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An App Store For iPhone Software
Steve Jobs demonstrated a new "App Store" that will be pushed out to all iPhones in June. It's available now in beta. This will be the exclusive avenue developers will use to get their iPhone apps, written to the newly released SDK, to customers. Developers will get 70% of the proceeds from sales of their goods on the App store, with no further charges for hosting, credit-card processing, etc. Jobs called this "the best deal going to distribute applications in the mobile space."
Actually, that is what I was thinking, though not wrt free/open source apps. If I spend time and money to develop an app, I don't have choice with the iPhone about how I can distribute it or most importantly, the cost structure. It seems a little arrogant to me for Apple to say they get 30% of my profits if I want to sell an iPhone app. End of story. No choice, take it or leave it.
Pretty lame to me. My home network is made up of 2 iMacs, 2 Macbooks, one Fedora box and one WinXP box. Most of the stuff I have been buying, after I bought my first Mac, has been Apple made. I bought 2 iPods, though I did not buy 2 iPhones, for my wife and I, and now I am really glad I did not buy the iPhones.
Apple, I am a fan, and most importantly, a paying customer. However, give up the MS-like control. Charging developers $100 for a cert then telling them that you are going to take 30% of the sales? Lame, freaking Lame.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Look, calm down. Look, it sucks, but Apple made a deal with AT&T to do whatever they can to stop sim unlocks, because AT&T are idiots and seem to think a "pay for 24 months" contract won't stick without a sim lock. It sucks, and now that Apple has so much clout (and some credibility) in mobile, iPhone 2 will probably favour Apple (and consumers) more. But the only way they can allow third party software is to veto it for sim unlocks, and somebody's gotta pay it. It sucks, but it's AT&T who're evil, not Apple.
If it's free to download the SDK and you use your own iPhone for development, unlocks will simply have to be distributed in source form. FOSS FTW!
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Since the I-phone is not 3G capable (read far slower than dialup transfer rates) you had better be near a wi-fi hotspot or plugged into your computer to get all these new apps. Also since you cant change the battery in the handset, if you are at a hotspot forget using the phone or bluetooth unless you want your battery to die in like 10 minutes. Except for visual voicemail which is very cool and safari which is useless anyway because of the over the air data transfer rates the I-phone is overpriced, overhyped and under performing in every metric that a smartphone can be. I am not drinking the kool-aid on this one.