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Apple Targeting Business World for the iPhone
The New York Times is running a couple of stories about the future of the iPhone in the business world and Apple's plan to maintain control of application development. Now that the iPhone SDK has been released and the "App store" has been demonstrated, Steve Jobs is pushing for the adoption of the iPhone as a standard business tool. In addition, a venture capitalist named John Doerr has launched a $100 million "iFund" to spur development of applications for the iPhone. From the NYTimes:
"Mr. Jobs was upfront that there are limitations on what applications can do. He talked about bans on pornography and malicious programs. He also said Apple will not allow any application to be installed on the machine other than through the iTunes store. Nor will applications be permitted that enable an end run around Apple's deals with wireless carriers. Many questions remain unanswered. How much streaming video will Apple allow, because the iPhone is such an interesting video device? Mr. Jobs did say that the application development environment will have a lot of capabilities for video playback. Will Apple allow a service like Last.FM to offer streaming music on the iPhone?"
Right now Apple is proving the market for such a device, and then products like OpenMoko will come in and claim it, using the iPhone as R&D to prove concept but without encumbering themselves as Apple is doing.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Apple may be about to drop the ball on this one. With Android looking like a (potentially future) winner, Apple are losing the chance to build up momentum as an open mobile platform for developers to experiment on.
I understand that they probably have contractual agreements they need to fulfill, and that the deal with ATT may have been a deal with the devil to get the phone out there and break into the market, but it could end up costing them more than they bargained for.
Those limitations aren't really limitations. They're just no-brainers. There is almost nothing you can't do with the SDK.
When will companies learn to provide us [Consumers | Developer] tools to use that do not have purposeful limitations that are simply the concoction of someone who wants to confine what I can do with their product.
"Apple will not allow any application to be installed on the machine other than through the iTunes store"
So how can you be targeting businesses with this product then? What if I want to develop a special in house only product for my sales people to use that I don't want the competition to get ahold of? Why can't the iPhone work like every other piece of hardware I own and run any kind of program/hardware I can stuff in there? I'm on the fence of getting fed-up with Apple...
I love how apple has declared that their 'controls' are actually 'freeing' the phone. Yes, now that you can put apps on the phone, it is a 'more' open platform. But you STILL have to go through apple, and since it is *MY* phone, why can't I do whatever *I* want to it?
... oh wait ... I can ... apple just doesn't like it ;)
This is the same problem sony has with the psp (although, it has some differences as well) - If I want custom firmware on my psp, who is sony to tell me no?
I don't like where this attitude of control is taking us. Already, you don't buy software, you just buy a license to use it. I DON'T want to have to license my HARDWARE too!
He talked about bans on pornography...
Most businessmen will want it. It will save the travelling businessmen from the embarrassment of "pay per view" tv stations appearing on the bill.
They want to get the business users, they better give a pretty good look to Exchange / Lotus notes compatibility. Being able to read your mail is not going to cut it. Searching in the public contacts, booking a meeting room, those are things a Windows Mobile user takes for granted.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
...one of the major questions. Jobs was explicitly asked if VoIP apps would be allowed. Jobs explicitly answered that they would be via WiFi, but not via the carrier connection.
So I think the question of how much data usage will be "allowed" for heavy use applications is essentially unlimited via WiFi.
As carriers continue to build out their data networks, as competition continues, and as higher bandwidth (e.g., 3G) iPhones become available (which has already been confirmed by Apple and AT&T several times), then we may see the landscape change for apps that use the carrier's network. It seems right now a common sense approach will be applied.
But it also seems clear that anything (as long as it's not specifically for porn, illegal, etc.) will be allowed via WiFi.
If you don't know who John Doerr is by now, you need to turn in your Silicon Valley geek credentials.
Chip H.
iDon't know what Apple are thinking. Business people on the move need gadgets to do something useful, not stuff that's bereft of useful features.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
1) the base phone is a barely 3G, non-multi-tasking, bling-bling phone, at least for now
2) other organizations (open moku will be cited along with others) have failed to get developer energy
3) the iPhone's business model is being constantly corrupted (look at SIM unlock #s to understand 'renegade thinking')
4) unless you find your own business model, or market through Apple, you won't get much but love with your code
5) your code will need lots of adaptation to be used on other phone substrates
6) Apple will likely digest the best and discard the rest-- have we not learned anything?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
They need to get the companies that makes synchronisation software for Exchange to make a iPhone version.
Apple has failed to notice that there is nothing the iPhone's OS does that Android cannot do. Slap Android on a pure touchscreen phone and what do you have?
Oh, right. Instant replacement for the iPhone in the making, and it's open. Google is not being authoritarian like Apple.
Even Nintendo was not this bad back with the NES. Dear God, you'd think that Jobs wanted to have his coveted little space, even if it's small, just because he can be king of the compost pile over there.
Is this the first PDA or personal gaming device that use motion sensors for input (control)? I think this is going to be big - all those business-types (me included) playing games, networked games, in the office. I do think they may need need one or two buttons on the device, although perhaps "thumbspots" on the left and right would be enough.
Cheers,
Ashley.
So can I send images to other phones with Bluetooth? yet!!
It appears the iPhone is almost ready for serious use - add 3G and they have a serious tool rather than just an unfinished toy which is all it's been up to now.
Get TomTom on that and I'm there.
Exploit the customer how? By paying for new software?
Jonathanjk.com
Newsflash! Company markets product! More at 10.....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
My boss has an iPhone, and after seeing it I went and got a Samsung i760 instead. Why? I live on email, and forwarding everything to gmail just doesn't cut it. The calendaring functions in Exchange/Outlook are critical to a lot of businesses, and there's no mac or open source package that's anywhere close. Jobs needs to do some groveling at the feet of MS, since Entourage is a bad joke as well when it comes to calendaring and it really slows the uptake of Macs in the business world.
AT&T is the other reason. I can't even get service in my office on AT&T- Verizon has 3 bars. I've got a full 3G connection and the 760 is really pretty snappy on web pages. How's that EDGE thing working out?
Would I rather have an iPhone? Probably- it's smaller, lighter, has a better interface and looks a lot nicer. (Although the external keypad and keyboard on the 860 make up for a lot of that.) But there are a bunch of i760s in my department and only 1 iPhone.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
As I understand it, the SDK is free, but apps made with the free version can only be run on the iPhone simulator. If you pay $99, you can compile apps and beta test them on an iPhone connected to the dev machine with the standard cable, as well as sell your apps through Apple.
The big unanswered question for me is 'can I unplug my iPhone and still use my beta App?'. If the answer is yes, then open source software can be spread without going through Apple simply by sharing the source code. If this is the case then paying the developer fee amounts to unlocking the phone's app restrictions.
Has anyone tried this yet?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
And now Steve Jobs wants to stand in the way of all those infertile couples who want to have children!
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Seeing how at the time I'm posting this all 3+ points comments are complaints how the SDK sucks and Apple's foray into the enterprise mobile device market will definitely go bust, I would like to be the first to pronounce iPhone a complete winner. It is rare thing to see so much nitpicking on Slashdot - I've seen it 2-3 times since the iPod bitchfest. Bravo, fellow slashdoters.
With unlocking already done, 3g and vpn support around the corner, etc. and the 100 million with caveats that unlocking-style edits aren't getting the money, what exactly are they thinking of in terms of development here? I'd just as soon use the 100 million to pay off a distributor, get 100 million in unlocked iphones, sell them on ebay and use the profits to pay off the AT&T/Apple servitude so everyone can just buy the thing straight from Apple already unlocked.
stuff |
Steve Jobs presentation from yesterday is available on the Apple site. Could anyone who complains about the lack of Microsoft Exchange compatibility please watch the keynote first. Most of the posts so far can be answered by saying "You may not have watched the keynote yesterday, but..."
The iPhone API provides this from the FAQ:
How do I figure out the location of the device?
Use the CLLocation class to get the altitude, the altitude's vertical accuracy, and the geographical coordinate for the device.
implying a future iPhone will support GPS!
Woah there, Che.
Crikey, deep breaths now. That's it.....
You state that with such unapologetic conviction I almost have to laugh. What market share does Android have right now? And why exactly are Apple losing momentum? They are offering an outstanding platform that is rapidly approaching maturation and has gotten fantastic adoption rates. Furthermore, the iPhone will soon lose the last barriers to enterprise adoption. Come back with some evidence, please.
In my opinion, John Doerr is much more than "a" venture capitalist. Let me explain that statement in detail. Bear with me- I'm verbose, so it'll take a few paragraphs.
Doerr is a really sharp guy who saw potential in companies like Compaq, Sun, Symantec, Netscape, Amazon, and Google. The thing is that Doerr knows how to look at a business plan, understand the market opportunity a company wants to try to exploit, and have an idea of how likely the company is to be successful at doing it. So yes, Netscape, Amazon, and Google were "internet companies," but they were also companies with business plans that had not-entirely-ridiculous paths to profitability. Keep in mind that VCs typically have an awful "batting average" and invest in a lot more duds than eventual superstars, but the really big successes are generally good enough to make the overall average ROI, including the flops, quite positive.
A big part of the problem in the late 1990s is that a lot of VCs looked at Doerr's investments and basically came to this conclusion: "Doerr made a load of money for Kleiner Perkins by investing in the internet, so we have to invest in the internet." So in the late 1990s, many businesses that were basically "just like [whatever], but on the internet) were given ridiculous amounts of funding even when there was no clear path to profitability in the business plan. Yes, it's true that a VC firm can still make money in an environment like that of the mid-to-late 1990s by funding a company and taking it public as soon as it starts to show revenue growth, getting a big ROI on something that is never going to be profitable. But eventually the house of cards falls and then there's an overreaction as people say "oh, we lost all this money investing in the internet, so now we should avoid such investments," even when a good business plan appears.
I worked at a software startup in 1999. We had tests done with major retailers that proved we could increase the profitability of a given category anywhere from 25% to over 100%, depending on what the retailer's strategy was for that category (read up on "category management" for more info on category strategies). In the meetings with arrogant moron VCs, the founders would tell them about this and show them the actual data that supported the claim, plus testimonials from executives in the (multi-billion dollar) retailers where the tests were done, and the VCs' eyes would kind of glaze over. As soon as the founders stopped talking, the VCs would say something like "uh huh... so, what's your internet story." I suggested to the guy who had the original idea for the company that we should change the name to "e-[original name of company].com" and we'd be swimming in money.
The saddest thing was that apparently one such moron was from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, which was widely seen as the VC firm at the time, in no small part due to the remarkable business vision of John Doerr. It would have been more accurate, from what I heard from very reliable sources, to say that Kleiner Perkins was a good VC firm with VCs of varying quality (yes, a high average, though), and John Doerr was the venture capitalist.
I'm not a fan of VCs in general, but I have a lot of respect for John Doerr. And if he's setting up a fund this big for iPhone app development, that makes me think very good things are coming for Apple through the iPhone. Very good things.
As always, YMMV.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Knowing the history of how Apple & corporate IT departments have treated each other (prejudices on both sides), and the steadfast change-averse nature of corporate IT to this day, don't get your hopes up that the iPhone will be adopted much more than the Mac has across the enterprise. That's certainly been the conclusion of clear-deaded analysis outside of the RDF, at least. If there wasn't another solution that wasn't just "good enough" we might have a different outlook, but the truth is that RIM (like MS solutions) might be more expensive and cumbersome, but it's now been accepted by corporate IT as "standard". And heaven forbid anyone suggesting a "nonstandard" solution in corporate IT, especially one as flashy as an iPhone (videos? music? arcade games!?! the horror!!!) If anything, the relatively closed ecosystem of the platform would probably be seen as an advantage by most IT managers; but remember that you don't necessarily win in corporate IT by having the best technical or financial solution.
Mind you, even a small uptake of the iPhone in corporate environments does not necessarily mean Apple makes off poorly - it's more than they have now, their low-overhead iPhone model means they'll make money from corporate deployments no matter how few, it adds a sense of security to potential adopters of the iPhone (ie. a show of committment by Apple) and it adds momentum to the platform.
Nice, so now thousands of developers will have to buy an Apple machine. That sales spike should give the stock a nice boost...
The flip side tp all of this is the "App Store". By providing developers with an audience willing and able --and required-- to actually pay for their software, Apple is going to encourage the development of an avalanche of applications for the iPhone platform.
No more hoping that more than one user out of a hundred will pay the shareware fee or make a "donation". No more playing whack-a-mole with crack sites and serial numbers. And by promoting that development, and by providing the marketplace, Apple stands a very good chance of becoming a dominant player in the marketplace based on the strength of all of those applications.
See: Apple's Magical Mystical Application Store
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Sure, encrypted connection, but no mention of on-device encryption, which RIM supports and your administrator can require through policy. So that's not going to be a big plus for corporate and government. Then there's the fact that on contract pricing, an organization can get a Blackberry Curve with BES support (some of the discounted consumer units don't support the Blackberry Enterprise Server) for under $100. Are they going to support central logging of IM client messages to/from the device? Again, something RIM supports with a BES - along with corporate IM client integration. Useful if you have a regulatory requirement to log messages.
The Fortune Magazine article, The iPhone gets a $100 million iFund, says:
In typical Silicon Valley hyperbole Doerr summed up the move as the beginning of a new world order. The iPhone, he said, is "bigger than the personal computer..."
The iPhone is locked to one provider. The iPhone will soon have unlocked competitors. It certainly will never be "bigger than the personal computer". The iPhone is basically only another cellular phone, and most people use their phones only to make phone calls.
Apparently the figure of $100 million being mentioned is just a maximum. The real amount invested could be minimal. The amount invested, which may be small, will get the investing company 30% of the entire income, the article says.
Push email is huge. And until you've used "real" push email, it's kind of hard to appreciate just how cool it actually is. RIM's integration with corporate IM clients is pretty slick as well, as is the direct device-to-device Blackberry messaging (based on device PIN). The latter is good with folks outside your organization, or in the organization if your Blackberry Enterprise Server (or internal network, or organization's internet connection) is down for some reason.
...and misses by a WIDE margin!
There will be "some success" but being required to use iTunes (a frequently banned application in many enterprises) will certainly keep it out of the enterprise presently controlled by Blackberry. (And I have to believe that anything that offers less than Blackberry will not be good enough for most corporate users.)
And no pornography? How will they try to control that?!
Given that we are discussing the presentation where Apple specifically announced "that the iPhone can accept pushed mail from an exchange server" with version 2.0 of the firmware, what's your point?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
When will companies learn to provide us [Consumers | Developer] tools to use that do not have purposeful limitations that are simply the concoction of someone who wants to confine what I can do with their product.
As soon as consumers develop and deploy their own national wireless network. Apple has a responsibility not to let their phone pollute the AT&T network with bandwidth-abusing traffic. If users ran around with P2P apps downloading movies, then it would impact the user experience for all and they would hate their iPhone. Not to mention that other cellular companies would be loathesome to allow the iPhone on their networks.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Google are innovative only on software up to now, while Apple is just all about combining hardware and software.
I'm not too much worried about a company that took, what, dozens of % of the phone market, in just months, with just a non-3G phone.
Their next one will be better, and will do better...
Herve S.
and the zune can do everything the ipod can do, so it's an automatic 'ipod killer'
these types of posts are annoying
"the iphone is a joke because could do all that too"
yeah. it _could_ do it, but it doesn't.
iphone beat them to the punch - it's out in the wild, people love it, it's getting market share, yadda yadda yadda
calling all destroyers
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
Yes, iPhone has Exchange push. Schiller made a big deal of it in the presentation.
First, you all thought how cool it would be to have a half-phone, half iPod. They gave that to you, but it sucked (Motorolla). Then you speculated about one with Wi-fi, that could watch movies and maybe play games and they gave you the iPhone. But you are still not happy. Now you want it to be completely open so you are free to hack away at it even though no company could support such a device? You said they couldn't breach the corporate market, already dominated by RIM, and now that they are trying you murder them for it? I call Shenanigans. Does nothing satiate you people? Is this how you foster innovation, by cutting down any company who puts out a device that doesn't have the latest and greatest? I don't own an iPhone, because it isn't available in the Great White North as of yet, but I do know it is a cool device that does some cool things. Sure, other devices can do those things too, but not quite in the same way as Apple, which has always been their selling point. Don't like it? Go make your own 4G, super VoiP, free Radio, Open Source phone that does everything the iPhone doesn't. Yeah, I thought not.
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
My excitement over the SDK was somewhat doused when I read it isn't PPC compatible. Since my best Mac is a G4 powerbook, that would have been my environment for coding my dream iPhone app. I don't have the resources to buy a new Intel powerbook just to code apps for my iPhone.
Exploring options, I found that the OSX86 scene is thriving with successful installs on beige box PCs. Now I can turn my quad-core 2.4 ghz intel box into an iPhone IDE! Hooray!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Perhaps this isn't relevant, but iphone hacking community already has a Last.FM client available (and it's wonderful). I'm not sure they'll be able to stop one from being developed, since there are bound to be ways to get non-apple approved, but still SDK-written apps on the phone.
Will the Blackberry allow the IT department control the device like they can with the Blackberry? One of the best features about the Blackberry is if a user loses their phone, IT can erase the device remotely, have the user go to the store, pick up a new phone and instantly have all their data back. On top of that the company can change security policies and have complete control of the device. These are all things the iPhone will need to even have a remote chance of breaking into the corporate world.
My God you people are IDIOTS. Go watch the damn video. They show FULL EXCHANGE INTEGRATION!!!! Including Push Mail, Push Calender, Push Contacts. WTF...it amazes me how smart some of you sound here but you cannot even get your facts straight. You cannot be bothered to open your eyes and see what we are even discussing. And you wonder why Apple continues to make BILLIONS of dollars and yet you still live in your mothers basement.
. I love the sound of burning women and screaming rubber....
This would make iPhones a serios competetor to business phones like Blackberrys et al.
What if I want to distribute my iPhone App only to people in my company? Can that be done through the App Store?
Also, can I rum my App on my iPhone when it's not connected to an iPhone dev kit enabled computer?
Wasn't that sort of the point of the first quarter of the presentation?
Now you want it to be completely open so you are free to hack away at it even though no company could support such a device?
Palm and Microsoft seem to be able to manage it. What planet do you live on where there are no smartphones?
Go make your own 4G, super VoiP, free Radio, Open Source phone that does everything the iPhone doesn't.
They don't seem to have Google on your planet either.
At work we're currently looking at hand held device options for an application we write for a client; the iPhone has been mentioned as a possible target device (one amongst many options being considered). If the software can only be deployed by via iTunes Store, then it scratches it as an option. Our client is very sensitive about the software we write for them - only we and them ever get to lay eyes on it. They wouldn't accept it moving through a third party.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
non-multi-tasking
It's running UNIX. What more multi-tasking do you need?
My understanding was that the gentleman (Marcia Hardy) of Catamount Software did quite well w/ his ``Aloha'' AOL client for the Newton --- bought a boat w/ his earnings from the app if memory serves. Shareware though, so if you were being specific 'bout commercial / boxed software developers, my apologies.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Come on Apple, you open development for iphone but close it to 99% of Linux, Windows and MacOS 10.4.x developers??!!
Are you trying to push us to buy Leopard and a Mac just to develop for that crippled non-3G phone?
fool of me, I though that Microsoft was the biggest egocentric company of the world...
At least, why do not you just let me install *legally* your pretty looking SO on my ugly standard PC or on a VM?
"Thanks" Apple!
Anyone else notice this: we-will-add-your-technological-distinctiveness-to-our-own
Someone thing Apple is being more Borg like? Maybe a Steve jobs Borg icon in the future?
Now watch me get modded -5 you said something bad about Apple
I think you're missing the point. Sayin that "current product X will lose because potential future product Y will be much better" practically always assumes that current product X will not improve until future product Y appears. There are no Android phones available. Mobile 7 is not available. The iPhone is. When the other two are here, the iPhone will be in a different place, too, and if it turns out that absolutely open development is better (so far, this does not seem to be the case for mobile devices), Apple will be able to adapt.
Because you need more than 130Kbps (up to 1Mbps) for Last.FM?
Big problem with EDGE and even the 3G transports is latency. Latency isn't really an issue for streaming applications, like net radio. It's a big problem for anything that needs to be interactive, or that performs lots of small, mostly synchronous I/Os.
I've never understood why latency is so high with GPRS and other systems, though. It must be something in signal processing, since distance definitely isn't the issue. Any experts on this around?
I find it hilarious that a person with "Sony Fanboy" in his name makes these points about Apple. Hopefully you don't own a Sony PSP, or a Sony notebook, or a Sony MP3 player, or, actually, pretty much anything from Sony.
I can't decide are you:
Stupid?
flamebaiting?
Because you just made everyone think you are foolish or stupid.
I want you to take that tiny brain of yours, and think about what you posted. Do you REALLY think he was talking about web browsers?
Maybe, just maybe, he was talking about applications since that as the context it was said in.
Dumb ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What? The iPhone runs OS X. It has preemptive multitasking, memory protection and all that other stuff modern operating systems have.
2) other organizations (open moku will be cited along with others) have failed to get developer energyAnd you think that applies to Apple, too? You'll be surprised. There's a reason Apple's dev servers went down yesterday.
3) the iPhone's business model is being constantly corrupted (look at SIM unlock #s to understand 'renegade thinking')Apple said they were not married to any individual business model. Not to mention that they make money whether you use your phone with AT&T or some other carrier.
4) unless you find your own business model, or market through Apple, you won't get much but love with your codeEveryone will use Apple's service.
5) your code will need lots of adaptation to be used on other phone substratesIf your app is good enough, you'll sell enough copies on the iPhone that you won't have to adapt for other mobile systems. And if you don't make enough money, port the app to the Mac. Porting from OS X to Mac OS X and vice-versa should be easy, they share a ton of APIs.
6) Apple will likely digest the best and discard the rest-- have we not learned anything?What does that even mean?
I may be mistaken in this because I'm a little out of date on the topic, but...
... it seems like they would open the phone up to working on other networks other than AT&T.
If Apple wants iPhone to become a 'standard business tool'
Why would I as a business user switch to AT&T (as opposed to paying to have my iPhone hacked and potentially bricked) just for the latest toy?
Save early, Save often
Sorry - 237Kbps up to 473Kbps, not 130-1Mbps
The interesting thing for your IT department is that the iPhone gets its email from the _exchange server_ itself, not from a server that connects to a server that connects to the exchange server, so with the iPhone you don't need any additional costly hardware and additional costly software licenses to get your push email, unlike with some other phones.
The big unanswered question for me is 'can I unplug my iPhone and still use my beta App?'. If the answer is yes, then open source software can be spread without going through Apple simply by sharing the source code. If this is the case then paying the developer fee amounts to unlocking the phone's app restrictions. Then it's little different from XNA Creators Club. The fact remains that the distributor of a app under GPLv3 or an app that uses a library under LGPLv3 has to share Installation Information. Wouldn't this mean that he has to share the password to his developer account?
This is a quote from the Fortune Magazine article linked in the grandparent post: "According to the business plan, as explained by Apple, developers will participate in a revenue-sharing arrangement. Apple will keep 30 percent of sales from every app sold."
To me, that indicates that there is some connection, including a contract between Apple and the VC firm.
Overrated != 'I don't agree with you because I'm an Apple fanboi and I dream of sucking Steve Jobs' cock everyday!'
My blog
Actually, from the SDK documentation " Users can only run one application at a time, and if they leave an application it quits." So no, you can't write application that run as a service daemon. Kind of screws things up for a lot of potential innovators I would say.
Somebody could donate $99 so that iPhone apps on something like sourceforge could all get access to iPhones. Maybe i didn't read enough into this, but it seems that something like that would be valid.
When iTMS first launched, the small indie labels used a middleman to deal with Apple. Actually, i guess a lot of the small labels still do it that way.
Everything mentioned by the editor is already possible and probably already done with the unnoficial SDK. As an example, the Last.fm app called MobileScrobbler is one of the killer uses of a hacked iPhone/touch
Replying to an idiot. OK, I can threadjack.
The Apple iPhone would get 80% market share in a day if Apple sold it on the open market and tell the telcos "fuck you, racketeers, we (Apple) SELL DEVICES."
But they want thir $200. Fuck them, then. I'll keep my crap phone and my crap mp3 player as long as I can't buy overpriced Apple stuff. (Ayone can find them "fallen off the truck?")
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
MapQuest was THE market leader for years. They've long since fallen by the wayside because of dropped market share - mainly because they lack an open API, but it took quite some time for them to lose out to the big 3's mapping solutions.
/. if somebody else owned them. Picassa? Not search related, although they've used their market position in search to give the product market share. Google Code? It's been around for years and hasn't made a dent in the sourceforge/freshmeat/etc. existing marketspace. GOOG-411? Not a dent in the 411 business, and they are FREE! Then there's the GooglePack that tries to install RealPlayer. So much for open source evangelism. Google Docs? No market share, not search related. The list goes on and on and on. It's great that they explore all of these markets, but the revenue machine is contextual ads. You know what... I completely lost track of where I was going with this. (as I'm sure, so did you :)) Anyhow, Google isn't as Good as they get credit for.
There's a lot of love for Google out there, but Yahoo! actually deserves a lot of eyeballs from around here. Their APIs are generally much more robust and much better documented. How many people remember going to Yahoo to resolve LAT&LONG in order to get enough information to get their google maps script working?
Google has plenty of non-search related businesses. Adwords/Adsense is their cash cow, and they maintain that marketshare with ridiculous patents - the kind that would be typically mocked on
Suppose I want to distribute my app, which implements an interface to my service? It is not a publicly available service and I don't particularly care to distribute my app to anyone under the sun. Not only that, I NEED to be in control of updates. In other words in a corporate environment there is a very legitimate need to be able to distribute a mobile application yourself, or be able to install it directly on a device from a local repository. Not only that, I'm not charging people for the APP, I'm charging them for the service (or maybe licensing them the back end software itself). Furthermore it would be ludicrous for me to now say to my client 'OK, to install this you have to go to the Apple "app store" and download it.'
I don't have a problem with the App Store itself as a concept, but it certainly isn't even close to meeting business needs, and if this is going to be the ONLY way to get an app on the iPhone, then it will not be a supported platform for a wide range of business applications.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
You completely neglected to mention Windows Mobile. While you may think it's a joke, or whatever, it's a rather a powerful platform (.NET CF 2.0 and 3.5 anyways), and is used in quite a few corporations for mobile push email, CRM, inventory management, etc etc.
Great, once again, Palm Treo 750 runs WM6, and has 3G already, not to mention it always had Push email with exchange. Good thing Apple is on the cutting edge.
1. Imagine Microsoft forcing windows users to subscribe to MSN in order to connect to the internet. Imagine Microsoft forcing their users to purchase all software through microsoft.com. Imagine if windows only ran on official Microsoft hardware? Would this strategy have been effective? Is this kind of practice sustainable?
2. Imagine the Apple/AT&T board room conference call where they debated how much was too much to carve out of developers revenues. They finally arrived at 30 percent. As one involved with software sales, this number is very high for a reseller, and ridiculously high considering the exclusivity Apple demands.
3. Know the difference between prize financing and venture capital. Prize capital allows the winner to retain 100% of the company, while venture capital is giving your equity away in exchange for cash. You will find that most venture capitalists will be seeking a controlling stake of your company (>50%), and will be looking to get acquired, go public, or liquidate their interest within 3-5 years. Furthermore, 100 million is a drop in the pool of total VC fund money out there looking to invest in this space, and nothing will stop you from getting your android project funded that way. This makes the "iFund" announcement about as significant as breaking news about the omnipresence of DiHydrogen monoxide in the environment.
4. So after this you still want to be an iPhone/iFund developer. Let's do a little "new math". So after Apple takes 30% of your revenue, the VCs take 51% of your company, you are left with 19% of what you started with. Invalid equations aside... the moral of the story is that if you choose to go this route, you will be, so to say "Owned". Look how happy musicians are about the pennies on the dollar they get for their sales on the ITunes music store... Should we not be itching to join their ranks?
5. What about free software? If only official apple-authorize software sold through the apple software store is allowed to be installed on your device, then there leaves no room whatsoever for Free/Open Source software to exist on Apple's platform. Sorry GNUbies!
6. What if Apple/AT&T doesn't want you to erode the sales of their content streaming services? They just stamp your software as "Bandwidth hogging", and tell you to politely go fuck yourself (and this means you slingMedia!). You have now officially become a victim of the absence of openness and network neutrality. They probably don't even offer a refund on the $99 you wasted buying their SDK.
It's time to seriously ask yourself, Are you, as a developer, willing to subjugate yourself in such a way?
To blog is sublime
Slap Android on a pure touchscreen phone and what do you have?
Nothing because Android has very little in the way of API's around touchscreens?
I can take fine wine and pour it on a piece of bread to try and make a gourmet sandwich. But I doubt anyone would enjoy the soggy results.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I agree that Apple has decided to cripple the iPhone to the point that even with the SDK, it is useless, especially for business.
I'm sorry to say you've put yourself in a pickle on this one. We can put you in the same hall of fame as the "Lame iPod" guys, and take away your Visionary sticker, as you will see in six months to a year.
Google has decided that developers cannot write powerful native binary applications for Android phone, which is important for high performance cryptographically secure applications.
Hvae you ever used any of the Java crypto API's? They are heavily optimized, and often rely on native libraries for speed. You can indeed write performant Java crypto systems, and there's no reason to think Android will be any different.
I actually think Android will do pretty well also, taking up all the remaining market the iPhone does not gobble. Android on the low end, iPhone on the high end.
Another problem with Android is that all of the proposed new phones (none of which have been released yet) for it will only have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) displays, which is literally half of the HVGA (320x480) display of the iPhone which has been available for more than half a year. This will make Android much harder to use for web surfing, office apps, etc. than the iPhone, or even Microsoft Windows Mobile phones, some of which have WVGA (800x480) displays.
I totally agree with this part, which is why I say Android for the low end. There will always be a place for simpler cell phones and it might as well be Android that powers them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Imagine Microsoft forcing windows users to subscribe to MSN in order to connect to the internet. Imagine Microsoft forcing their users to purchase all software through microsoft.com. Imagine if windows only ran on official Microsoft hardware? Would this strategy have been effective? Is this kind of practice sustainable?
Apple has shown that, yes it is tenable.
When you buy a Windows Mobile handheld today, how many other OS'es can you load on it? What about Palm? All these companies have shown what you claim is not tenable.
2. Imagine the Apple/AT&T board room conference call where they debated how much was too much to carve out of developers revenues. They finally arrived at 30 percent. As one involved with software sales, this number is very high for a reseller, and ridiculously high considering the exclusivity Apple demands.
You must not be operating at a very high level then as 30% to include distribution, hosting, update infrastructure, management, servers, scalability, reliability, and so on is very reasonable. Ask Symbian developers what they get (hint, the number starts with a five and is two digits!)
Know the difference between prize financing and venture capital. Prize capital allows the winner to retain 100% of the company, while venture capital is giving your equity away in exchange for cash. You will find that most venture capitalists will be seeking a controlling stake of your company (>50%)
Gee, if only you had read the actual details you could have avoided your whole rant. They get 30% out of your 70%. Now I personally would not go for that, but if you need a lot of capital that's better as you say than other VC approaches. They have re-thought a little the way to get cash out of startups to accommodate a new way of doing business that involves much less overhead for the developer.
What about free software? If only official apple-authorize software sold through the apple software store is allowed to be installed on your device, then there leaves no room whatsoever for Free/Open Source software to exist on Apple's platform. Sorry GNUbies!
I can port any GNu thing I like and sell it on the store. Of course lots of other people could as well, so I see little point once the first free versions appeal (and you know they will). I can also of course, as a developer, compile and deploy whatever I like to my phone.
What if Apple/AT&T doesn't want you to erode the sales of their content streaming services? They just stamp your software as "Bandwidth hogging"
Didn't you get the memo? Those apps, are limited to WiFi.
It's time to seriously ask yourself, Are you, as a developer, willing to subjugate yourself in such a way?
Is it nott time to ask yourself, when do you let the hate go? Because you got a lot of hate for Apple there and it's really clouding your judgement, and making you post things that make you look either insane or ignorant. Isn't that going to be pretty embarrassing if you ever go to look for a job? The internet is forever dude!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wow, you actually had a good argument there until you went off on a rant about how naive anyone that questions Apple is.
Actually he had a great argument and he never said anyone that questions Apple is naive. He called the people that are complaining now a bunch of whining losers, basically. And he is spot on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is not true. You cannot put apps on the device without a developer key, and the legalese which accompanies the SDK forbids its use for apps distributed outside the iTunes store.
Distributing the source is not the same as distributing the application. If you compile source, and you give the source to someone else, and they compile the same source and deploy it on thier phone - Apple will never know, nor would they care, nor would they (or could they) stop it.
I'd love to see Apple give out free certificates to verified open-source projects
Even if they have to pay $99, is that so terrible? My god any half decent open source app with more than two users could get that with one donation plea, if the developers were really so living on Ramen they could not spring for it themselves.
I mean open source sites that provide https portions have to pay for certs there, and the world has not come to an end!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You mean outside of Windows Mobile DirectPush, which does everything that the iPhone does and more?
And hoe many companies actually support ActiveSync today? Lots of people just use the Blackberry servers and call it done. The iPhone is the first device to really pressure companies to actually enable ActiveSync, which ironically will also be a boon to Windows Mobile users when they come up!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yow, that must have hurt.
Because if you had read anything, even the briefest morsel of news you'd see that not only can Enterprise apps be distributed in-house, not only can you download apps on it iTunes, but (and here it where you really got it square in the insole) you can also buy apps DIRECTLY ON THE PHONE ITSELF. The AppStore, that everyone is talking about in all these posts? Why that runs on the PHONE.
Wasn't Slashdot technical once?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The huge number of already impressive iPhone applications show just what a success the SDk and AppStore will be. Lots of people seem to think the iPhone market will be just like other cell phones where all you get is a lot of lame games/ But from what we have already seen there are going to be some amazing apps for this phone!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, the phone works just fine w/o 3G. (They call it an "iPhone," geddit?) Ditto, the calendar, address book, iPod and some other functions. Synchronization is an utter delight for those of us with busy skeds and contact lists. That'd be enough for many people, especially those who use the device for focused business on the go.
Then, there's WiFi when you're at your home, office, friends' places or congenial coffee shop. Damn sight better'n 3G. All the data you want.
And even when you rely on EDGE, it works just great for SMS, maps, weather and other nibbles of the 'net. Even email, as long as you don't expect it'll be faster than Blackberry, the supposed one to beat.
So the quote suggests you've never actually USED one for non-toy use and been frustrated. iPhones function VERY well within the design parameters, better than many browsers, for example, on nominally faster nets.
"Inquiring Minds Want to Know!"
That's a useful explanation. I wish John Doerr had not given an exaggerated explanation with few facts.
He was quoted as saying that the iPhone is "bigger than the personal computer...", I thought that he knew that wasn't true, as the Fortune Magazine writer implied. That made me wonder what was being concealed. I'm still wondering if there are agreements between Apple and VCs that are not public.
In my opinion, his statement was poor public relations.
Portions of the iPhone interface are allegedly protected by patents. I haven't personally checked, but it may be that there are things the iPhone does that would be infringing if done by Android. Not an issue for individual hackers, but I would not expect a commercial manufacturer to risk a suit with a clear violation.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Then, there's WiFi when you're at your home, office, friends' places or congenial coffee shop. Damn sight better'n 3G. All the data you want. psst - other mobiles have WiFi too you know. The point however is all the bandwidth in the world is utterly useless if the device in question can't talk the protocols you require, such as to use a VPN for example.
And even when you rely on EDGE, it works just great for SMS, maps, weather and other nibbles of the 'net. Even email, as long as you don't expect it'll be faster than Blackberry, the supposed one to beat.
So the quote suggests you've never actually USED one for non-toy use and been frustrated. iPhones function VERY well within the design parameters, better than many browsers, for example, on nominally faster nets. Difficult to USE something to do something it CANNOT do.
And in answer to your comment title:
IF IT'S FINISHED WHY ARE THEY RELEASING VERSION 2.0?
This is just more apple bs trying to promote thier proprietery, locked in device to businesses. It is destined to fail. Businesses need functionality and unrestricted access, not just a pretty GUI. All hail OpenMoko... Apple Fan Bois have at me..
Careful now... You might have Microsoft complaining to the DOJ that Apple is using its monopoly position in portable music players to give them an unfair advantage in another market. Last I heard, such things are against antitrust laws.
Will GTA be OK as long as it doesn't have a sex scene? Aren't you glad we have Apple will decide what is morally correct and enforce their interpretation on your applications? Maybe they'll get keen on Jesus next and require a hail mary motion to unlock the device via the accelerometer.
That looks to be the $299 option. If you're distributing software to people in your company, that's hardly even chump change.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
With Windows Mobile, you have the choice to sell your software however you want.
And the freedom to have almost no-one making any money on it, meaning your app selection has a ceiling of the ideas that a lot of people will pay money for, instead of supporting niche ideas long enough to have them flourish.
You can, as an Apple developer, pay Apple money to be able to run applications on your phone or give them away for free.
Or sell them for a small sum that many people would actually pay, because it's an impulse purchase.
You can, as a Windows Mobile developer, pay nothing and run whatever the hell you want. No $99 initiation fee. Anyone can download the tools and compile the software.
Well technically anyone can download the iPhone SDK as well, but it appears you need to pay the $99 to push to your phone.
As a Windows Mobile developer you have the freedom to throw a software party and sit there as the days go by and no-one comes.
Programs on my 3G Windows Mobile can access the Internet via 3G.
And programs on the iPhone can access the internet on EDGE, just not if they are built around the concept of needing a lot of bandwidth. That may well change when 3G comes to the iPhone.
Streaming video, streaming maps, streaming music, email sync, SSH, and more... none of it approved by Microsoft, Motorola, or AT&T.
But as a user, do you care if it was approved or not? No, you care if it exists, not how it reaches you. Except really you do care without knowing it, because you'd like to think the app you got is safe to use. Having lived through the last ten years of security hell for Windows, you are still advocating a totally open app approach on a more vulnerable platform?
But seriously. what kind of idiot would start (or continue) development of Windows Mobile applications past today? I just can't see the ROI.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ha Ha, "erroneus", very funny. Just in case you were actually serious and not a troll, read any transcript of the event to find why nothing you said was correct.
A good troll would have woven some degree of belivable confusion into the threads, but you had nothing there. No-one is as stupid as you are pretending to be.
"We want the ability to control what software is on the phones" - everyone knows by now that's exactly what Apple has given... If you had posted this response on the day of the event, perhaps it would have passed - but only perhaps.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Whether it's the iPhone or not is debatable; but that sort of handheld-computer-masquerading-as-a-phone is going to be bigger than the personal computer."
It's difficult for me to see that that could possibly be so. Most of the work I do on a personal computer, I will always do at home or at work. I need a big, comfortable display. I need a full-size keyboard. The most comfortable chairs in which I sit are in front of my desks.
"In fact, I would go so far as to say that within 10 years, that sort of handheld will be most people's personal computers."
I guess predictions are a cultural thing. It has become acceptable that anyone can predict anything.
I can make predictions, too. But I don't like my predictions to be about the future. For greater accuracy, I like to make predictions about the past:
I predict that tying the iPhone to Comcast will tend to lower Apple's status. For examples of how Comcast is seen by the public, watch the YouTube videos A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch and Cancelling Comcast.
I predict that, once the novelty has worn away, most people who own iPhones will use them mostly to make telephone calls. There is nothing so urgent about my email messages that I need to interrupt what I am doing when I am away from my desk and answer them, using a tiny keyboard and one finger.
it's a single tasking DOS with nice GUI.
The difference is that there are many, many other kinds of GSM phones, and all of them have the same GSM functionality, although the iPhone has some additional functionality.
What percentage of people want to use their phone to do something other than make calls? Of those, how many are willing to pay a lot for the phone, and be locked to Comcast?
just what business users need: another locked in device to held you hostage to one company. Great !