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Steve Jobs Announces iPhone SDK
An anonymous reader writes "It finally happened. Steve Jobs announced an iPhone SDK today. The plan is to release it in February, and the suggestion is that apps will need to be digitally signed (not unlike digital signing in Leopard). Here's hoping that developing for the iPhone/Touch will be cheap (or free) enough to allow the folks who have been writing apps to continue doing so. Says Jobs: 'It will take until February to release an SDK because we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once--provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task.'"
Bow-ties are cool.
Better to be done right the first time a little late than cause serious security issues. Better press this way...
Digitally signed: Totally Legit Inc.
Install this app now, and make sure your contact list is filled with other iPhone users.
-Matthew Riley "TofuMatt" MacPherson
I have a website
It makes me suspect that Steve was caught a bit flat-footed, if it'll take until then. If this was the usual Apple release, it would be a total surprise and be available Friday or something.
Of course, it could also be that it's taken them this long for events to prove to AT&T that resistance was ultimately futile and counterproductive. Hard to say, with that crowd.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
Here's the quote that may have misled:
So, what they're really saying is that they're hoping to do something along the same lines as signing, but not signing per se. This actually may be the most interesting part of their announcement, in that it could signal the next step forwards in indicating trust and providing clarity of who worked on what. Here's hoping it's not just repackaging.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Jobs made several comments about securing iPhones and the network from malware, and the route Apple takes to do this is a big question mark. He mentioned application signing as a step in the right direction, with regard to other companies. Leopard brings support to OS X for both application signing and native sandboxing of applications for security. I wonder if Apple will employ either or both of these technologies to lock down the iPhone and, if so, how locked down they will be.
I'm still at 1.0.2, simply because I love the 3rd party apps that are on my phone already. (I already bent over for AT&T, so I didn't bother unlocking my phone).
Now, as the summary mentions, I hope the barrier to development is not too high. They're certainly right to be concerned about security, I just hope a good balance is struck.
(Somewhat unrelated: I see that it's now possible to jailbreak 1.1.1, but I'm still waiting. Apparently you cannot yet use your own, non-apple-blessed ringtones under 1.1.1, even after jailbreak.)
Interestingly, by enforcing digital signing Apple is guaranteeing the survivial of an iPhone developer's "underground" -- instead of writing hacks to jailbreak and unlock iPhones, they'll be writing hacks to get unsigned apps running on the iPhone.
"...we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once--provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect our partners from hacks, unlocking, etc. This is no easy task."
Fixed.
Will this apply to the ipod touch as well? I really would like to be able to read maps/books offline on one. If there was an app to let me take websites or google maps and pdfs and store them locally to an ipod touch it might be my next mp3 player.
From TFA - quoting Steve Jobs:
The risk of damage would be a lot less damage if every app on the iPhone didnt run as root.
I think you should spell "surrender" instead.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I was telling someone that the 2 things I wish the Touch had were a PDF reader and an SSH client. Hopefully, the dev. environment will allow these and many, many other goodies. If that _IS_ the case, the Touch very well become my new home computer ...
The only thing i want to add to the I phone is SSH and an external keyboard. Then it would be pretty much the ultimate laptop... if you had a really tiny lap. But it would then serve all my mobile computing needs.
Considering that the iPhone's OS is a moving target, and the majority of the frameworks and private APIs have changed from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 (which is why many third party apps broke between 1.0.2 and 1.1.1), I don't think it's unreasonable to wait until things on that front have stabilized before you start providing developers with an SDK.
:-/
I knew that most of the negative responses to this would be along the lines of saying that Apple was "forced" into doing an SDK because of the third party hacking community, when in reality third party development was very likely in the cards all along.
Apple also sent the same information to anyone who bothered to file out a bug report about a lack of an SDK. I mention this only to point out that it's nice that Apple actually took the time to listen to its developers (and not just people who pay an annual fee) and respond. So next time if you're wondering whether your bug report gets read, it appears at least in cases like this it does.
I've recently become a complete Apple-convert. I used to hate Apple, and came from a Linux background. I have to say, though, that from a development standpoint their XCode environment is great, their libraries are well thought out, and it comes with a good number of advanced features that keeps coding fun. If you're wondering why people are so excited about developing for the iPhone, these are a few of the reasons.
At one point I played around with the toolchain that was previously being developed by the community hackers. It was relatively easy to put together a simple iPhone app, as the iPhone is running a simplified version of Cocoa. However, the more complex stuff (and interesting parts, like gestures) were not up to par because of lack of documentation.
With the introduction of the SDK, I think we're going to see a batch of really nice 3rd party apps. The current ones are extremely good for what resources are available, but I think everyone would agree there is room for much improvement.
Hopefully Apple will do the right thing in opening up their platform as much as possible. I wouldn't mind getting a free key to sign my code (Google did a similar thing when they opened up their search API). I wonder if they will limit all things internety to WIFI only, as AT&T might complain about random packets flying over their EDGE (even though other phone companies already allow this). I'm still not sure I fully get the malicious code issue, as the iPhone is essentially a dumbed down Macbook with a harder-to-use keyboard. How is the iPhone any more dangerous?
of commentary and stories about bricked iPhones?
They're getting pretty shrill on Slashdot, as if the fact that Apple's product was locked into AT&T's service was a big surprise foisted on consumers after the fact, or something.
I hate lock-ins as much as most of you, but you know about it going in, and you can choose another option. Of course, the best solution is to stop all forms of telco lock-ins, and the one glaring lock-in is the contract for wireless service on almost all providers that substantially penalize the customer for discontinuing service "early".
As a consumer, if I'm dissatisfied with my service or I can get better service elsewhere, there's no such thing as early discontinuation of service. It's more like "right on time". Lock-in contracts, unlike the iPhone dramas, affect nearly everyone with "post-pay" service. (The alternative phrase was "non-prepay" which sounds nutty.)
To further clarify, "malware" will consist of:
media players that support additional audio and video codecs,
anything that lets you install ringtones for free using your own licensed music,
anything that lets you make calls on alternative networks.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Isn't that the truth! It would be even better if Apple provided a glide-path to current developers to becoming "legit" so that they're encouraged to engage rather than fight. Apple really has no reason to be a jerk about it except spite. Unfortunately, Steve has proven that he's occasionally prone to that.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
Compare: provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. to Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than "totally open," we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone's amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.
I read as Steve is saying Nokia's solution is a simple and not truly open system but Apple is working on an advance open system.
So sometime after February I'll be able to buy/download and install an ActiveSync client for the iPhone? That changes quite a lot...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
Signed might not mean "signed by the phone vendor", but just "signed by the developer with a chain of trust so we know you're not some hacker in Elbonia". The latter is still secure, if you can trust the chain. Well, more of, if it's NOT secure, you know who to point the finger at.
Wrong.
I love all the people who are now going to say that Apple is only doing an SDK because the brave, innovative hackers who just want us all to be able to free our hardware have forced their hand.
Kind of like the only reason they have a battery replacement program for iPods was because of the Neistat Brothers' video, right?
Except that it would be wrong, on both counts.
For a device like the iPhone, Apple probably had SOME kind of SDK/third party development planned all along. But the iPhone's OS is still a wildly moving target, and it's not appropriate to have an SDK before things have calmed down with the OS APIs, frameworks, etc.
But if you want to believe that a statistically insignificant (yes, really - most people don't care, much less even know, about this) group of hobbyists and hackers have "forced" Apple to scramble to release an SDK, go right ahead.
That would be if the announcement came from Corporation Du Pomme.
I really cannot understand the whining of people who have been so vocal about this SDK, and now that all this gnashing of teeth has forced Apple to pre-announce, people like you come along claiming this is 'long overdue'.
The fact that Apple is a ~15k person company with a massive variety of products means that there must be focus. In part this slim headcount and focus is what allows Apple to produce really great products. (For comparison - Apple is now roughly worth the same, by market cap., as IBM, which employs around 300,000 people worldwide).
Think for a moment what a considerable development the iPhone is. Particularly the software, there is an ungodly amount of work and rework that has gone into producing the final product that you can pick up at the mall. The last thing that Apple was thinking about during the development phase was a clean documented publically available and stable API. No, you can bet that the iPhone API twisted and turned through the development cycle, massive rewritings, refactorings, and changes over a number of years. For Apple to release an SDK and API they have to be clean, stable, unlikely to change and break existing code - all of the things that during the development phase the internal API was not.
When releasing an SDK and an API, massive resources must be put into considering flexibility and change 2, 5, 10 years down the line. These things take time. Apple decided, rightly, to release a finished device this Summer. All the whining in the world (and I believe we got close to that) could not push Apple's internal API into a publicly usable stable state at that time. I think, considering that this is a brand new phone platform (not something like Symbian etc. which has been around a long time), waiting 9 months for an SDK is nothing, in fact, I'm amazed they've done it in less than a year. Mark though - Apple would have been mad never to have provided one, and personally I expected this announcement for WWDC'08, but I have found it astoundingly ridiculous how people have cried and whined about the lack of an SDK without thinking for a single minute. For crying out loud, it's been only three months. The only thing 'long overdue' will, hopefully, be the shutting of the mouths of all the incessant whining.
This sig has been deprecated.
Nice!
Now the iPhone will have 30 different ways to check stock prices, get weather updates and read RSS feeds!
Hopefully someone makes a Diet Calculator / Calorine counter as well!
I highly doubt it. If you have any java-enabled phone, any palm based phone, any blackberry phone, any symbian phone and you're using it on the AT&T network, you already know that you've been able to install ANY kind of app - networked or otherwise - on your phone.
... I hope developers don't have to pay to gain access to this trust system. I don't have an iPhone/iTouch yet, but if developers have to pay to make software that works on the iPhone and variants, they may well decide to pass the cost along to the end-users—and (F|f)ree software is a selling point for mobile devices as far as I'm concerned.
I've got a Windows Mobile smartphone, and, while there is plenty of for-pay software (my phone came with a built-in Handango catalog), there's also plenty of freeware software available. WM6 warns you that whatever application you're trying to install isn't trusted and asks you if you really want to install it, but it doesn't completely lock untrusted applications out. (Think Cancel or Allow...) Annoying it may be, but it's better than total lockout. I wonder if Apple will do something similar?
And what percentage of the consumers don't buy an iPhone because they knew third parties had a harder time developing applications for it?
Well, as an iPhone owner (and, apparently, a Certified Fanboi(tm)), it's plainly obvious that the software wasn't finished in June and is still not finished. While the core features work well for the most part, any iPhone owner can name a dozen obvious omissions off the top of their head. MMS, copy/paste, SMS to multiple recipients, Safari stability, etc, etc. Not to mention an RPN mode for the Calculator ;)
I'm personally happy to have the device now, as it's extremely useful in a variety of ways (hence the fanboi status). But an SDK is only one of many things that are a tad overdue.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Third Party Applications on the iPhone
Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers' hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.
It will take until February to release an SDK because we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once--provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones--this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.
Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than "totally open," we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone's amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.
We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.
Steve
P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch.
____
I'm worried about a Windows CE-like business model. Unlike traditional certificates, with CE you don't purchase certificates but use a signing "service." While that might seem cheaper, you have to sign EACH of your binaries EVERY time a modification is made. That's incentive for developers to NOT release patches. Fortunately, it's not being enforced by many OEMs, but heaven help our wallets should that happen. There are a lot of small mobile shops our there that can't absorb these kinds of costs.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Remember how unwillingness Steve had been about native apps? He even went out on a leg to try and make Web Apps easy to get to by creating that apps repository.... Well it seems that the _large_ number of people who are jailbreaking their iPod Touches and iPhones to install third party apps have been heard. They probably weren't planning on releasing an SDK until Steve realized how popular native apps are/would be.
I never really understood the resistance to third party apps in the first place. The iPhone could not only take a chunk of the phone market, but it could take over the entire smart phone market. The same goes for the iPod Touch and the PDA market.
This puts me in a tough position though... I want a Touch right now, but what if Steve screws current Touch owners by making the SDK cost money? Or only allows for proprietary apps to be installable (locking out the Open Source developers)? or something else... hmmm
... Seems to be a good-enough way to do things, as long as folks can install self-signed apps (with appropriate warnings and caveats and whatnot) .
Why does security have to be an "or" problem? It's an "and" problem: a technological and a social problem. While there are limited ways you can deal with social engineering such as presenting users with clear dialogs that don't pop up at every turn, there are many things you must do to deal with a security as a technological problem. Making sure that your code is not a spaghetti code is one example. Making sure that your buffers won't overflow is another. Not automatically run an application from a mail application, not bolting a web browser with a complete ActiveX support into the operating system, etc..
That would be if the announcement came from Corporation Du Pomme.
:P
Actually, it would be known as Pomme S.A., which is how corporations are styled in civil law countries.
iqu
Jobs:
It will take until February to release an SDK because we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once-
Allow nearly open software development but completely restrict the ability to use VoIP (and upset ATT).
There. Fixed that for you.
(Side note: I live in Oakland County - home of a county-wide wireless project. If residents could run VoIP on an iPhone, then cellular revenue would plummet here. I suspect that would catch on like wildfire, once proven. This is RISKY business for Apple.)
More
I recall Apple saying that they had pulled developers off Leopard to put onto the iPhone before it was launched which pushed Leopard back. Of course that would be an excuse but if it was indeed true those developers were probably put back onto Leopard shortly around the time of the iPhone launch. Now that Leopard is being released next week it may have freed up those developers to work on the SDK.
Mark though - Apple would have been mad never to have provided one, and personally I expected this announcement for WWDC'08, but I have found it astoundingly ridiculous how people have cried and whined about the lack of an SDK without thinking for a single minute. For crying out loud, it's been only three months. The only thing 'long overdue' will, hopefully, be the shutting of the mouths of all the incessant whining.
Steve could have announced the SDK for February 2008 from the very beginning and you'd not see the bitter remarks you rant about.
The strategy Jobs uses for announcing products only when 100% done has its benefits with consumers, but developers hate when you cut them off and don't give them a clear roadmap for what to expect ahead.
Learn from this, don't just add another rant to the thousands.
Perhaps they had planned to release the SDK earlier via a Apple-style surprise, but timing slipped, and Jobs felt the need to just go ahead and announce it anyway to avoid the development community making Apple look like a stodgy dinosaur in the meantime. Besides that, I really can't understand why they wouldn't have announced it around release time.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
I think the message I found in a fortune cookie only yesterday says it all in regard to waiting for SDK's (and other things):
Patience is your alley. Don't Worry!
Deep.
So, let's say someone doesn't have any real programming experience besides college level stuff from a few years ago, but understands programming concepts and was enthusiastic with the possibility of dabbling in iPhone programming because it's a "brave new frontier" and is a rather small, hopefully less complex environment than, say, Mac OS X.
What programming language are the current third party iPhone apps written in? How would one get started now to prepare for the SDK? Any suggestions on books to read to brush up on the languages?
Yes yes, Hallowed are thy Mac fanboys. I know my post is flamebait, but why did Jobs say there will be only web based sdk? And now after hackers hacked iphone, he says there will be one?
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
There is to me, nothing wrong with "application signing". I think it's good to have a registered contact for a product and to ensure that product can be traced. (We're not talking personal privacy rights here.)
That said, most past attempts as application/driver signing have failed because it hasn't been about signing but rather about making $$$. And signing has cost booku bucks for being signed. This is the aspect of signing that's bad.
Rather, Apple should simply have all developers register (in order to get the SDK) and then be given a corporate identity ID to sign their applications with. They could also allow access of 3rd party apps via iTunes. The caveat being that they could block a dev ID if that ID gets out into the wild and used by malware coders. Others might install any software outside of iTunes. But this would allow them to make the iTunes (dumb name these days since it does video, games, and more these days. They really need to change it to iMedia or something).
But I'm really all for app signing as long as it's free to do so or a negligible (ie: $5-$10) processing fee.
But if it's $500 or $1,500 to have your app signed. Then it will fail...
- Saj
Wrong.
I love all the people who think Apple (particularly Jobs) is some sort of prophetic visionary. They react to the market as much as any other profit-seeking companies.
Geek cred is a small but significant factor in tech gadgets and Apple knows this, given that one of the primary reasons for Apple's rising popularity is due to OS X, and one of the reason for OS X's rising popularity is the *nix code base.
That particular video may not have been the sole factor for the Apple's battery replacement program, but it was certainly part of the increasing public awareness of the defects in the Apple devices. However, (and I say this in deep admirations) Apple nevertheless found a way to extract even more money out of its blindly loyal customers while at the same time somewhat-sorta-maybe addressing the criticisms.
And your "moving target" theory is just BS. 1) OS X as a platform has been around for long enough, and Apple took pride in announcing that their phone and new iPod runs on the same platform, and being the first non-smart phone to require some 800mb of OS codes. 2) it didn't take lots of arm-twisting for Symbian, Nokia and (dare I say) Microsoft and other companies to release SDKs for their mobile platforms. While they may have varying validation protocols and so on, they didn't parade some random wild BS theory about their OS being "uncertain". Even Jobs wasn't saying this in his bit. If the API's have been settled, they wouldn't and shouldn't have released the product.
As usual, they were just testing the market to see if they can make even more money out of 3rd parties and customers, which is after all, the goal of every profitable company.
There were rumors the MacOS would someday have a Multi-touch GUI mode too. Then you could design for all three platforms. Anyone hear of a date?
I think they are waiting on applying Leopards sandboxing to the mobile OS. That would be key to allowing third party apps but with tight security.
YMMV, but from what I've read, the whining wasn't that there was a long wait for the SDK, but that there was a long wait for an announcement that there would even be an SDK. Most products I've seen planned and announced to have an SDK before the initial product release, and then put out the SDK after. But then again, that's just what I've seen.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"The last thing that Apple was thinking about during the development phase was a clean documented publically available and stable API."
First of all, you're making that up.
But second of all, even if you are right, then Apple would have to be the dumbest development company ever. Here's a company that has a 30 year history of making products that have API's (yes, even the Apple ][ had API's of a sort), but on their latest computer, the one they saw had a huge strategic impact, they never gave it a thought?
Seriously, what you're suggesting is so ridiculous, that I'm guessing you're trolling or astroturfing.
My guess is there never was going to be a publicly available API, but Apple finally realized if they didn't make it available, they'd be overwhelmed by people who actually want to use what they bought in the way the want to.
Wrong again. If geek cred is so important, Apple would've made Apple TV a much better product, with DivX/Xvid support out of the box. But they haven't and they won't. Geek cred means very little to Apple. Gamers are a much, much larger market than geeks and Apple has never made the Mac a game-friendly or game developer-friendly platform. They don't give a crap about geeks or gamers.
Well I can agree that Apple was probably short-staffed during the development of iPhone, they could have at least announced their intention to release an SDK at a later point post-launch (oh, like, I dunno, the rest of the SDK-providing mobile companies... few devices come out with an SDK ready to go, it's usually provided in a more complete form later).
No, I don't think Apple ever intended to release the SDK - but I think they're starting to realize that to compete with other smartphones (and to quiet the deluge of bad press) they really need 3rd party developers on the bandwagon, and they're starting to create docs and polish up the API.
Sadly, I'm not sure if this will be available to us "laymen" developers. I suspect Apple will restrict this to ADC members only, with even less creative BS than they've fed us so far.
Because if he announced there would be an SDK, but not until next year, some people would wait to buy it until then. The same reason Apple says noting about new computer models until they're released. Actually, I'm surprised they announced the SDK early at all.
FTFA: The plan is to release it in February, and the suggestion is that apps will need to be digitally signed (not unlike digital signing in Leopard).
Is this akin to trusted computing? This is the first I heard Leopard having such a thing. So if you are a 3rd party developer you will have to contact apple or Verisign every time you want to release your app? Or is this just poormans DRM?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
That's perfectly understandable, but it would have been nice for them to actually say there will be a proper, native SDK instead of saying "Web 2.0 is the SDK!". The "incessant whining" is completely understandable as well, as the device has great potential, and it appeared almost stillborn, with no word from Stevus Christ (j/k) to its future.
Personally, I'm hoping all the apologists whining about whining will now calm down and not feel the need to jump on any criticism of Apple or the iPhone with spurious after-the-fact justifications of Apple actions. We'll never know whether Apple initially planned an SDK, however if they did it was disingenuous of Steve Jobs to claim that
It's great news that they've intimated they'll release an SDK next year, and I'm sure the availability of apps will spur adoption by people who owned other smart phones in the past and were attached to things like being able to transfer and read PDF files on their device (without emailing them or putting them on the web). For various reasons (which you've elaborated at length) it might have been impossible to launch it with an SDK and/or third party apps - what was possible was to tell the users and developers honestly what action was planned in the future, rather than trying to sell running web apps on the phone as a real SDK.
It still has some flaws (lack of 3G and GPS foremost), but by mid-next year this looks like it will be a great platform instead of just a phone.
Just about every microsoft product ships with an SDK at launch, ususally before launch.
You have to also wonder why it wasn't designed as an SDK/API to being with.
Digital signatures offer security only when all IPC (including kernel/system calls) is signed, and when signature logs survive an attack by that signed app. Otherwise, after the attack, the signed app can cover its tracks. ActiveX signatures, for example, are worthless.
Since the iPhone depends on its network for all app installation, and nearly all its operation, it can enforce those policies. Since practically all the data on the iPhone, including voice call data, is private, that enforcement is an absolute necessity. Apple should include a server account that backs up the signature logs, and encrypted key storage to other accounts the iPhone is used to access.
Once people are used to that minimum assurance of accountability of installed apps and data on their mobile phones, maybe they'll start to expect it on their notebooks and desktops. Apple could leverage the service to those products, too. And maybe that competition will finally force Microsoft to secure the vast majority of the world's private data that their platforms are responsible for.
--
make install -not war
Look at the SDK announcement. Then look at the list of Leopard features here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html
Note that under security, there are adding app signing and sandboxing and improving certificate handling in the core of MacOS X.
That's exactly what they need in order to pull off what they aim to with the iPhone and iPod Touch SDK!
And improved VPN support and library randomization sure wouldn't hurt for a device like an iPhone. (Some people can't use IMAP at all unless they have VPN support.)
Make sure the apps don't kill the phone! Badly programmed iexplorer.exe on my windows mobile can loop requiring a hard reboot(hit reset button next to the battery behind the case). Until that reboot it will not let me answer calls, will sometimes ring, will sometimes display that a call is incoming, and not acknowledge that I've hit the answer button. I always thought this was why the iphone was closed, until they can solve that problem.
There are not "serious virus problems" in mobile phones, and given the fact that Darwin includes scripting languages that I can not imagine being restricted by signatures I don't believe any signing regimen will significantly restrict virus propogation.
I suspect the reason for these restrictions are:
* to avoid having to classify the iPhone as a software controlled radio.
* to avoid Real or some other DRM pusher from making the iPhone and iPod Touch support their DRM.
* to allow the iPhone to be locked.
What do they mean by "sandboxing"?
They finally picking up FreeBSD jails?
Or are they talking about something like Microsoft's halfhearted attempt in Vista?
Also, Macs have 3d accelleration and, shocking I know, you CAN get games for them. They don't come out of the sky, evidently there are developers who are pretty comfortable there.
And, Apple TV? Why let people play geek codecs when you could force people to use your DRM-locked money-generating format?
More Twoson than Cupertino
Bleh.
BTW, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the stuff I'm seeing people claim are copied from Vista originated in FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and VMS.
Every time one of these stories comes out I point out that the situation will be the same as with the iTunes SDK: to get the SDK you'll have to sign an agreement that gives Apple veto power over your application. Every time people flamed me. It still looks like I'm right.
Anything they don't like, gone. They say its to protect users from spyware and other forms of malware but it'll be used to eliminate anything they don't like. Just like there isn't any decent music sharing functionality in iTunes, there won't be anything on the iPhone that doesn't settle well with the ultraconservatives in Apples Ivory Tower. Instead you'll get crippled functionality, like music sharing with ridiculous limits on the number of people/playbacks per day. As if all of their developers and customers are children who can't be given responsibility. Children don't own copyrights, so they don't need the discretion to share music beyond what Apple believes is "fair enough."
People are still going to flame me saying that we should wait and see. Well, I've been waiting and I see no way to set an mp3 on your iPhone as a ringtone. Is there any reason not to give this functionality other than to protect Apple's new ringtone business? Why would any reasonable person believe that Apple won't do the same thing when granting ISVs permission to deploy applications on iPhone?
The argument that phones are somehow more vulnerable than any other network connected computer and need to be controlled by a central authority is specious.
"Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you..."
Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer.
Nokia warns about unsigned applications; they don't keep you from installing them.
We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.
Or maybe we can just forget about iPhone and instead get rewarded by truly open platforms that aren't owned and run by Apple.
As I said this is a big "We shall see".
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Let me get this straight. Apple released a product that contains an operating system that's still in alpha?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
but how are they going to handle the distribution of 3rd party app/updates?
If the third party applications can be downloaded/installed/updated through iTunes, thats fine. That being said, a real killer feature would be to provide an app where (over wifi/celltowers) you can search or browse for specific applications and download them through the wifi/celltowers. Though that would just be awesome, what would make that feature above and beyond would be if then the phone's OS would then keep track of the app's installed and provide updates as the apps go from X.0 to (X+1).0
Think synaptic, only for the iPhone.
As some of the hacker community will readily point out, splitting open Springboard (the Finder/shell equivalent) in the iPhone, you discover Springboard always had some support for additional applications... and going forward, more was added. In 1.1.1, Springboard even added code added that supported multiple pages of applications... a pretty clear indication that either Apple was planning to add a LOT more apps, or were thinking of third-party dev.
There were lots of other little clues people found that the iPhone had either had plans for a third-party SDK which was scuttled, or had a third-party SDK in the works but not yet announced. So I admit, I am with the folks who are saying that Jobs probably had this planned from day one, but held off on the announcements until closer to the SDK/security methods being sorted out for marketing/publicity/spin reasons.
3 months after the phone was released is not a huge waiting period, but if he'd announced ahead of time that the iPhone would have a native SDK in February, lots of folks would have waited both on buying phones and on doing iPhone development. Instead, now we have hackers who have already worked on third-party native apps, there's all kinds of web-apps to keep those who won't jailbreak busy in the meantime.
Love him or hate him, one thing Jobs knows how to do is build anticipation, and manage publicity. He'll take bad press for a while simply so that he can sit on some announcement to greatest spin effect.
--Rachel
Gamers are a much, much larger market than geeks and Apple has never made the Mac a game-friendly or game developer-friendly platform. They don't give a crap about geeks or gamers.
Man, I am getting tired of the anti-Pippen bias around here!
For the humor challenged, yes, that was a joke.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Oddly, I don't see a single Steve Jobs quote in there. Where did you see one? Do you mean the "source"? There's a reason rumors are rumors, you know.
(I've always expected a SDK at some point, but I have to admit, this one sounds like more access than I expected.)
1.51515152 × 10^-8 %.
(me)
You're taking two distinct items (a statement and an event) and assuming they're related. There's not only no guarantee of that, but in this case it would be logical. Event B did not satisfy Statement A.
Some basic features and the phone would be good looking and useful. Skype or jabber and aside from AT&T tethering I'm tempted to buy a new phone.
Quack, quack.
No, the OS itself is fine. It's just that Apple wanted to get the OS exactly how they wanted it before letting the public could get their hands under the hood.
PS: Which Apple has done an wonderful job of with their main OS
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Wait! Don't pick it up! They'll drop the price in two months ... ;)
Bark less. Wag more.
Very well said. We are increasingly living in a world of individuals who want something yesterday so fast that they didn't even get a chance to figure out why they wanted it in the 1st place.
CD
>We are working on an advanced system which will offer
>developers broad access to natively program the iPhone's
>amazing software platform while at the same time protecting
>users from malicious programs.
Looking at their revolutionary AT&T deal, one would expect that
they won't miss a chance to properly milk iPhone developers too.
I simply don't believe that Apple would relinquish their control
over what can and cannot run on the iPhone.
How's this for a prediction -
"To provide the best degree of the protection for iPhone users
all third party applications will need to be cross-signed by
Apple. This ensures that we stand behind the application and
its developer (and that the developer pays through the nose for
this lovely arrangement)".
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Steve could have announced the SDK for February 2008 from the very beginning...
Yeah, but that would be throwing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free buzz down the shitter. The whole concept of a Stevenote hinges on refraining from announcing things until they're sure they can hit their target. If you don't like it, you may be happier with a vendor that sprays press releases like buckshot, hoping one or two will hit the mark.
Nexum++
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Let me get this straight. Apple released a product that contains an operating system that's still in alpha?
No. Their OS works well and will have passed QA before they shipped. Like any humans, Apple make mistakes, but they generally at least try to adhere to "it just works".
They ported their (stable) OS to a new architecture. The internal developers put up with the codebase (with any extant foibles), and they wrote a completely new UI framework (based on, but different to, Cocoa). They did sufficient QA to get the built-in applications working correctly, and then shipped the device, hitting their target.
Now that it's out, and there's less pressure, they've been tidying it up, and polishing the UI framework, the compilers, any OS routines, and they've announced they're opening it up to 3rd parties. Presumably this means they've been patching the areas they worked around internally.
There's nothing too surprising in any of the above, in fact I'm surprised the "official" SDK will be available so soon. Porting an OS and writing a good accelerated UI framework is a non-trivial task.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
So, even if apps require formal signing and they all cost money, I still kinda expect that one thing we'll get is IBM's WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment.
It exists for PalmOS, it exists for Windows Mobile, it exists for other handhelds, and I imagine that both IBM and Sun would explode with joy at the possibility of getting it onto the iPhone and iPod Touch.
For those who don't know, this is IBM's J2ME/JavaME runtime for small systems. If you have Java on your PalmOS, Windows Mobile, or even many Linux handhelds, it's probably due to this being loaded on or embedded into it.
If we don't get that, maybe we'll get a port of the open-source reference implementation of JavaME:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhoneME_(software)
It already builds for both ARM (current iPhone) and x86 (rumored future iPhone) instruction sets.
Either way, looks to me like once there's a general dev kit, a JVM isn't going to be too far off. Anyone want to make predictions about how long it'll take or what form it'll come in?
I think, according to many rumors, that Apple had an SDK planned for a long time. But what's true about this announcement, I think, is that they got a lot of bad publicity from 1.1.1, and it was time to staunch the bleeding. I think, too, that with the release of 3rd-party apps, they're also going to HAVE to bow to the law, and either sell unlocked iPhones in the US or at least allow unlocking while continuing to update its other features. I don't think they actually buried the first batch of apps on purpose, but that they had to patch holes that the hackers had exposed, because unauthorized access is unauthorized access. I've read that at least one of the 1.1.1 hacks depends on creating a buffer overflow with a "malformed TIFF." Well, excuse me, that means a flaw was discovered that Apple HAS to fix. Anyway, very good news that they're allowing what should have been allowed -- or at least announced -- a month or so ago.
Apple have a policy of giving away their full suite of development tools to all ADC members, and ADC "membership" is a free registration away. They just want to know how many people are interested in developing for the Mac, IMHO.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
"Instead, now we have hackers who have already worked on third-party native apps, there's all kinds of web-apps to keep those who won't jailbreak busy in the meantime."
Give me a break. Sorry but that is uber spin of the worst sort. Apple didn't tell anyone that they where going to release and SDK to encourage development! Sorry but one of the reasons I didn't buy an iPhone was the lack of an SDK. Do you really think that anyone said "I really want more apps on the iPhone but since they are not going to release and SDK will get one now instead of later!"
Good heavens!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The iPhone essentially runs a cut and trimmed version of OSX, so getting an SDK for it is NOT some massive undertaking
I mean, look, despite Apple's attempts to keep people from using their own phones, random hax0rs got a working SDK up within days
A iPhone SDK would use a gcc cross-compiler (since the iPhone isn't running PowerPC or Intel chip -- by the way, gcc makes it easy to build a cross-compiler so this isn't a big deal)
Not a massive undertaking at all.
No, that's trivial mate. Tell you what, we'll do you two, in case one breaks - have it to you next Tuesday... Not.
Writing whatever they needed for the initial (general public who don't give the shake of a rat's tail about the SDK) release, then writing/polishing a general developer release is so obviously the way to go, I can't believe people are still talking about it. And if you expected 'The Steve' to lay out all his plans ahead of time, you've obviously been in a coma for the last decade. Welcome to the new century.
Simon.
(*) I think this is actually resolved in version-3 of the compiler. I'm still stuck with v2 because I can't get the LLVM part to compiler on my mac for some reason.
Physicists get Hadrons!
And how long before the price drops a bit more. I realize Apple products have a vanity, cachet, and other aspects of "image" maintained by high prices and acceptance of non-accession of a lot of potential customers, but I would not mind having an iPhone if it cost, say, $150, AND was not LOCKED INTO AT&T.
Do those two things Apple and I WILL buy an iPhone, just for the sake of having the cool gadget. What'll suck, though, is having two phone bills, one of which could be an ISP bill payment.
I don't know if the iPhone acts as a Wi-Fi modem, but it would not be bad if a laptop could be linked up to it.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
:p
you can do some stuff on a nokia phone with no signing, apparently if you want to do stuff that requires signing it is damn expensive to get your releases signed though (for development you can get a devcert which I think is free but it is IMEI locked to a small list of phones so you can't use it for distribution)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Here come the Beowulf Clusters of iPhones!!!!!1
The Iphone will also need a file system that you can put your own files on to and the 3rd party apps can use as well.
Actually, yes. I know a few people who, more or less, said that. Or rather, friends who bought the phone right away and when asked if they'd known that there would be third-party apps down the road after a price cut, said, "Oh... well, if I had known that, I might have waited and bought closer to the SDK release." Also some friends who did web-apps for iPhone and went, "Oh, well, if I had known there was going to be a native SDK, I probably would have waited and not bothered with making this web version."
:)
I am not saying that it makes any sort of logical sense. I am saying that in my experience at least some percentage of users thinks that way, and that Steve Jobs -- like him or hate him -- seems to know how to play to that audience. So, I cannot believe this announcement is a sudden change-of-heart with no road behind it, as opposed to a calculated decision to hold off on the announcement until now for some reason. My guess as to that reason may be WRONG, but that's my read on it.
Just my $0.02, anyway.
--Rachel
I really doubt that the first group really would have held off since there was always a chance that it would happen. I could be wrong but I would be that the people that didn't buy it out number the ones that would have waited to buy. Now the people wrote the web apps. Well yes they might have held off but I don't think anybody bought an iPhone because of the third party web apps. I could be wrong but I don't see it. So yes they may have not developed it.
I think they held off because they want total control. They had to find a way to require signed apps.
Now what I bet is that people will be so grateful for an SDK they will not grip that Apple is going to control who can or can not write an app for the iPhone. This security line is bull since Palm, Blackberry, and any number of WindowsCE smartphones have had pretty much unlimited application development for years.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
MMS, copy/paste, SMS to multiple recipients, Safari stability
1. Will never happen (why the hell people are continuing to bang on this one is beyond me). 2. Very difficult to see how it could be implemented, could be valuable. 3. Definitely. 4. With that latest TIFF exploit? You bet!
avocade.com
In a free and open internet, who needs Windows
Do we really want him to "stay the course" even if the entire rest of the world thinks he's wrong?
Doesn't that depend on whether or not he's right? The "entire rest of the world" has been wrong before, and they will be again.
technical writing / development
[flame]but, but, but! Apple can't get viruses? They say so in the commercials![/flame]
You have confused two very different things.
No one is saying OS X *cannot* get viruses. There are always security holes.
What we are all saying is that you *don't* get viruses, because there are none. Pick your reason - better security model, faster TTF (time to fix), smaller marketshare - the thing is there are no viruses in teh wild to catch right now. That may change but that's how it is currently and has been for years.
Until you can understand the distinction between security flaws and active exploits, you really should refrain from commenting on anything security (or even Mac) related.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm very curious as to what the SDK will allow me to do. Will we get access to the AT&T edge network ? Will I be able to write applications that talk to my laptop over bluetooth ?
It should be easy to write a bluetooth modem app for the iphone. Sure, it would increase the traffic on AT&T's network, but it would also be a great argument for getting an iphone.
Here's another idea. I'd love an API to send and receive text messages from my computer.
Here is why:
- he brought the Apple II to me when I was in highschool
- he brought the Macintosh to me when I was in College
- he brought the NeXT to me when I was just starting my career
- he resurrected Apple from the Dead
- he created OS X from NeXT Step and OS 9
- he brought the iPhone to me last summer
And last:
- he has the ability to change his mind when he's wrong.
Many people can't do that. Jobs wanted a closed iPhone. Remember his announcement at WSJ? At the dev conference? His recent "cat & mouse" comment? For whatever reason (alienating his developers, lost AT&T revenue is lass than increased sales, iPhone developers can't be stopped, some other reason...) he's changed his mind.
For this I love him.
Sorry, this is /. We don't get dates.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Well, sort of. They didn't mention that the iPhone version of the OS has UIKit rather than AppKit, for example. hello.c would Just Work (if you have Mobile Terminal in which to run it), but J. Random GUI App wouldn't.
You need more than stable API's, you also need stable ABI's, and they could well have released it without stable ABI's - all the bundled apps would have to be recompiled if the ABI changed, but that's doable. You might believe that they shouldn't have released the iPhone without stable ABIs; I believe otherwise, and, quite frankly, think arguing that they shouldn't have released the iPhone without stable ABI's is bogus.
Even API changes, although they're more disruptive to the code base, wouldn't be out of the question.
Unstable API's and ABI's, however, do cause problems for third-party apps, so they need to stabilize those before releasing an SDK.
I think you are partially right, that the iPhone is still in flux, and thus difficult to make a real API for. But I also think that the more important point is that since the iPhone uses the MacOS X kernel and lower layers that the same team that was working on the iPhone also has the 10.5 rollout on its plate, and so has not had time to work on the API for the iPhone.
Notice the timing: the MacOS X development team is just winding down from the marathon to get MacOS X 10.5 out the door, and so now are available to do things like this. Personally I think that February is pushing it a bit for this. I was surprised that it would be so soon.
Soon you'll probably be able to do anything you want to an iPhone without any consequences whatsoever and you can declare victory of the horrible monster that created that horrible device to begin with. But then why not just go out and buy a different product that lets you do all those things that you want to do from someone who doesn't make all that profit but who also doesn't take the expensive risks needed to develop and deliver something like that piece of crap that you obviously hate ? Or maybe you didn't buy one ? If that's the case then please ignore this response.
copy/paste
Very difficult to see how it could be implemented, could be valuable.
Well, here is a pretty well done and funny proof of concept of copy/paste on the iphone: http://vimeo.com/266383
Translation: They rushed it to market.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well, the fact that such fundamental design and philosophy changes are still under way, I feel reassured in my decision to wait for iPhone 2.0 before shelling out any money. Needless to say, Switzerland is likely not going to see iPhone 1.0 on the official market any time soon anyway. However, iPod touch and iPhone, given a proper SDK, could easily turn into some rather amazing products, far more than they are now. Imagine the potential for games for example. PSP anyone? Or tying iPhone and Mac tighter together via Bluetooth. Imagine a possible UMTS support on a future iPhone coupled with a MacBook or MacBook Pro. Sounds rather sweet imo.
The iPhone whining will eventually stop but Apple haters reproduce faster than rodents. People who expect everything for nothing generally reproduce even faster because they've got nothing better to do with their time than get calouses on their genitals.
iWhining is a proud tradition in this nation of children who know the price of everything and the value of nothing and whose word and signature mean nothing.
You can't take the sky from me...
You can't take the sky from me...
There's much to be suspicious about whenever someone like Steve Jobs suddenly has a "change of heart" regarding product policy. Does anyone really believe Jobs wasn't at all planning this back when he asserted that developers would take down the west coast cell networks if allowed to develop native apps on the iPhone? There's obviously more to it than this thinly-veiled blessing announcement that just happened to conveniently coincide with the release of Leopard next week.
Just wait... there will be some sort of costly compromise to be met for developers to use this SDK. Perhaps certain applications of the SDK, such as creating a VoIP app, may be considered a breach of contract. Maybe something more draconian, such as zero freedom to distribute an app without Apple as a middle-man, including a mandatory Apple tax for the privilege. (After the whole pay-to-play 802.11n firmware upgrade fiasco, I put nothing past what Apple might do if it means an extra buck.)
Needless to say, the former "crazy ones" are now committable.
8==8 Bones 8==8
If Apple really cared about such pressure, they would have added Ogg support to the iPod to please those ten or twelve people that have been demanding it for the last few years. :)
if I correctly understand the implications of your remark then you agree with Apple's approach.
Translation: They rushed it to market.
No they didn't. At launch the iPhone did exactly as it was supposed to do: work as an iPod and a phone. The SDK next year is just a bonus.
Also an iPhone owner here. After installing 1.1.1 I haven't had safari or e-mail randomly "reset" me back to the Home screen once. I'm hoping they licked most of that problem at least I haven't had it re-occur since 1.1.1. Also, I was discussing the whole lack of AIM or MSN Messenger or iChat today at work, and we came to the stupidly obvious conclusion that it is probably AT&T mandating no IM client on the iPhone. With our iPhone plans we pay $75 / month (including the taxes they never advertise) for unlimited data and 4-500 minutes as well as 200 text messages a month. I think they don't want iChat because AT&T can't monetize the text messaging. It becomes "data" and thus is unlimited by the way the plans are currently setup.
:-)
Just my two cents.. also the earphone and speakerphone volume problem seems a lot better since the 1.1.1 firmware update. I'm actually become more and more glad I got an iPhone as long as they keep providing useful updates and patches. Third-party apps is a huge step in the right direction too. Hello ApolloIM
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
The Steve, 6000 years ago, created signed apps with the rest of the iWorld. However, as he is a vengeful God, he gave this innovation to Microsoft, for the greater glory of Apple, may it live forever.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
The file system on the iPhone is called HFS Plus, and, once you've jailbroken your phone, you can put stuff on it.
The iPhone has these handy APIs with names such as open() , close() , read() , write() , lseek() , unlink() , rename() , mkdir() , rmdir() , opendir() , etc..
That's Horse Hooey. It's completely because people were writing software for it now. Since when is an announced future SDK a deal breaker?
"Time is nothing; timing is everything."
I wanna hear him 'say' it. I'm blind and listen to Slashdot comments through a voice synthesizer, you unrefined fellow who is not responsive to my personal feelings!
Bow-ties are cool.
Strange that you would imply that Steve Jobs is someone without clarity of direction. I think his successes with Apple over the past ten years (iMac, Mac OS X, iPod, iTunes Store, Final Cut Pro, Apple Retail, Intel transition, and probably iPhone -- leading to record-breaking sales and a soaring stock price) far outweigh the mistakes he has made and bespeak a corporate leader who knows where he wants to go. (I would also argue that in this case, his mistake may not have been so much in backpedaling as in not being more forthcoming about future plans for the iPhone sooner, but no matter.)
But if you want to believe that a statistically insignificant (yes, really - most people don't care, much less even know, about this) group of hobbyists and hackers have "forced" Apple to scramble to release an SDK, go right ahead. So if they were planning it all along as you assert, why did they wait for 3 months after the release to announce it? It's not like they're saying "Here's the SDK right now! Surprise! Have at it!". They announced it'll be available in 4 months. You don't make any sense. One of the biggest blemishes on the iPhone release was the lack of third party apps. Every review I've read of the device has slammed Apple for it. All that they had to say to get rid of this was to say "The SDK will be ready in February" and all of that criticism disappears. But they didn't.
I don't believe that the hackers were solely the cause for the SDK, but make no mistake, market pressure forced Apple to capitulate. They weren't planning this. They were blindsided with negative press and pressure from their customers and potential customers. At first they attempted to lay this at the feet of AT&T saying that AT&T was concerned with network stability, but that proved to be a big pile of BS, as evidences by AT&T's software development site assisting in software development for every phone in it's lineup except Apples.
And to say that the Apple battery replacement program wasn't directly influenced by that video... well, I see you've drank a little too much of the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid. Enjoy the dreams that he's told you will come.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I respectfully disagree. The reason I believe Apple never intended to have a SDK is because all the applications that run on the iPhone are running as ROOT. Why would Apple have designed the iPhone to do this? Seems to me they didn't think about the consequences at the time and underestimated the hacking community. Now that people have been hacking it, they realize they better make a SDK.
Its funny that developing for the iPhone is such a dilemma for Steve. I thought the iPhone was OS X. Funny that OS X doesn't have a problem with viruses. Maybe Apple shouldn't have made the iPhone apps run as root. Would it be that difficult to redesign it make the apps run in their own user space?
Yeah. And when developers say that, 95% of the time, you can file it under "Blame the User."
Are you adequate?
I don't have an iPhone, but my guess is that meebo probably works in Safari:
http://wwwm.meebo.com/
How are they not related? Did you even read what he said in May and what he said today? Then he said "we'll find a way to let 3rd parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone." Today he said we want to "provide an... open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc." Those are practically the same thing. And you'll have to explain how you logically classifiy one as an "Event" and one as a "Statement." One was verbal and one was written, one was (ostensibly) off-the-cuff and one was prepared. Other than that, they are effectively the same.
I do have an iPhone, and not only does this service work, but it recognizes that you're coming to their site on an iPhone and reorganizes the interface to fit the screen and work quite sensibly!
Thank you for showing me this wonderful site!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Adding features like this after the initial "iPhone Killers" have been released keeps other manufacturers from being able to really target the iPhone. Also, I feel that a real polished SDK of the same quality as Xcode might just take that long, especially with the coming release of Leopard. This, as well as other features which I'm sure will be added in the future also allow Apple ways to make the phone a better seller if it didn't sell as well as expected initially.
The only problem I see is when the hardware itself gets updated. If future models are much different from the current ones, it will probably irk a few folks if they can't run new apps on the 1st gen hardware.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
I think that my biggest personal motivation to have a good SDK for my iPhone would be to have the ability to write a nice (but minimal) RPN scientific calculator application for it, assuming that nobody else does it for me first.
I certainly breathed a sigh of relief when I read this SDK announcement, because I was gambling on an eventual SDK release when I bought my iPhone, and I was really disappointed by the previous hints that web applications would be the only supported 3rd party programs. There are basic apps (like a better calculator) that I want to have in my pocket all the time... not just when I'm in a WiFi hot spot or in an area with good cell coverage.
My personal opinion is that the folks who have complained that there was no valid reason for Apple to not release an SDK along with the iPhone itself probably don't understand the scope of work that they're talking about. It's easy for me to believe that Apple's internal iPhone developers have been working in a development environment that's nowhere near the levels of completeness or quality that Apple would consider acceptable for general release. In my own area of work, I'll often work with in-house software and/or hardware tools that are barely good enough for my own use, but which would be a nightmare to try to support in the field with my company's customers. I can easily accept that it would take more time to come up with a good public SDK after cobbling together something good enough for internal use.
I haven't followed the whole situation closely enough to form an opinion about whether Apple has announced this SDK release in response to customer reactions or planned to do it all along. Either way, I'm glad to hear that an SDK is on the way. I'd rather have it today, of course, but if it takes until February to make it clean, then I guess I'll just need to wait.
I sure hope that individual users like me who just want to make their own shoddy little apps for their own use will be accommodated, as well as developers who will be creating apps which will see wider use (and thus will need to meet much higher standards of quality and reliability).
Au contraire; now that the SDK is announced I am much more likely to buy one. I only want to know one more thing: will I be able to freely upload my own native unsandboxed code to my own iPhone/iPod, without paying Apple and then having to get a digital signature every time? If the answer is yes, I will buy an iPod Touch tomorrow.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Actually, I was agreeing with you. I think. Now I'm confused about what you're actually saying. :)
See, when I read the May statement by Jobs I thought immediately "Oh, sounds like they'll have something. Eventually." Then Apple started talking about the web approach, and everyone seemed to assume that was it. "Apple expects us to develop web apps forever!", basically. I always thought that assumption was flawed. People are using the web app help now to say that Apple's changed their direction, but the announcement of the SDK fits well into the May statement.
I have to admit, though, I didn't expect a full SDK from Apple. I expected dashboard widgets.
So? Do you actually believe they'll release it for the geek points? No, Apple does it so geeks and others write apps for the million of iPhone users.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
When I say "I expected dashboard widgets," I mean packaging HTML and javascript up as an "application," and allowing them to communicate with a developer-written web-server daemon running on the iPhone. I didn't expect to get access to the UI except through Safari, in other words. I'm quite impressed with this announcement.
Translation: They rushed it to market. Compared to Linux or to Vista?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The people who hack their phones to run applications are highly visible. They are the people who show others all the awesome things it can do -- play Nintendo games, view PDFs on the phone, etc. -- and they are the ones who act like force multipliers for sales if they are happy with a product. They are the leading edge, and consumers follow.
+++ATH0
... should be fixing that root problem you mention. There is no reason everything should HAVE to run as root. There is, in fact, an otherwise-unused "mobile" user that you can run irssi as so you're not IRCing as root. If you can run console apps as an unprivileged user, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to run SpringBoard apps as an unprivileged user.
+++ATH0
Hey, Vista should be released right about, oh I dunno, fourth quarter this year or first quarter next.
As to Linux, it's origins were as a hobby and experimental OS, so why would it have been held to that standard?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Wait, gamers aren't geeks?
www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/11iphone.html
You can read that as "this is all they're doing", or you can blink, and read it again as "this is what they're supporting as of the launch". Amazing. There are pictures you can turn upside down, and turn an old woman into a young lady too. I think the people who looked at this rationally, always saw the "give us some time" intention. The iPhone will be the ONLY phone that has two rich methods of delivering applications and games.
Again we're presented with the negative spaces. How will regular people be able to transfer files onto the iPhone for applications to access? How will applications be added by users? How much will Apple support 3rd party applications through iTunes, considering not all applications will be for sale (many will likely be free), and Apple will not take responsibility for customers thinking the software was provided by Apple. Lots to figure out between now and February. --And a LOT of jockeying for position.
--And don't use Gizmodo as a quote for what Apple says, if its not actually a quote. They have a tendency to get really screechy preachy from time to time.
I have 4 words for you, : "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers."
More than one Apple engineer at the WWDC beer bash told me that there would be a real SDK released eventually.
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Your claim does not fit the facts.
Respect the Constitution
Steve thought that there would be an onslaught of web apps developed for the iphone. Since the release, the iphone web app developers has all but stopped. Releasing a SDK is their only hope.
My Java based Blackberry is loaded with dozens of 3rd party apps and it never crashes like your iPhone apparently does.
Respect the Constitution
In theory, I agree, but what security issue are we talking about? I rely on dozens to hundreds of open-source software packages every day. Apple can either allow that same kind of flexibility, or continue to try to control all software that can run on their devices. I don't see much middle ground, and I sure as heck don't want Apple-blessed only, as that's no better than what we have now.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
SDKs are usually released before or with a product launch along with a list of 3rd party developers. Not having an SDK in 2007 with the iPhone launch is like not having hardware slots in 1984 with the Mac launch. Jobs is an idiot because he does not learn from his mistakes, he just keeps making variations on the same fundamental misconceptions. Worse he never admits he is wrong.
Respect the Constitution
Man, in your world, there just isn't enough room for a Blackberry and an iPhone to be successful, is there. Why not?
And there _are_ Macs available with expansion slots... they call them "Mac Pro" http://www.apple.com/macpro/.
NDA NDA! ;-)
Wait, that only covers the sessions, not the Yerba Buena evening. (Ozomatli were kinda cool huh?)
I heard similar things, and with regards to Flash too (from Adobe staff..)
In other iPhone news, the International Herald Tribune writes that Apple will sell official unlocked iPhones in France, to comply with local laws:
Apple said Tuesday that it had signed France Télécom's wireless unit, Orange, to be the U.S. company's exclusive seller of the iPhone in France, agreeing for the first time to sell a version of the device that consumers can use on any network.The move, which ended a month of speculation, is a concession to a French law that forbids bundling the sale of a mobile phone and a mobile operator.
So thanks to European laws, Americans will soon be able to import updatable unlocked iPhones, As I predicted.
This leaves us with only one question: What will we complain about now? :-)
The announcement certainly is long overdue. The SDK, I can understand why they didn't rush it. Even the update to 1.2.1 has broken a huge percentage of all unofficial third-party apps. Obviously, Apple is still changing things around in the SDK. It would be a bad idea to publish an SDK that is in such an unrefined state. You just can't go and break third-party apps with every minor revision of your OS.
Had Apple committed to the APIs in 1.0.2, they would not have been able to change the APIs so dramatically for 1.2.1. Had they done what must be done, third-party devs and users would have been outraged because all of their apps stopped working.
I work on an app with an SDK, and something like this is a constant struggle between progress and compatibility. I understand why Apple wants to let the APIs mature a bit before opening them to other developers. I don't understand why Apple didn't just come out and say so right from the beginning.
Possibly the security issues of SIM unlocks, chat and VOIP apps, where by security, Apple means "our security that we make a lot of money from contracts and people send a lot of SMS messages" :-)
Seriously though, with the announcement of an unlocked iPhone in France, I wonder whether Apple will still go after the SIM unlock hacks so vigorously.
I'm wondering about the same thing. I'm hoping there's a way to run unsigned, unsandboxed code on such an iPhone. I'd love to write a few small apps for my iPhone, but I don't want to get Apple's "permission" for this...
Even if I accept what you say, WHY HASN'T IT HAPPENED YET? The only viral infection of a Mac I've seen in the last six years was one that corrupted Microsoft Word templates. No zombied machines. No bots. No remote exploits.
None.
And the fact that it hasn't been done yet is even more incentive to do it.
Or the brilliant plan to keep the phone locked long enough so that normal programmers (who otherwise wouldn't try), figure out how to root the phone just to run apps and ringtones, THEN release an SDK.....so much for preventing malware.
If malware ever does make an appearance it will be helped by the fact that full exploits were necessary to undo Apples stupid software lock and highly improper carrier activation lock.
And the desktop version doesn't have multitouch, so it's different APIs. Seeing how the 1.2.1 update broke most third-party apps, it's very obvious that Apple is still moving around a lot of bits in their APIs.
What would be the app you'd most want on _iPod Touch_?
I don't thinkt hat's what GP meant. When OS X first came out, even minor new versions sometimes broke third-party apps. The iPhone update to 1.2.1 broke almost all third-party apps. That's just how it works early in the life of a product. The app team notices a missing feature, the SDK team implements it, the interface changes, other apps break. Had Apple released the SDK with the iPhone, they would have been screwed: Either break third-party apps, or maintain APIs that don't make a lot of sense anymore.
I'm guessing we can somewhat easily get a license to sign apps, but will not be able to access the cell phone parts of the phone.
The first reference quotes an alleged anonymous source from Apple, and the second one doesn't appear to quote anybody (it has a slide from a Jobs presentation, but "no SDK required" isn't the same as "no SDK ever"). Do you have a source for Jobs explicitly saying "no, we will never let you write anything other than Web apps for the iPhone"?
I've been using meebo.com for a week at work, and I've already stopped using GAIM / Pidgin at home and switched to meebo there as well.
...). However I wouldn't mind Adium being ported either.
It's nice having the chat histories persisted and accessible from any computer.
I strongly suspect that if someone writes a native app for the iPhone / iPod Touch that is simply a full-screen browser component pointed at meebo, the IM issue on the iPhone will be fully solved (excluding audio, video,
Steve is wrong. My Nokia phone has 3 unsigned apps running on it. What Nokia do is warn me that it's an unsigned app.
Just tried it out with the 140 page PDF of a manuscript I'm half finished laying out and even got my octogenarian mother interested in touching my new toy when the only think she remembered from the first time I showed her was the price.
Also tried a 1920 x 1200 aerial photo I had cropped for use as one of my dozen iMac desktop images and one which I definitely need on the toy before hiking season. Intriguingly, it was reduced to 960 x 600 so I'm either going to need to experiment further or wait for some youngsters to explore further.
Amusingly the SDK announcement came only hours after I had posted elsewhere declaring my confidence that "Apple will release an SDK after they stabilse the internals". My timing is usually out by a lot more than my typing.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Gamers are game geeks, they'd use turd powered abacuses instead of computers if it meant that they could get higher frame rates in Quake XIV.
Actually what he said that applications would only be installed through iTunes. He never actually said that the web interface would be the ONLY interface ever, just what was available at iPhones rollout.
Why wouldn't MMS ever happen? Not the biggest thing, but still more useful than the POS weather applet. And not likely that big of a deal to implement.
With the SMS client obviously at such an early stage of development I don't see how we could predict future features.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
rockbox.org
I totally agree. I'm gonna wait on the sidelines and see what Apple actually does. By Febuary, there should be a couple new options, like an iPhone clone from Nokia. Whoever delivers good hardware with an open-platform will have my business, though I no longer recommend Apple to people... stupid is all I can say. My support only counts for a few thousand dollars a month, buy why did they bother to piss me off by purposely disabling my iPhone?
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Man, in your world, there just isn't enough room for a Blackberry and an iPhone to be successful, is there. Why not?
/. will be like "Apple rules, you must get an iPhone, they never make mistakes". See, with Apple fans, it is not sharing what Apples can do, it is trying to convert followers. And they are dishonest about Apple's many shortcomings and failures.
Simply put I personally like that with my Blackberry I have finally gotten down to one device. As for others using iPhones, I really don't have a problem with people using other devices. But my friend with a Treo for example will talk about his device and say things like "Hey check this out, I setup ubuntu on my phone so that I can plug it into crappy machines, and boot off my phone and use Linux." So he is not forcing his view, he is sharing his experience. Whereas my friend with an iPhone and people on
Also I am a bit lost by your comment, Blackberry is by RIMM not MS.
Respect the Constitution
There may still be software out there that enables this (not sure, since I don't really care), but iTunes on its own does not.
Media Center has enabled unconstrained internet sharing for years. It can do either library sharing, or server-client streaming. What's really cool is that it can do bandwidth-specific transcoding when feeding the clients - I've used it to stream audio over an AOL dialup (quality was AMish). It also lets me copy the same tracks between the ipods, the irivers, and the PSP. It's like itunes for grown ups.
Da Blog
my wife asked me if i wanted an iphone and i decided against it based on apple's continuing efforts to lock down and control the platform. I have a friend who came to the same conclusion for the same reason. I'd rather wait for open moko to mature than spend $500 for a machine that despite the sales receipt still belongs to apple.
My keyboads not woking popely.
This is pure Apple apologetics. It amazes me the lengths Apply fans will go through to avoid having to say "Steve Jobs messed up". There is no evidence that people who would have waited to buy an iPhone until an SDK came out actually went out and bought one because there was no SDK. Not only that, but this argument makes no sense from a logical standpoint or a marketing standpoint. People don't buy an item because it's less useful than it will be in the future. In fact, simply writing that out makes my head hurt.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Apple probably had SOME kind of SDK/third party development planned all along. But the iPhone's OS is still a wildly moving target, and it's not appropriate to have an SDK before things have calmed down with the OS APIs, frameworks, etc.
That's probably true, but Apple today in terms of basic R&D and also implementation muscle is a mere shadow of its former self. Although Amelio had also been doing is own layoffs, one of the earliest and most consistent things Jobs did to set up his impressive string of profitable quarters despite declining sales was to aggressively curtail entire divisions and lay off most of the "wonks" and a huge chunk of the d2d devs to cut costs. That has repercussions today. Look at how unfinished so many of the apps in the iPhone were, and the lack of integration. Apple simply doesn't have enough resources to simultaneously develop well-documented and functional APIs at a fast enough pace for OSX, the ipods, and now the iphone.
Da Blog
You know, your statement, while I think ultimately inaccurate, is at least somewhat well informed. Bill Clinton was a great do-nothing President. He did what was popular and it mostly worked out. I wouldn't put him on the list of greatest Presidents of all time but he was definitely above average. Right man for the right time.
However, I think your extension of that to Jobs is wrong. Perhaps I'm a sucker but I really have the feeling that Jobs has vision. Or perhaps more accurately that he actually listens to his developers about what can and cannot be done in an allotted amount of time and finds a way to market that. That makes him look like he has vision when in reality he's just really good at collecting the ideas of his employees.
To be honest, and if we're going to compare to Presidents, I think that makes him much more like a George W. Bush. Far from being a cowboy, Bush listens to the advice of his cabinet (stocked with a lot of conservative thinkers) and executes the plan. Likewise, I think Jobs has stocked his company with a lot of very talented developers and designers and executes the plan.
What's particularly impressive in Jobs's case is that he gets development and marketing to work together. Apple markets software like they know what they're doing. Features make their way into various parts of the OS or various Apple applications (e.g. iLife, iWork, etc) before being distilled into a class with a good public API. A number of iLife features made their way down to the official GUI toolkit (Cocoa) in subsequent releases of OS X. Very few developers have the discipline to test something for real and work the kinks out of the API before making it public. See Microsoft Windows for a great example where you have billions of DoFooBar and DoFooBarEx (i.e. extended) and sometimes DoFooBarExEx.
And now we have the iPhone. They released it locked down as much as possible. They released it with no official SDK. Everything runs as root. Subsequent releases broke all third-party software. It has all the markings of an internal software development project that is simply not designed to be a long-lived API. But that was fine. The point of the iPhone was not to start out by competing with other environments like Symbian or Windows Mobile. The point was to start out by doing a cool phone. Trying to make it a real OS would likely have tripled development time. The amazing thing is that unlike the companies you hear about in all the horror stories (and there are many of them) the marketing guys were on board with this. Once the phone is field tested, you can start thinking about making it a platform.
This is where, IMO, Microsoft goes wrong. They're always thinking of Windows as a development platform first and foremost. Apple, instead, thinks of the user and prototypes things and only after they're proven to work well does Apple make it part of the platform.
The odd thing is that if you listen to the prevailing "wisdom" of software engineering Microsoft is doing it right. That is, you design an API and then you implement it. On a small scale, that works. On a large scale, it fails miserably. Interactions between components often necessitate API redesigns and occasionally radical API redesigns. That's why the whole "Extreme Programming" caught on for a while and the good aspects of it are starting to be incorporated into mainstream software development methodologies. Developers finally started realizing that software is really like any other engineering discipline. You have to prototype. However, unlike other disciplines, you have a lot of interaction between components and prototypes are cheap as hell. Every time you compile and run after making a change you've refined your prototype. You don't design a bridge by simply drawing it on a piece of paper and hoping it works because it looks good. See Tacoma Narrows bridge for an example. No, you have to instead prototype it and test it in wind tunnels and try to simulate earthquakes and all
Maybe it's to maximize the use of the limited 256MB of RAM in the iPhone? Maybe swapping kernel space and user space on a system with memory protection significantly degrades performance on such a memory-restricted device? Anyone want to weigh in on whether that may be the case?
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Or maybe it's a place to go urinate while no one's watching...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
"Why did they wait for 3 months after the release to announce it?"
Because Apple announces only when they can deliver or can give a pretty close date for delivery.
Most people don't realize that the iPhone is essentially the first release of Leopard. Articles talking about WWDC mention that Core Animation and a bunch of other stuff were in Leopard but were developed originally for the iPhone. The way I saw it, iPhone was an incomplete product. It did everything marketing required it do on release. (it's an iPod, it browses the web, and it is a phone. Can't deny it fit the criteria, ne?) But it could do more. Trouble is, when you also have the company's baseline platform to finish up, it's kinda more important to work on Leopard, isn't it?
Since Leopard wasn't done yet, and many bugs were being worked out on both Leopard and iPhone, it wasn't certain that they could bring out a native SDK and keep Leopard on track.
Now that Leopard's off to the CD presses (afterall, if they're shipping in less than a week, the final CD had to have been handed to the presses at least a week ago), it's perfect time to evaluate the progress of other internal projects. Now that the OSX team has probably gotten close to finishing up a native iPhone SDK, give them the 4 months to finish QA, write up documentation, translate it to all the languages, and release it in Feburary.
Market forces had nothing to do with this. PR outrage had nothing to do with this. All that just made everybody talk more about the iPhone. For every person who said "iPhone sucks" there were more who said "iPhone? What is this iPhone? Oh cool! *opens wallet*".
Not having enough engineers lined up to finish the OS had everything to do with this.
If you think I'm giving them too much credit, so be it. Based on Apple's behavior before, I guessed this would happen when they made the iPhone web app announcement. When hackers got access to iPhone 1.0.2's file system, I made a quick scan of the bluetooth manager and it pretty much assured me it would happen. Now that it's been announced officially, it feels like no big deal to me.
I think they were referring to Kirstie Alley, but for what reason I shudder to think
Steve Jobs messed up. But, as you can very plainly see, he's taking his problem child to the shrink. In a manner of speaking, anyway. Of course people who wanted an SDK wouldn't buy a phone with no SDK. They'd wait until the SDK release was closer at hand. Or at least officially announced. There are plenty of other, cheaper platforms to hack.
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Kind of ironic when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak used to play pranks with Blue Boxing of telephone systems.
Some of the more famous pranksters were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, founders of Apple Computer. On one occasion Wozniak dialed Vatican City and identified himself as Henry Kissinger (imitating Kissinger's German accent) and asked to speak to the Pope (who was sleeping at the time).
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Looking back...this should not have been marked offtopic. This was a perfectly valid question given the context: whether an official iPhone SDK will have hardware programming support.