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No iPhone SDK Means No iPhone Killer Apps
iPhoneLover/Hater writes "Gizmodo is running an article analyzing the potential failure of the iPhone as a truly revolutionary platform. The reason: no SDK to harness the true power of Mac OS X and the frameworks contained in Apple's smart cell. From the article: 'According to Apple, "no software developer kit is required for the iPhone." However, the truth is that the lack of an SDK means that there won't be a killer application for the iPhone. It also means the iPhone's potential as an amazing computing and communication platform will never be realized. And because of this and no matter how Apple tries to sell it, the iPhone won't make a revolution happen.'"
"the lack of an SDK means that there won't be a killer application for the iPhone"
Who's to say that Apple can't/won't write that killer app?
In theory, theory always works in practice. In practice, theory rarely works. <><
Just because there's no SDK today doesn't mean there won't be one later this year.
Apple is trying to defuse outrage over their refusal to provide an SDK (for "security"...) by saying "people can use rich web apps, it's the same thing!" This is incredibly disingenuous and I hope I'm not the only one who won't be getting an iPhone because of it's closed nature.
"If you do something revolutionary like make an SDK unnecessary, you will fail." -- The Establishment
YouTube was written without an SDK, at least no more, or no less, of an SDK than the iPhone has, and yet I'd call it a killer app.
The notion that something has to be compiled into machine language to be a killer app is kind of wonky, if you ask me. Everyone out there already making clever web apps might have something to say about that.
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Well, the problem with making AJAX the iPhone "SDK" is that the iPhone is 2.5G. Oops. Those neat-o AJAX apps won't be too much fun on a GPRS connection that is about as fast as a 56K modem (and in my experience, you get a burst of data, then nothing, then a burst, then nothing, ad infinitum).
We know how terribly the iPod did without custom apps.
Did anyone watch WWDC? I did last night. The iPhone has the full WebKit framework which means any Web 2.0/Ajax app will run on it if it runs in Safari. You can do things through Ajax like make a phone call. They did a sweet demo where clicking on links would bring up the mail app, make a phone call through Safari, send an address to Google maps, etc.
This seems like a good way to go IMO. You don't need to learn yet another SDK. If you can program with Javascript, HTML, you can make apps for the iPhone. If there is a bug in your app, you don't have to create a new installer and get that new version out to millions of people. Just update the code on your server and now all users have the latest-and-greatest.
Through Safari, you will be able to do tons of things with the iPhone and web 2.0/Ajax stuff, all the core functions of the iPhone are available to you.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
This is true and symptomatic of the whole mobile space. If you have experience in the mobile space, this will come as little surprise to you. All the carriers want to lock down and control every bit that flows on their networks so they can extract all the profit out of every bit. It's amazing that Apple has got as much enabled on the phone as it has.
This sort of thing is why mobile networking in the U.S. and many other countries is a total and unmitigated disaster. All of the networks have tried so hard to make sure they get all the profit potential out of the networks they have made it very unattractive for third party developers. As a result, the mobile networking space just rots waiting for a competitor or new form of getting data to mobile points that make the existing mobile networks obsolete (this is hard because of governmental regulation and selling of exclusive rights to frequency bands, so it is also a regulatory disaster). This is why all the services you hear prognosticators in Wired and other magazines rhapsodize about never materialize. It's also ironic in that the carriers would be making more money if they had opened up to the killer apps and therefore increased the overall demand for networking.
In short, through the regulatory processes and lack of fair trade enforcement, the U.S. has sold its mobile networking potential and commons into the hands of thieves, whose greed and hubris have essentially delayed progress in mobile networking for at least a decade. If I could make that statement in stronger terms, I would. The mobile space is essentially what happens when you have the complete antithesis of 'network neutrality' and, though network neutrality might not be a great regulatory strategy in the fixed-network space, the complete opposite of it is surely well-nigh catastrophic as can be seen from the mobile space.
The device looks very cool. It has all sorts of cool features for storing and listening to music, taking and showing photos, organizing a schedule, etc. Unfortunately, this is a 'convergence' product almost a decade late. Furthermore, it doesn't do the ONE thing I want and need: allow me to take eink notes or annotate over pdfs. Apple really missed the boat here. And I think here we see Jobs' bias against pen input really damaging the potential of this product. I don't need yet another calendar. I need a tool to manipulate divergent notes from a variety of projects. And being able to snap photos of text in a book or original source materials for batch OCR would be nice too.
Jobs made a very nice toy. Unfortunately, I need a tool - and the iPhone ain't it.
The phone will live or die based on the fact that it costs $500 with a 2 year contract. You can make a really nice car that gets 100 mpg, but if the market can't afford it, you aren't going to revolutionize anything. Sure, it may end up like the Newton, with a rabid following; and yeah, some of that functionality will trickle down and affect the industry. But talking about the success of this phone is silly; it just costs too much.
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There's a reasonably good reason, and don't hold your breath waiting for the answer to change.
Whether or not the phone is "really" running OSX is debatable, but keep in mind that many of the CPUs used in embedded devices like phones don't have nearly (or sometimes any of) the memory protection offered on a desktop or laptop CPU. You're also dealing with a much lower-MHz device (for battery consumption reasons) and chances are 100% of the code on the phone runs in Ring 0 (assuming other rings exist) for performance reasons.
So for them to allow third parties to run binary apps would pretty much allow unlimited circumvention of their DRM for the iPod portions (which would violate their agreements with record and movie companies), and as Jobs mentioned publicly would allow any poorly-written or malicious application to completely destabilize the phone or potentially interact with the cellular network in some disruptive or destructive manner (probably violating their agreement with AT&T). I have a Treo with PalmOS on it, and I can attest to the validity of at least the phone stability concern.
So there are a few very legitimate reasons to sandbox third-party code. That being said, there are features sorely lacking on the phone that won't fit in a sandbox - the first of which (for me and my customers) is a VPN client. The last thing I want is a phone running POP3 or IMAP "transparently" connecting over insecure WiFi infrastructure. I'd also like an SSH client, a Terminal Services client, an X Client, and a unicorn - so the iPhone probably won't be for me (dammit).
I would imagine that down the road they will find a better way to provide said sandbox (maybe a Java or Ruby or Python runtime environment?) but in the mean time I respect their desire to provide a phone that emphasizes reliability, even if it means it won't work for me (at least in the first iteration). The wife will probably get one, though.
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"the network provider is the only innovator"
BS.
Anything innovative in that market is almost always created by a third party and proposed a network provider. And network providers usually find a way to botch those things by turning them into restrictive billable services or features.
The only innovative things network providers create are fees shorty, fees.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
You know the usage of the term "revolution" to describe a cell phone device just makes me sad as a 21st century man. The fact that this is what we apply the term to nowadays shows our supreme lack of imagination or want for something better. If we could have the type of revolution our forefathers had for silly import taxes for health coverage, worker's rights ,the ability for criminal corporations to poison our environment, politicians that adhere to big business's needs more than the will of the people, that'd be really doing something, but no, we'd rather have a phone "revolution." How far we've fallen.
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Oh please, that's such a meaningless cliché. If you saw an opportunity to make money (or otherwise advance your own interests) by fomenting rebellion against the status quo, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't any company? In fact, it happens all the fucking time.
There are some people who appear to believe corporate interests are always and necessarily opposed to social responsibility. This is bullshit, and these people do damage to their own purported cause by setting up this false dichotomy.
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What would be a revolution is a smart phone that doesn't crash and have to be rebooted periodically like all my Treo did and my T-Mobile Dash does. You know, a phone that... works? Working would be a solid leap forward :)
It helps that the phone has a real browser and supports Ajax, but it's still limited. And how much fun will it be when you're important apps aren't working because you're in a tunnel, or the middle of nowhere where edge service is spotty. Eventually they'll need to provide a way for people to write apps for it.
I think once they've established the credibility of the phone and that it's reliable, they'll be better positioned to open the platform up a bit more. Hell, they could put together a certification program that would get third party apps access to the Itunes store, or some such. They could make sure the apps are solid, and take a cut of the money at the same time.
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I'm not sure if it's a willingness to publish anything that contains the word "iPhone" or a legitimate interest in development. But unless you're interested in turning your iPhone into a wifi scanner. (Something probably best left to the laptop anyway since it's got a fair few more MHz to waste.) Then I'm finding the SDK really unnecessary. The iPhone isn't a computer replacement, it's got a lowly powered set of hardware which is ideal for a phone, but not for a complex application. If you want to develop strong apps for the road use a laptop.. If you want to develop referencing apps, lookup programs etc, then just use AJAX on the iPhone.
I don't think anyone is going to get an icon on the main screen for a long time. (I don't think it's necessary either.)
With all that said, I have seen some very fun hobbyist applications for mobile platforms (e.g. like the palm programmable remote.) However I think it's the hobbyists that will hack away at the iPhone (with knowledge that it's just OSX) and figure out how to make their own mini-apps anyway.
The only outcome Apple is interested in is selling product and making money for their shareholders.
Actually, I would argue that only companies who do not adhere to the whims of the shareholders are the most successful ones. Usually these are companies with "dictators" at the helm or a small group with a vision.
Take Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for example. Some of their decisions go straight against earning the company money in the short term.
Not to mention Google's decision to not split the stock in order to keep it in a small set of hands. Appeasing the stockholders is a moot point if you have complete control over the direction of the company and you are free do whatever you feel like.
This could involve dumping money into non-profitable game console which later only becomes profitable in its second generation system or doing crazy things like ripping all ATI cards out of your computers because they made a good with a press release.
Most companies who had to comply with the average corporate share holders could not do such things and get away with it. However, since these companies are controlled by a small set of persons they can usually stick with their vision.
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Then I'm finding the SDK really unnecessary. The iPhone isn't a computer replacement, it's got a lowly powered set of hardware which is ideal for a phone, but not for a complex application. If you want to develop strong apps for the road use a laptop.. If you want to develop referencing apps, lookup programs etc, then just use AJAX on the iPhone.
Not all apps need to be "killer" powerful apps. One thing I would like on my phone is a decent ebook reader. After all if the iPhone is good enough to read the web with it should be good enough to read a book on. Its unlikely to happen however given their stance. Such a simple app, really nothing more than a glorified text reader, would be trivial to make given a basic SDK. (I wouldn't have to carry around the Palm anymore which would be nice) An app like that isn't really a good fit for AJAX either, you don't want to use airtime to read an ebook.
I can think of a couple others off the top of my head. An encrypted password manager such as KeyPass would be useful (you don't really want to be passing passwords and whatnot across the net if you don't have to). Also a decent text editor, or simple notebook/list app, would be another (as opposed to the pure reader you would have in an ebook app).
However its sounding like Apple, like every other wireless carrier, wants to have the phone completely locked down. I tend to agree with the article, no SDK is just going to limit the phone's potential.
That shows a supreme lack of imagination. Look at Palm, with it's thousands of apps (big and small) that enable it to be so much more than Palm ever envisioned. The same goes for Symbian... so much of the power of those devices is in the truly clever and innovative ideas that the third parties bring to those platforms. Even the most basic functions have benefited from third party development. You can find improvements in security, contact management, and a host of other functions on those other platforms. The OEM's provide a platform, the development community makes it better.
The tragedy here is that the iPhone provides even more opportunities for real innovation. With thousands of developers (the world over) building on top of the work Apple has already done we would have seen truly stunning advances in both the functionality and the form of the iPhone.
The iPhone may not be a computer replacement, but that doesn't mean it's not a computing device with immense potential.
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Google Maps, Flickr, Digg, Yahoo Pipes, Delicious... these ARE the killer apps of the last 5 years
Well, they're the budget (phone bill) and battery killers, anyway.
I don't get it when people start saying 'it is underpowered to run any real apps.'
Compare it to what Apple was selling as their powerful high-end desktop machine a decade ago.
As was said earlier in the thread, a lot of cool stuff has been rolled for PalmOS, as an example of a similar platform with an open SDK.
No, it's still a lame excuse.
Bob makes a computer for Mike.
John writes a program for that computer.
Mike loves his computer. As soon as he installs John's program on his computer, it starts crashing.
When he removes John's program, it stops crashing.
Why the Christ would Mike blame Bob for his computer crashing?
All Apple has to do is say from the outset, "we can only guarantee the stability of the iPhone with programs that have gone through our quality assurance process." "Stability" problem solved. Why would anyone blame Windows for crashing when you install any third party software? It's not logical, but it still happens. Users blame Microsoft for their troubles, even if the source of the problem is some third party software app. Users don't know the difference. Besides, it's sometimes difficult to tell which of the 10 programs running on a machine actually caused the problem.
My point is that while people like Slashdotters might understand what's happening on the device, a normal corporate iPhone user is going to blame Apple's POS iPhone when it crashes or doesn't work right. That's just the way the world works. So if iPhone owners go around complaining about how often their iPhone crashes, it hurts Apple even though it's not really Apple's fault. I think it's simply a practical business decision rather than a technical decision. Even a Java VM is still crippleware. Give us Cocoa ffs, Apple. I don't consider a Java VM crippleware. That's like saying that the Blackberry is crippleware because it's based on Java. As long as you can write applications, I don't see that it's really crippleware. It may not be the brilliant Apple SDK that you want, but it's far from crippleware. However, a real Apple SDK would be my preference as well.
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