonder another thing. Why can't a system being "5 years ahead" doesn't come with built in spam protection? I tried Kaspersky Symbian Beta and it adds "sms/mms spam protection" to my Nokia.
Cingular doesn't want it too I guess
Okay, so just about every single response to this post ranked "5: Insightful" can be summarized as this: "I'm not going to buy the iPhone because Steve won't let me write my own programs!" Sure, fine, great, whatever. Sorry you're disappointed, hope you find another solution that works for you. But after reading this same general attitude a couple dozen times, I am compelled to respond with an alternate perspective: Contrary to Commander Taco's (much quoted) original assessment of the original, the iPod has indeed gone on to become the most popular MP3 player ever produced, to the point that its impact has risen to impacting the music retail business itself. (iTunes now sells more music than Amazon, etc. etc.) All this not only *without* many of the more sophisticated features many Slashdotters may have wished it had - but *because* it doesn't have those features! I for one am glad to have an MP3 player with a simple interface, and innovative (click-wheel) navigation. And while I have no intention of buying the current iPhone - ...because it's out of my price range ...because I hate Cingular's customer service (and have grown quite loyal to my new carrier because of theirs) ...because I want something a little more rugged and less "precious," and ...because I frankly don't need to read the New York Times Online on my phone....
I *will* be *quite* happy, in a year or so, when I can get a nice touch-screen driven, visual-voicemail equipped cell phone in my price range, perhaps called something like an "iPhone Nano" - whose technology was made possible by this initial market entry model!
Sheesh, call me flamebait if you want, but I don't get this tone of entitlement in some of these posts! Cingular (whom I HATE), had to re-jigger its infrastructure to make visual voicemail possible, not to mention committing to the iPhone sight unseen.
Frankly, if they demand Steve not let users upload ringtones for free because they'd rather make money selling them, I simply won't buy any ringtones, but I won't feel like Steve/Apple/Cingular is "ripping me off" for not providing me everything for free.
Sure, you buy the phone, you own the PHONE. Crack it open, get out your banana clips and soldering iron and do whatever you want to it. But if a "closed system" is what Steve/Apple/Cingular decide for whatever reason *including making money* is what they require to bring this tech to market, so be it.
Your palms, et al are still out there for you. Enjoy. And enjoy trying to motivate them to produce a comparable device like the iPhone. I'm sure it'll be any day now. /rant
"if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate"
This is an old idea; the part you bolded in your quote says it all. Essentially, the apps need to be digitally signed. It sucks; I used to use a platform that was like that. Things were stagnant in the first year, no interesting software came out. Getting the dev kit and certification is extremely expensive and well out of the reach for any OSS and most shareware.
After a while (almost a year), other operators started to sell the same phone without the limitation. Orange UK, the telco, were forced to allow users to disable the certificate check. After that, the number of applications available exploded, even despite the fact that this override wasn't made very public and was an "in-the-know" thing for some time. Nowadays, anyone can download the dev kit and program in a variety of languages.
So, it's not for sure that it'll never allow you to use a dev-kit, but it's pretty unlikely unless you have got at least $10,000 to burn. But this may change in future.
As an aside, Orange continued and still continued to protect their network. You need a special certificate to write applications that access the phone stack, and this keeps the network free from malicious apps. This can be a pain in the ass, but overall it's a good idea. As the devices generally have a fully working TCP stack, you can just use that for your comms. Sucks if you want to write e.g. fax software though.
Jobs strategy also rules out the possibility of disabled users installing the 3rd party assistive technology they need to use such devices. That should play out well...
No sorry, the $20/month plan is not available for PDA's - that a smartphone-only plan. Just ask those who bought Blackjacks or Treos. The fortunate ones have legacy plans but new activations are limited to $40 PDA plans. Why the difference? That's a fantasy of Cingular's accounting department.
e s/serviceDetails.jsp?LOSGId=&skuId=sku1040072 - which, since Apple has made no noise about this being included, may be your only way to get this feature. Yea, I'd say $3000 isn't too far off the mark!
Also there is a requirement for these plans to be paired with at least a $40/month voice plan (and not forgetting the $5/month fees that sound like taxes but aren't) that's $85/month - for 2 years that's a minimum of $2540 (including the cheaper phone).
Want voice dialing? Cingular will sell you one for another $120 ($5/mo)- http://www.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/servic
This device looks great but when they went with Cingular they had to get greedy...
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
This is exactly what I have been telling friends the past few days. Sure the Greenphone and OpenMoko are great little devices, but neither of them has the design of the iPhone.
The iPhone is just down right nice, and the interface is fantastic.
However... I don't get why apple fanboys are so anti microsoft. In the past few years, Apple has proven to be just a evil as MS and in some ways worse. The whole "no third party apps" is a prime example, great... another Apple product with some amazing hardware that won't run the software I want.
I'll still buy an iPhone though... just as soon as unlocked ones start hitting ebay.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
"When it comes to the European market, they have already done that through their lack of 3G support and text messaging client."
um, it does have SMS-client. As to 3G.... Who cares? I use my phone for lots if things, including websurfing and email. And my service includes 3G. And my phone supports 3G. And I switched it off withen 12 hours of getting the phone. Not because it costs money (my employer pays my bills), but because it sucks battery-life.
Right now, 3G is just a tickbox-feature. Operators and customers "want it", when in real life they have no use for it.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
While I respect your desire for third-party apps on a phone, I personally just don't see the point, and definitely don't think this is newsworthy for the majority of iPhone's potential buyers. Slashdot readers, absolutely. But for management consultants (and other "look how busy I am" types), real estate agents, sales people, or, as Jobs noted in TFA, soccer moms, this shouldn't matter or affect sales.
I have a Treo 700p now, and while there are hundreds (thousands?) of third-party PalmOS apps out there, I have yet to install a single one. I want web, e-mail, calendar, SMS and, what's that last one? Oh yeah, phone functionality (haha!).
I could see people needing specialized third-party apps for business purposes (i.e. software to run add-ons like barcode scanners, diagnostics tools, pharmacists' drug reference database apps, etc.). But short of games, I just don't see the average iPhone buyer really noticing that they don't have the ability to install third-party apps.
But now that this is "big news," I can see a handful of people making a lot of noise about how the iPhone "sucks" because of this restriction...sort of like the handful of people that make a lot of noise because iPod lacks an FM tuner (which is another thing I just don't understand...FM radio, with the exception of NPR, is what drove me to purchase an iPod. Why would I want my oasis of commercial-free, non-crap music to contain an FM tuner?!).
If the iPhone (or whatever it'll be called once Cisco's done taking Apple through the lawsuit wringer) offers everything Steve said it would, I plan on getting in line as soon as it's available.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
What I think is extra funny about this is that, during the keynote speach, Steve Jobs made a big deal of the fact that the iPhone runs OS X and the crowd was very impressed by that. Now, I wonder what Steve Jobs thought the crowd was thinking when he told them that the iPhone "runs OS X".
He must have thought, "Cool. People like using OS X so much that the mere fact that we used it on this phone has them all giddy."
Rather than (the more obvious), "People are really excited about the possibility of being able to run a great variety of apps that utilizes various OS X APIs on this thing."
cygnuhchur
However, I know what Steve is doing. He knows that he cannot deploy a cellphone without a network. But once there are enough users of iPhones, his negotiating position will change. People will become loyal to the iPhone product, willing to switch networks rather than switch phones. The two year window with Cingular is the gestation time for this to happen. After that, you can bet your *ss that iChat and all manner of liberation will emerge. If it doesn't, then people will abandon iPhone for similar products guaranteed to ship from the likes of Nokia, Samsung and Motorola.
I would like to believe that Apple knows what customers want well enough to avoid that, but companies such as Cingular definitely do not.
No, it isn't the only way. But it is the only sane way to enter the intensely competitive and huge cellphone market. A privacy disaster or virus disaster (etc..) would quickly eliminate Apple from carving out any significant piece of that market. Steve is entering with all the control in his pocket in order to ensure a successful birth. Wait for the child to grow a bit, it will open up.
Did you see the keynote? Did you notice how radically more advanced the user interface is? This isn't a small advancement.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving