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iPhone To Allow 3rd-Party Development
Anarchysoft writes "In an exciting shift from previous statements, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed at the D Conference that 3rd-party development will be supported on the iPhone. Questions remain as to whether the opening of the platform, slated for later this year, will be through Dashboard-like widgets or a separate SDK."
Ballocks. The saw the intense negative criticism the original decision produced and changed their minds. The reason a sdk isn't available is because they'd never planned for one originally.
Always wait for version two - expect 3G, expect more than 8GB of storage and pray for GPS.
a forced 2 year voice and data plan will stop that.
The sad thing is that his comment is probably the most accurate interpretation of events. Apple stated in no uncertain terms that there would not be third-party apps on the iPhone, except through Apple. This is a complete 180 from their original statement. He is probably correct.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's VERY hard to ship a new embedded platform in a timely manner with an SDK that supports arbitrary third-party development for a new product. So hard, that it's almost never the right answer to hold off ship to wait for an SDK. An organization is much better off shipping the working, robust 1.0 product into customer's hands and use that experience to build a quality SDK and toolchain. The platform itself is a sea of unknown problem domains ("arr, here be dragons!") for a "version 1.0" product like the iPhone.
In modern marketing Steve Jobs has no equal. I think you'd have to go back all the way back to P.T. Barnum to find a similar exec in a similar industry (entertainment) who marketed his wares so effectively with personal announcements.
#EOF
back in the day we didnt have no old school
An easy start for Apple would be to put a Java runtime environment on the iPhone. Then people could start developing third-party apps for the iPhone right now.
That'd be less than useless...how are you going to do mail, SSH, VNC, or whatever if everything but HTTP traffic is blocked?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Bullshit. Utter crap. Why is there this paranoia about the iPhone, when Symbian, Windows CE/Mobile have allowed this for years? There is no way an application on a device should or could bring down a base station, let alone a cell network.
Oh, and as for this gem:
Cite. Go on. I would so so love to see a citation of any evidence of this. Any, whatsoever.
Steve Jobs revealed at the D Conference that 3rd-party development will be supported on the iPhone
Maybe I'll get one after all then.
What is the point of a portable computer as powerful as the iPhone if it can't run 3rd party apps?
Has anyone seriously believed that there wouldn't be third-party development for the iPhone? I was under the impression that the answer to that question was pretty obvious. The only question has been what form it would take, and even that is pretty obvious if you just look at the thing: Dashboard!
For starters, the interface has a lot of the same visual elements as Dashboard. The grille/tray, rounded-glass squares, identical icons. Hell, identical set of apps as the default set of Dashboard widgets. Dead giveaway. And why shouldn't it be the same set of apps? Apart from email, the main reason to have an internet-connected phone is for quickly fetching bite-sized chunks of information: exactly the sort of thing that widgets are good for.
Consider also that typical widgets take up very little memory and about the same amount of screen real estate as is available on the iPhone. On a Mac, this is because it is expected that you'll be looking at a bunch at the same time, but on the iPhone it's a perfect fit. For existing widgets, it's trivial to either modify the interface to fit the iPhone's screen or load a different interface depending on the platform.
There's no reason why every existing widget couldn't easily be made to run on iPhone, something that isn't true for existing desktop applications. That means thousands of applications available as soon as Apple allows it. Hell, developers don't even need to own or have access to an iPhone to be able to write applications for it. And before anyone screams "JavaScript Sucks", remember that Dashboard widgets can work with Cocoa, too. Off hand I can't think of much that you can't do in a widget. (For a good time, open up the Quartz Composer template included with Dashcode and ask yourself how much fun it would be if you could touch the cube.)
I know there a lot of doubters, but I think that iPhone is going to become the easiest mobile platform to develop third-party apps for.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Right. You think that Apple hadn't anticipated a market demand for third party apps? Apple pays a lot of attention to the upgrade path and lifespan of their products, in addition to looking at competitor capabilities-- you think they are building in the capability of third-party apps as some sort of afterthought on one of the most anticipated product launches in history? Apple isn't some garage-shop start-up, some fly-by-night operation that responds to nerds on Slashdot.
Given that we all knew Apple itself would be releasing future software upgrade apps for the iPhone, it isn't hard to imagine they've thoroughly thought through having third-party developers on board. What Apple really is is notoriously mum on future products and capabilities, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand why Apple doesn't show its cards all of the time in scenarios such as this. History shows that Apple is not a market follower, but a market leader. Pandering to markets is very different from creating them.
And believe me, Apple is still going to control everything on the iPhone. There is no way this is going to be open season on the iPhone, not without taking over the device completely Amarok-style (which would result in a huge loss of system integration, the very feature that most poeple are willing to pay for). Apps are going to be added and removed via an iTunes-like interface just like games on the iPod, and Apple is going to stand in the middle taking its cut, but most importantly controlling/defending the quality of the iPhone experience, which is their most valuable asset.
And god bless them for it. It's the reason their platform is famous for its degree of simplicity, stability, and high quality. I'm not really interested in whatever backwater goofball app you'd concoct that would crash my iPhone.
"Sufferin' succotash."
OS X doesn't come with applications that do more than a very small subset of the functions I want.
Yes but we are not talking about a full computer. We are talking about a phone. Or at least a consumer device in a phone form factor.
It doesn't come with everything I would ever want either. But in aggregate, it comes with mostly what people need, along with a lot of what people would want - from an iPod, web browser, and phone. That's true enough for me that I'm getting one, 3rd party apps or no - again, a real browser means a lot of possibilities for light web based applications, that can live just fine on a low bandwidth diet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm just saying. There is entirely too much utter baseless crap like this in all the forums. I'm guessing a paid campagin.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.