iPhone's Development Limitations Could Hurt It In the Long Run

ZDOne writes "Apple might have finally come around to allowing third party developers to create applications for the iPhone, but only up to a point. ZDNet UK claims Apple is leaving itself vulnerable to the competition and to a loss of lustre by blocking background tasks on the device. The author notes, 'Perhaps it doesn't trust application designers or users very much. Perhaps it wants the best software for itself, where it can limit what it can do in order not to upset its telco friends. Whatever the reason, it reflects badly on Apple. The iPhone is not an iPod; it's a smartphone connecting to a universe of fast-changing data on behalf of innovation-hungry users. The sooner it stops pretending to be a 1981 IBM PC, the better it will be for everyone.'"

Comments

Uh, perspective?

[NMerriam]

The SDK hasn't even been released yet (we've seen two betas only), and yet people are criticizing it as if this is already the last version of the SDK that will ever be released and no new features or APIs will ever be added.

Christ, the hardware itself is still on its first version (!!) and critics are already acting like the development environment has been neglected since Reagan was in office.

I suppose it's marginally entertaining for tech writers to have a new variation on the old "Apple is Doomed" story that they can use to generate page views. "Recently released handheld battery-powered device doesn't yet replicate all advanced features of a desktop computer! Also, world hunger not eliminated. Apple is doomed!"