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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."
1. Cellular networks are fragile. Much more fragile than the larger internet. They tend toward monoculture and proprietary systems, and haven't had the shakedown that standard internet network hardware and protocols have had. So Jobs' quote about him 'not wanting third-party apps bringing Cingular's network down' actually makes some sense (some mobile phone applications have more-or-less done this in the past). And
2. Apple simply doesn't have the design tools, and more importantly, the user interface guidelines, ready for developers.
So, third-party apps on the iPhone will happen. Just in a very measured way.
Here's Siracusa:
One thing Apple could do is allow software development, but only allow HTTP calls out of said apps - that way it would allow Cingular to shape traffic and not risk wonkiness from raw TCP handling by applications.
I'd be happy enough with an API that let me develop a simple interface that could store some data locally and sync with a computer, so even no network access for applications at all would be of some use (though obviously as the device is very network centric it would not be nearly as fun).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is always next year.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If this critter has WiFi, and someone ports Skype to it, a damned fine radical shift in cell communications is very possible. While it wouldn't work outside of large metro areas (ones with lots of free WiFi, anyway), it would make phone companies, contracts, and all the BS that goes with 'em rather obsolete, methinks.
(then again, we'd likely see folks like Verizon et al start lobbying city councils to stop putting in free wifi, like Qwest and Comcast did when Utah began it's UTOPIA project of multiple city-funded fiber-to-the-doorstep projects all linked together).
Either way, it'd be damned cool, IMHO.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
802.11 sniffer
That's what I've been waiting for in iPhone news. Sure, there's the Oqo and some Axim-type devices that work for this, but very few that can harness the power of a terminal window, which I've been told (by an Apple higher ed employee) we'll be able to do on the iPhone.
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More importantly, once it's running vista, can you run a virtualized instance of linux on that, on which you run an emulator of a 6 year old version of palm OS. That way you can play DopeWars in all of it's 4 shades of gray glory. Of course, that's still worthless unless you can do all of the above from a terminal window on your powerbook, ssh'd into the iphone while it's still sitting in your pocket.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
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.
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back in the day we didnt have no old school
GPS can be added in quite a nice way to Bluetooth devices. Devices such as the Holux GPSlim 240 (my preferred choice) are under $100, the size of a memory stick, and have one of the bets GPS chipsets on the market (works inside a glove compartment), and relays the GPS data to a Bluetooth device. Works perfectly with my UTStarCom 6700 Phone (Windows Mobile 5) and TomTom Navigator. One added benefit is that you can stick the bluetooth GPS device in a handy spot (on a dash, up on deck on a boat, etc.) to increase reception, while having your phone anywhere within reasonable bluetooth range.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
And so does my wife.
Hers is from Nokia, mine is from HTC (I'm posting from it). They both have wifi and run Skype (and SIP, which IMO is better). They both have 3G too. Mine also has a full touchscreen and keyboard.
What you're asking for has been available for years. All Apple has done is put a (very) slick UI on it. It's nice, but I'm still waiting for the paradigm shift to kick in.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I don't believe so. But I'm curious whether the E911 system could be used in the phone in order to determine your location? There are rumors talking about this...
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.
You're right on target. Furthermore, Apple has a long history, going back to the founding of NeXT, of being exceedingly careful with the publication of new API and SDK. They typically develop at least one application which makes extensive use of the new API, and ship that application first. Then they get feedback on the application, go through another app development cycle, improve the API, etc. Finally, after they are very happy internally with the API, they might publish a public version of it in a developer release of the next release of the OS, and get feedback from developers, incorporate that feedback to the extent possible, and then ship the API. Then, they sometimes go through that cycle again with the next release of the OS before the API has really settled.
This is a somewhat painful process for those of us on the outside, and it normally takes a couple years before the API is published. However, it has resulted in API which, on the whole, are widely respected by talented developers with experience on multiple platforms. Some of those API have evolved only modestly since initial creation, some of those over 15 years ago, and are still regarded as advanced and modern.
It's also clear that Apple will need to accelerate this process a bit for the iPhone, simply because they want to develop *several* applications internally. They need the API and developer tools themselves. The good news is that this will also give them the experience with making different kinds of apps which will help round out and debug the API faster. We won't need to wait two years for the first version of the API. There is a non-zero chance we might see it, or at least hear about it, at WWDC 2007, the Cocoa API, not merely the Widget API.
It's clear that Apple has legitimate reasons for wanting to get the application development stuff "right" on the iPhone. The app market on most of the other cell phone platforms is really a disaster in the making. In addition to zillions of apps that are utter crap, which drag performance of the device down to unbearably slow, which crash and which feature generally poorly integrated UI, there is the looming threat of malware. There have already been a few malware incidents, and one of these days there will be a big, big malware incident. Apple doesn't want to be the platform that got nailed first. They don't want to get nailed at all.
Apple was intentionally vague about the SDK at the announcement of the iPhone because they didn't have all the answers lined up, really, none of them. But there will be a 3rd part app market at some point. And it will be huge.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
There have been a number of incidents with cell phone networks like this. The service providers are really freaky paranoid about updating software on the switches and other network components, and are utterly loathe to update the firmware on the cell phones partly because they live in constant fear of unintended consequences of change. The change control procedures on the software systems for the network devices are mind numbing.
These incidents don't get published, just like most worm outbreaks in large corporate and government networks don't get published. I know a lot of them happened because I saw them first hand. Can't prove them to some random snit on Slashdot, however. The victims are often more afraid of the bad publicity than anything else that could result from an incident, and they eschew publicity. (The world would probably be a better place if they did share these experiences more widely, because lessons could be learned, software and procedures improved, etc., but that's not how managers of bureaucratic organizations operate just yet.)
To those demanding to see a link, I say: Well, since most of the people who actually know things like this are restricted by NDA agreements and also have the integrity to honor those agreements, perhaps first, you prove to us that pluto exists. I'm not talking about some white dot that could be a pin prick on a slide. You don't really know that Pluto exists, and nobody here has time to educate you in both epistemology and information technology so that you understand enough that we can "prove" everything to your pathetic satisfaction. Before mouthing off and demanding a link as though that constituted proof, maybe you should start by asking yourselves, "hrm... why would he lie about this?" If there are no compelling motivations for a big lie, then maybe, just maybe, he's not lying. Or maybe you don't believe him because you yourselves lie so often that you don't believe anyone else? What a sad life that must be.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It got a lot of public ridicule, but they still sold out their pre-orders in many places.
I think the reason this change happened is because someone at Apple ran the numbers and realized they could find themselves in a position to make simply UNGODLY amounts of money off businesses of every size from mom-and-pop outfits to multinational conglomerates if they could find an effective way to create a software ecosystem around the iPhone. Now everything from your stupid little cash register applications all the way up to massive CRM systems can talk to the iPhone, and the iPhone can talk to them.
This is the first real, commercially-viable UNIX-esque cellular device out there. Apple also has a chance to place themselves in the position of being THE SOLE PRODUCER of a standardized, next-generation UNIX handheld.
This was a very, very good move on their part. Even the price won't stop the iPhone now.
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