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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.'"
With all the stories about the iPhone and it's universally uncanny ability to suck/rule (depending on who's talking), I think we can all agree on one thing.
It's not out yet.
We *are* using the Firehose responsibly, right?
More Twoson than Cupertino
Nothing, I repeat, *nothing* that Apple has released up to this point has indicated that "Web 2.0" apps will be the only type of apps available to the iPhone. Get a clue already. How many clues does Apple have to give you before you see the trail of breadcrumbs?
First of all, go refer to the D5 discussion with SJ and BG. Pay special attention to the part where Steve talks about iPhone apps, particularly why it was felt that a native Google Maps app was more appropriate than a web app.
Second of all, "No SDK required" != "No SDK available". The SDK already exists, but is not required to develop apps targeted to the iPhone. It's called Mac OS X+XCode+Dashcode. Curious that the "Webclip" feature coming in Leopard was conspicously demo'd by Steve, and yet is missing from both versions of the Safari 3 Public Beta...hmm? Safari for Windows exists because of the iPhone, plain and simple.
The "Mystery 12th App"? Obviously the "Movies" widget that Steve demo'd. Just as that came on, I realized one of the most commonly accessed apps on my Palm phone, my Nokia 770, and my other cell phone (Samsung SPH-m610), is movie listings. Of course Apple, with the largest movie preview site on the Internet, would provide such a feature for the iPhone.
It's been obvious since the first intro of the iPhone to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that all the apps on the iPhone are the exact same things that run under Dashboard on Mac OS X. Why would anyone think that Apple would reimplement already existing code when they've already shown that the iPhone and AppleTV both run Mac OS X, especially given the extreme emphasis put on the fact that the iPhone runs the same WebKit engine as the regular desktop OS?
I going to laugh to see all the naysayers tripping over themselves to get ahold of an iPhone and a Mac in a few months once they realize they've missed the boat
Ask any Verizon subscriber how "easy" it is to move address book contacts in and out of the handset. Or music. Or videos. Or any other kind of data.
There are only two effective ways to break this control. One is legislative. (You can stop giggling now.) The other is for a handset maker to create a handset so powerful and compelling that people fall all over themselves to try and get one, and then for the maker to stand firm and refuse to give control of the handset to the carriers. Eventually, market pressure will force at least one carrier to cave in and take the phone as sold, after which, all the carriers will follow suit.
Apple has an opportunity to help this happen, but it's not clear if they're interested in that outcome.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Yes, that is something that most people seem to miss. IF the AJAX app runs locally, AND the use of Safari can be made transparent (e.g. essentially how Widgets work) then you can make some types of apps which will work okay. As Jobs pointed out, it will use Cocoa widgets, and be able to access features of the IPhone.
But, here are my complaints as a programmer:
(1) I hate Javascript. This isn't a language flame war. I've met very few people who like javascript. It takes a lot of effort to put together something that resembles a real-world app. Yes, google purchased several office tools that manage, but it doesn't mean its easy, and it doesn't mean its the right way to go about things. Also, those tools (as many have point out) still don't work properly under Safari.
(2) If you do have to go through Safari, you don't get to write a First Class app. You still have to work around the interface elements of Safari. It will always look something like a web page running under Safari, even if the widgets look decent. Morever, if the app isn't stored locally (it could be, so this might all be irrelevant for the discussion), if you lose a connection, you are in trouble.
Also, if I remember correctly, you can only 'browse the web' when you aren't talking on the phone. Will these apps suddenly become unavaiable because you receive a phone call?
(3) There are a ton of apps you cannot do properly with AJAX. Things that require an interface + database can work fine. But, what if I want to write a game for the iPhone (I can imagine motion sensitive controls + dual touch screen can given room for some exciting possibilities)? As others pointed out, Jobs made a big deal that Google Maps was a real-app, and not from the web. Obviously he thinks there is an advantage. What if I want to make a scribble-pad for making drawn notes for myself? Personally, I would love a Python terminal. I can imagine a useful calculator program you could acheive with Python + matplotlib (actually, this you might be able to write with AJAX, though I think think it would be very pretty). Or howabout ssh? If it doesn't come with GPS, can we hope for anyone to write software that would allow a bluetooth GPS device? The ability to take pictures with GPS data, and mark up google maps would be great.
It seems to me if Apple really wanted to control security on the IPhone, they would create a tiered layer for what interface an app is allowed to use. This way they could even allow TCP/IP, but throttle the I/O so that your device couldn't take down any networks.
If I remember the keynote properly, Jobs didn't say there would be no SDK. Only that there would be no need. But, again, as others have pointed out, we knew about AJAX already. He's talking to *developers* at the WWDC. He has to know that most of the people there would know that AJAX was possible. So what was he really saying? (1) that the webkit was available, and (2) that you could access components of the IPhone using javascript.
I suspect third-party developers will be allowed at least to make games. They have a few select games for the iPod, so it's not a wild conjecture. It's strange that Jobs would stress how the iPhone has OS X running underneath it, if it doesn't actually matter to the end user.
Most people I know people who have palms have third-party apps for them, and in many ways I think its something that kept the Palm ecosystem going. Palm knew its income came from selling hardware, rather than licenses. If you look at the success of the Newton, it was largely that you *could* write apps for it. Phone companies have the opposite motive, where they may lose money the hardware, but make it back by charging for everything else.
It seems that Apple is set to make their money selling hardware, so if anything, they should encourage third-party apps. Perhaps AT&T is planning on selling software/services for the IPhone, but somehow that seems unlikely for me.
Which leads me to several different conclusions: (1) either Apple really
I just want to know if I will be able to run some sort of software PBX on a cell phone anytime soon. Define my *own* call plans and dial plans to do what *i* want with various incoming and outgoing numbers at various times.
...
Asterisk on a cell phone. Now *that* would revolutionize my cell phone experience.
Heck, i would even write a cell phone suitable PBX myself if i had sufficient access to the internals - most processors in the current generation of cell phones are more than capable of handling the overhead associated with a low call volume (personal) PBX.
Fat chance of anything like this happening anytime soon, however
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
On the flip side, go up to Handango and check out the "applications" for a PDA. Top sellers including a replacement for the shell, a program to make the close button "work", a file explorer, a backup program, a ringtone manager, several clocks, a weather widger, note and to-do list managers, yada, yada...
In other words, things that any decent system should have been able to do out of the box, and nary a one a "stunning" advance. And, near as I can tell, the iPhone already all of these things out of the box. And, from what I've seen, does most of them extremely well.
I agree that the iPhone has immense potential. But I also think that forecasting doom-and-gloom before the first one has even been sold is as equally shortsighted as you're making Apple out to be.
If I had the time, I know I'd be looking hard at what could be done NOW with an always-on always-connected phone/internet device and making that a "killer-app", instead of wasting time crying over the tools I could have had...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
> I don't get it when people start saying 'it is underpowered to run any real apps.'
s e
;)
Agreed. That's just silly. There's plenty of firepower there. However, Apple definitely wants that 8gig of hard drive space filled up with music and movies from iTunes and NOT the latest bloatware from Adobe or Microsoft. I think that's one of the major reasons for this move. However, I also think that this could also be akin to getting rid of the disk drive in the iMac. Yes, other smart phones have SDKs for developing software, but then, none of those other phones have a decent enough UI or a browser totally capable of running web 2.0 apps. And Look! It's only been 2 days since the announcement and already there are 2 web apps out for the iPhone:
Onetrip (Only viewable with Safari):
http://www.mrgan.com/onetrip/help.php?browser=fal
Digg:
http://davidcann.com/iphone/
That was quick. Maybe all you compile code junkies need to start brushing up on your XML, SOAP, and AJAX.