When Steve Jobs mentioned a few weeks ago that there will be “some sort of app development” for the iPhone, everyone assumed he meant widgets. Widgets are less powerful than native applications, and depending on the underlying OS hooks offered, they can be even less powerful than J2ME apps. But when Jobs came out today to outright sell us Web 2.0 and said that “no SDK required”, I felt cheated.Everyone who understands a bit of web development, should already heard of Ajax. The name is simply a marketing name for what used to be called “dynamic javascript” back in the day, for oldies like myself. Originally, it didn’t take off, but Google has change the landscape by offering not only amazing services based on the technology, but also offering development tools to help others doing so. In the simplest term, a Web 2.0 site looks good, usually changes its content dynamically and it has data in its heart with users as a driving force.
The problem is though that there are limits what you can do with Ajax/Web 2.0, and there are even more limits when you try to do that on a 400 Mhz ARM CPU (which is usually less powerful than a 400 Mhz x86 Intel/AMD CPU). For example, you can’t create a VoIP or IM application, and even if you manage to write one, it won’t integrate at all with the rest of the iPhone (e.g. accessing the contacts) because each application runs on its own sandbox. More over, you can’t possibly be expecting something like Google Spreadsheet to run full speed on an ARM CPU with limited RAM. If that wasn’t enough, web applications require you to be connected at all times to the internet. If you don’t have an unlimited plan with Cingular, you are out of luck!
To recap, Ajax web applications running on a sandbox have the following drawbacks:
– No access to operating system features and functions (e.g. impossible to write a CPU meter or a video-IM app)
– No access to the iPhone’s databases (e.g. you can’t access your current contacts for your IM web app)
– JavaScript apps can be very slow.
– You can’t expand the current operating system via drivers or other tweaks (e.g. adding support for A2DP/AVRCP Bluetooth profiles)
– Must be connected at all times to the internet to use an app. If the developers are hungry for ad cash, even a calculator might need internet access before it allows you to use it just so you load a new ad with it!
– Speaking of web ads, expect the Ads 2.0 to go hand in hand with your iPhone’s Web 2.0 apps. Thankfully, so far there is no word about Flash support…
– If currently connected via GPRS, apps with lots of data to transfer will suffer dramatically.
– Lack of mature development tools limit the feature-set and stability of a web app. It might take another 5 years before we see truly mature web 2.0 dev tools in the same way we enjoy today for C/C++.
– To use something like a spreadsheet you might need to obtain login information. This can get out of hand if most of your web apps ask you to create a new account.
– Non-standard UI development. Don’t count on developers to emulate the UI usability of the iPhone. Developers will put their links wherever they want and won’t try to look exactly like an iPhone app. At least with native application development doing so is more difficult and so native apps are looking more uniformed and consistent as they use pre-defined UI ideas (e.g. the menubar, the background color or the ok/cancel buttons). But with web UIs, everything is on the air.
– A well-written web app can also run on mobile Internet Explorer, mobile Opera (not Opera Mini) and Symbian WebKit. This takes points away from the iPhone as it brings nothing of unique value to the product.
Positives:
– No installation required.
– Fewer security headaches.
– Makes Cingular happy.
Given the fact that other smartphone platforms are able to run both Web 2.0 apps, Widgets, J2ME and native apps, this can be a real blow to the iPhone’s future. Maybe Apple forgets that it was PageMaker originally and Photoshop later that immensely helped the Mac? Apple needs to find a way to offer users what they want, even if that might only be available to unlocked iPhone units rather than carrier-dependent ones. Until that day comes, I will continue to deem the iPhone a “high-end feature phone” rather than a true smartphone.
For many cell phone vendors, the customer is the carrier, not the end user. The carrier chooses what apps the phones run and how much the users pay for those apps. They usually make the phones available to end users in exchange for a contract to use their services, and then they lock the phones.
If Apple follows this model, they’ll design the phone to maximize revenue for Cingular (AT&T now). The alternative is to make a developer-friendly platform and piss off the carrier. Yes, security is a concern, but it’s important to check what they mean when they say “security” … “user finds a way to send more text messages without being billed” might be the kind of “security violation” they want to stop.
As I understand it, the iPhone *will* provide a way to interact with the rest of the OS, and it *won’t* require you to be online all the time – you can store AJAX apps locally. Aren’t Dashboard widgets AJAX in some sense?
Edited 2007-06-12 01:37
That’s certainly how I understood it, apps as war-files you can download and install locally. If it is installed on the device itself you could provide a REST interface to internal data on the localhost.
Edit : example getting localhost://contacts/name/Tyr would return an xml or json with all relevant information. Probably easier for new programmers to pick up ecmascript + html than learning a new API and one of the traditional languages.
Edited 2007-06-12 06:56 UTC
There will be a lot of simple acceptable quality apps that can be done with as web apps like a basic IM client(think Meebo, but optimized for a phone’s screen size) and some basic word proccesing stuff, again optimized for the screen size. While these will work perfectly fine over WiFi, but like most AJAX apps, they will probably be a bit of a pain over a slower EDGE connection and out of the question when no connection is availiable. Sure some of this could be mitigated with something like Google Gears, but until then, AJAX as the SDK is fairly useless with out a constant WiFi connection.
You bring up a good point about Meebo, that IM applications could be doable after all, but ultimately how well a low-powered ARM CPU can pull it off remains to be seen.
Also, Eugenia: So what if Flash support would mean Flash ads are possible? It would also mean that Flash apps would be possible, and that is a very exciting prospect!
Edited 2007-06-12 10:23
I have yet to find a really useful Flash app.
Don’t count YouTube out.
Also, the latest version of Yahoo Mail has built in Yahoo IM, courtesy of Flash. So IM over Flash is a definite possibility, and likely the performance would be better than with AJAX. I can imagine Skype over Flash being a possibility as well, or even a PDF viewer if one was so inclined. And don’t forget the kiddies’ never-ending voracity for games!!!!
If neither Flash nor J2ME support is included, though, then Apple have really painted themselves into a corner if you ask me.
Edited 2007-06-12 10:32
I would buy one in a heartbeat if it had a decent SDK.
Not that I would program anything for it, but because I know that other people would.
I think the iPhone has wifi, not just internet though your phone company, but though starbucks or your house or whatever. If there were a decent SDK someone would integrate Skype or something with it so you could have free phone while you’re at home. Or think of the games / multimedia.
I could imagine XBMC running on that phone streaming mp3s or movies from your fileserver.
I really think Apple is missing something here. I’ve known people to buy an Xbox and do nothing with it except use it for homebrew applications like XBMC which is made using an illegal copy of the XDK.
If apple came out with a real SDK for the phone I’m sure other “gotta have it” software would emerge. Apple needs to open their eyes. I hope they’re getting paid real well by the wireless providers to not release an SDK so that dumbass customers will pay $3 for a ringtone or $5 for a tetris game.
How many Consumers base the purchase of their Phone on what sort of SDK it offers?
Answer: Developers who double as Consumers and they don’t even represent a fraction of 1% who purchase phones.
Maybe. But users want applications. You highly disregard this.
I suggest you go read my archives of my blog. There, you will find information about my brother, an honest working electrician, who shun away the Linux touchscreen “wow-your-friends” cellphone I sent him last year because it wouldn’t run any third party native apps (Motorola wouldn’t release their SDK). Additionally, my brother can not afford to pay for GPRS and doesn’t have WiFi at home (DSL is very expensive in Greece). In that respect, the iPhone is a worse phone for him than the Motorola Linux one was, as the iPhone can’t even run J2ME, let alone native apps or Widgets.
Don’t underestimate what people need these days.
Do they really want applications? What applications? A map, for instance?
Apple is betting that everything you need is already there. Not that I agree, but that IS the typical Apple Way.
>Apple is betting that everything you need is already there.
Then Apple is going to lose the bet. They are striving for 10 million units. If you think that all these 10 million people are going to need the exact same thing, you are way out of your league.
There are more than 10 million people in the pool of potential buyers – Apple are betting that the 10 million people in that pool who do need the exact same thing are going to choose an iPhone.
10 mil people are too many people. Most phone models don’t sell more than a few million. And this alone shows that you can’t get 10 mil people to want EXACTLY the same thing.
Please, open your eyes. A person who would shell $500 expects a smartphone. It’s as simple as that.
YOU may expect a smartphone but that isnt what apple claims it to be! Read their website
http://www.apple.com/iphone/
you seem to be wanting this to be something it wasnt intended/designed as.
There is no doubt that there are at LEAST 10 million people out there would be very satisfied with the best phone, music player, video player, SMS, street mapping, and web browser all in one device. It’s just a question of price for most of them. If Apple doesn’t reach their sales goals at the first price, they’ll change the value proposition as much as possible until the goals are met.
I think you trip up in thinking that this is just a “smartphone”. That’s like calling a Mac “just a computer”. Style sells just like sex does. The crazy people in the Jobs Reality Distortion Field are buying Apple products for different reasons than Windows PC or Windows Mobile buyers. So between nerds (HTC users?) and normal people (nokia users?) and Mac people, I think they will find a healthy market.
Edited 2007-06-12 09:55 UTC
Do they really want applications? What applications? A map, for instance?
Games. Without J2ME support they are missing out on a huge opportunity. Especially considering that every other phone out there, even the very cheapest ones, support this.
How on earth Steve got it into his head that J2ME support will somehow make the phone crash is beyond me.
…Of course, how one would control those games, without having any hardware buttons to control them, is another question.
Edited 2007-06-12 10:35
seems to be abysmal abomination, or rather, this is what i choose to call it because i lack(i doubt they exist) the real required words to describe it.
though this is hardly surprising, considering it comes out of this certain company
hopefully they can work with Google and get Google Gears to work on the iPhone in order to make it possible to develop web-apps that would nicely be accessible off-line with a database where to store their data.
if companies with a solid business case won’t receive access to the REAL SDK, and not what you people consider the “toy” SDK, namely the one based on Widgets.
Case in point: there’s no public SDK for the iPod, but people still get to buy games on iTMS.
Expect the same ecosystem to be extended to the iPhone, but don’t expect access to the crown jewels if you don’t have a solid business case.
Same thing Symbian did with Symbian Signed. No solid business case == no access to the crown jewels.
[q]
…if you don’t have a solid business case.
[q]
If you don’t pay the requisite tithe to Apple and get their blessing.
No amount of money (not any amount mere mortals can afford to fork, anyway) will convince Apple to let Joe Random Developer produce craplets for the iPhone. If anything, the restricted access to the *REAL* SDK is justified for allowing Apple to weed out the craplets and *not* let iPhone buyers *ever* be faced with the ridiculous amount of sh*t one can find for Windows Mobile and Symbian “smart” phones.
I can surely attest that I know WTF I’m talking about, since I own a S60v3 “smart”phone and happen to be part of the development team of a really nice console emulator for that platform.
Nokia will never allow *us* access to the high resolution timers, for no other reason than the fact that emulation is a very grey area. But companies like EA, Sega, SCEA, Capcom, have *zero* trouble accessing any APIs they wish.
I can assure you the companies selling iPod games are smiling ear-to-ear.
Ok and what high precision timer might this be? AFAIK only RTimer is available and that doesn’t need any special capability to run even at HighRes. Besides even if you did need some magical capabilities just do what all the other apps do that need access to AllFiles or similar stuff that Nokia will ‘never’ hand out – developer sign your app and ask your users to get their own developer certs for the specific IMEI they are interested in.
So what you’re actually saying is that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, right?
Go spend some time in SymbianSigned.com (particularly https://www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/dev/devcertSummary and the linked PDFs) and then come back to tell me what you learned about MultimediaDD. While you are at it, try to understand that even the developer certificates that you mentioned DO NOT have access rights to ANY of the APIs mentioned on the orange box.
Registration is free.
You don’t need MultimediaDD unless you are using very specific multimedia framework functions such as changing the priority of sound playback and similar. The DD in the MultimediaDD should give you a hint – DD = DeviceDriver. I don’t think Nokia will grant this to EA or anyone else either since it can f–k up your phone if abused. Seriously dude – if you think you need MultimediaDD then I suspect your are not using the APIs correctly.
Maybe my question is offtopic,
but what about mobile phones with a more open architecture, like the OpenMoko?
Trolltech also has released its GreenPhone with a lot of development tools for Qtopia, but to a very inaccessible price (700 $us, AFAIK).
The Apple market is totally opposite to the geek side, they provide closed technology for non-technical users, so I did not expect having an open architecture for the Apple iPhone.
i wish i could mod you up above 5!
this is exactly right, apple caters to non-techies who don’t want to tinker with their kit, they want it to look pretty and just work to the minimum of its capabilities with the minimum of fuss.
frankly i’m not one of those people.
these days one of my first thoughts when buying something like a dvd drive, games console, gps, router etc. is are there custom firmwares, is there an sdk, does it run linux? as i know myself and/or the community can make a much better job of it than a small team of minimum wage developers given a month to write their code.
with opensource, bugs will get fixed and features continually added, instead of end-of-lifed like proprietary kit.
Honestly, if Apple wanted to make a true OS X “Mobile Edition” handheld device, then the product would have been branded as such. The iPhone is exactly what the name implies: a smart-phone, with some better than usual sugar-coating that assists a typical Joe in his mobile communication. AJAX-based widgety apps are more than sufficient to implement such features, as the LDAP address book demonstration during the keynote showed.
I find it hard to believe that Apple would leave it all up to the developers to mimic the UI, etc. without some utilities, so I’m sure we’ll see at least some SDK package as far as an AJAX “Web 2.0” framework and more specific explanations of hooks to the iPhone OS. That said, I also bet a shiny penny that the framework APIs/ABIs will be reverse-engineered the moment someone figures out how to dump the system.
There’s no doubt that Apple is leaving a gap in their product line, but that’s all the more incentive to watch out for new bomb-shells at MacWorld ’08.
> The iPhone is exactly what the name implies:
> a smart-phone (…)
A smartphone is exactly what the iPhone is NOT at this moment; it is no more than a featurephone, and not the most powerful one, you see, with no Java (and so, no downloadable minigames). What it does, it does beautifully, but you can get all that done with a phone 4 times cheaper.
A smartphone is not just a phone with a nice screen, organizer software and a web browser, but a device that will let you *INSTALL NEW PROGRAMS*. There is a lot of things I may want to accomplish with a beautiful, always connected device with a gorgeous screen such as the iPod, but that would require a REAL smartphone, that would let me install free or commercial software like this:
* PDF viewer/ book reader
* Scientific graphing calculator
* Mini Office suite (Documents to Go /QuickOffice)
* SCUMM and Lucasfilm’s graphic adventures
* An Infocom text adventure player
* An in-house enterprise application developed in something like RealBasic.
And on, and on, and on. But Apple is following it’s usual path: it decides exactly what customers have to do, and what customers must never do, and then funnels customers down that path with no detour.
And down we march that lavishly decorated tunnel, as a herd of sheep, and enjoy a great out of the box experience for a full 90% of the time; it is just that 10% of the time, when we have a special need, big or small, we find out we’re f–ked.
I think apple is doing what it always does.
Do a limited number of things and do them WELL.
There’s a reason ipod still don’t come with microphones and fm receivers.
It may well be that the things apple has decided to do with this device don’t serve your purposes. That’s their prerogative. So find something that does or dig in and do some reverse engineering.
Hopefully openmoko will become cost-efficient and then we will have more choices to fill our variety of needs.
I agree that what they do they do well – and in style, too. But they don’t try hard enough to be flexible, and I find their we-know-better-than-thou attitude somewhat up-nosed.
Sure, there’s a reason why the iPods don’t have fm receivers, and it is surely not usability, but control.
Of course, doing all that is their prerogative, and mine is to whine about it and blow the whistle if I think my opinion should be heard, or that momentum needs to be built up to force them to detour ever so slightly.
The device indeed does not serve my purposes, but that is painful, because it *almost* does, it easily could if they just wanted, and it is a very, very cool device.
As for reverse engineering, I did not need to go that far with my iPod in order to make it vastly more usable: I just started using Rhythmbox instead of Apple’s iTunes, and most of the limitations disappeared without touching the device’s firmware at all.
While it may not have been everyones cup of tea, I think its a good move, easy to develop and deploy.
You can do some AMAZING things with Ajax and other technologies out there.
It’s also stupid to start commenting on it the DAY it gets announced, why don’t you wait until the phone comes out and people actually start developing things for it.
Most of the things on the iPhone probably already makes use of these technologies.
>You can do some AMAZING things with Ajax and other technologies out there.
When a Skype AJAX-based implementation comes along that implements the whole protocol and also reads from your iPhone address book, call me with it. My Skype number: eugenia_loli
Edited 2007-06-12 06:43
Sniff Sniff*
We’ll see.
The telecom industry cares very much about your VOIP needs. They care about suppressing them. The carriers are like the mafia. The carriers would rather break your legs than allow existing customers to know how much they are getting ripped off. The carriers will do anything in their power to keep anyone from devaluing their services.
Apple and smart users are too weak to break the status quo. The big handheld providers could do it but that would risk breaking what already works for them, and that is bad business. The smart users combined with open source initiatives might be able to do the deed as good hardware becomes cheaper.
The telecom industry cares very much about your VOIP needs. They care about suppressing them.
What makes the carriers in the US so different from the ones in Europe? Here VoIP on your mobile is available, functional and no carrier has ever done anything to actively try to stop it. They’ll just charge you for the bandwidth and be happy.
Well my T-Mobile internet contract states that i am NOT Allowed to use my nokia E61 for VOIP using the data connection (Not the wifi connection but the 3G connection)
Im in the UK. I thought all providers were against data being used for VOIP on mobile phones.
“Greed” is the answer to your question. Why not rip everyone off and make tons of money? If people keep paying me, screw them, right?
“The American Way” includes a strong drive for the acquisition of wealth. Morality, ethics, and shared wealth get in the way of being the best at business.
Or did Jobs say that you could integrate with address books and other apps on the phone? The OpEd claims no, but I’m sure I at least heard that you could access the address book…
I’m not a developer but a user. Therefore I don’t really care how my latest application is made of. What I care, tough, is that an app that needs another app (safari) to be launched, and retains the safari interface in the way, it’s not an app. Or at least not as it should be. two clicks to launch an app instead of one and then some jibberish writings in the address bar to confuse me. So apple wants the “small” devs to choose web 2.0 as their deleopement platform? fine. But give an opportunity to launch the apps directly from the main screen and kill the safari interface completely. I’m sure there will be a way to do it, but the way the app was presented at the keynote, well it didn’t resembled an app at all to me. Just a webpage. (not to say that it was a bit slow and couldn’t use any core animation stuff and… oh well)
Edited 2007-06-12 11:11
I read someone’s blog (not gonna link it or else people will accuse me of blog spam) who mentions that you will be able to run the web-based apps in a “headless” Safari window, meaning no address bar, no navigation bar, etc.
Makes sense, a developer could probably use Javascript to remove those bars to create the illusion that you’re not in a web browser. I’m sure you’ve seen pop up windows before where it’s just the window frame + title bar, the web page, and nothing else.
One of the main strongest pluses of the iphone is the new innovative interface. Let’s be honest here, the only reason I would buy an iphone is the fact that current generation phones and smartphones share a wrecked unuseful interface. Be it UIQ or WMobile 6 I don’t really care, they sucks. Now, if these “applications” cannot get advantage of the new interface, if they cannot benefit from the ease of use, the percieved speed and the overall feeling of the iphone, I believe one of the strongest points of the device is getting down the drain (at least it does if you’re not happy with the small amount of built in apps). Not only that, but these “apps” would be definitely be more unfreindly than pocketpc uiq counterparts. For example do not underestimate the fact that you’ll have to launch safari before launching your application. It simply sucks even more than the launcher on my uiq. Then how about running multiple apps via multitasking? How about background-running applications? Utilities? How would you do that with safari? I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to think this web 2.0 thing wasn’t the right thing to do.
Edited 2007-06-12 11:33
…are probably both breathing a sigh of relief.
Especially Palm, which has a policy totally oposite to Apple’s: There are hundreds of apps, good and bad, free and expensive, libre and proprietary, that you can load on a Treo. And, by the way, Windows Mobile & Smartphone devices are just as open.
All of them together have not brought the networks down to their knees so far due to malware running on the handhelds, so I’d say that carriers don’t actually have that much to fear, and neither should Apple. Carriers are indeed not that afraid, as they happily offer Treos at prices well below the iPhone’s.
Apple is herding us down their path, again. And conspiring with carriers to reach their common goal, too.
What Cingular is truly afraid of is Skype.
I’m a rabid Apple fanboy, with 2 WWDC’s under my belt and having had a Mac at all times since 1986, and even I can’t find a way to rationalize the half-assed solution that Apple is providing.
Steve Jobs’ keynote definitely hinted at remotely-hosted AJAX apps, with no local storage. You can’t make a serious mobile app that way. What will happen when you have no signal and all you want to do is enter your restaurant tab in your checkbook app?
The only way to have real apps is to have a real SDK. If the $600 iPhone can’t do what my $150 Blackberry does today, then I can’t justify buying it, even though I lust for it.
I’m a rabid Apple fanboy, with 2 WWDC’s under my belt and having had a Mac at all times since 1986, and even I can’t find a way to rationalize the half-assed solution that Apple is providing.
Like most other wireless companies, AT&T (Cingular) wants a closed ecosystem. They want to be the gatekeeper for all apps, ringtones, etc, so that you have to pay them to do anything. I’m reasonably certain that they foisted this expectation on Apple — and Apple probably has no other choice in order to get a presence in the wireless market.
Reading your article and comments Eugenia you seem very frustrated/angry/cheated at the solution given by apple for developers on the iPhone.
Why is that? I don’t recall anyone Forcing you to buy the phone. If you simply don’t like what they’re offering then do not buy it.
As for your prediction: <<Then Apple is going to lose the bet. They are striving for 10 million units.>> Sorry to dissapoint you but youre not the expert to judge this.
Heck even the experts that could say something constructive about the original iPod were way wrong.
I’m not saying that this will be the case once again; however I’m pretty sure that the folks at Apple know a bit more than you do
True, nobody forces anyone to buy the iPhone, but this is a forum, and the idea is to talk about things. Eugenia feels the iPhone is not worth it and so do I, and I’ve been an Apple customer long enough to know that they are not infallible.
CharAznable I agree with you this is a forum and everyone is free to express themselves.
I like the iPhone because it gives me everything I want.
You have to understand that this is not going to be the ultimate Smartphone. It aims at a broader audience.
I personally like it because it combines the iPod, a mobile phone, a video player and a smartphone all together in a sleak and rather small design.
That is what I have been looking for and if it wasn’t for the iPhone I would be buying a new Sony Ericsson to replace my older one (they’re doing quite a good job).
However I feel Apple’s is even better.
Eugenia is free to write whatever she wants but when your an author/editor on OSnews you have to be careful and not cross the line. It might seem like you have a hidden agenda.
Edited 2007-06-12 13:06
Why a hidden agenda? This is her website, and this is clearly labeled as an editorial. The point of an editorial is to voice opinions.
I’m glad you like the iPhone. Please do buy it and tell us about it.
The problem for me is that I expect a certain level of functionality from a smartphone. My killer app, for instance, is my checkbook. I go out and spend money and put the tabs into my Blackberry. When I get home, I plug it into my computer and dump all the transactions to a desktop app, which I can use to balance my bank account.
I also have a little data keeper app where I store all my passwords in encrypted form. You need access to cryptographic functions and local data storage for that.
I also play lots of Sudoku and Dope Wars, and keep my high scores.
Those are things which any $150 smartphone in the world today can do, but the iPhone won’t. If you don’t need to do those things, it’s cool. You can get the iPhone. But I’m really pained, cause I’m a big Apple fan, and the iPhone sure is slick, and I’d like to have one, but if it’s going to do less than what my current phone does, then I can’t justify dropping $600 on it, even if I want the slick interface.
Most people will expect to be able to develop and run any application on a smartphone.
I could refer to Nokia smartphones as an example. Sure theyre very versatile. They offer lots of options. However they are not easy to use and in time they do seem to deteriorate.
When I first tried a Nokia smartphone I had problems with easy tasks such as installing apps, handling files and enabling bluetooth.
Now the iPhone may not give you every single thing you want on day one but it will make it easy for everyday tasks.
This is why it will probably be a success overall.
Offtopic, but which sites best highlight the “beauty” of Ajax as an end user? I admit I don’t care for it and I’ve not used an Ajax capable site that impressed me. Not starting a flame war, but just curious.
Thanks
Google maps is really good, as is local.live.com. i also like the Windows Live Image Search.
There are likely a number of other good AJAX apps. But, even though they might look good, AJAX is really not that great of a programming style and really should cede to a better plugin system like SilverLight or Apollo.
I don’t know why some of you think you are going to have to open up safari to view these widgets. He merely said they will run in safari, as in they’ll use the safari rendering engine. They wont’ run inside the safari interface. They will have icons on the home screen just like stocks. They will be widgets just like stocks. Think dashboard. They will have full screen interface and hopefully be able to access the phones other features and they have already shown that they will be able to dial numbers and start emails.
Widgets are hardly full-featured apps. You can expose a lot of functionality using Cocoa Bundle plugins, but that requires XCode and an SDK. From Steve’s presentation it is implied that you won’t be able to do that.
To recap, Ajax web applications running on a sandbox have the following drawbacks:
– No access to operating system features and functions (e.g. impossible to write a CPU meter or a video-IM app)
I like to think of it as a unintented security feature.
Why would flash support be so bad? Two things;
#1 Flash supports video both video and audio, including microphones and the whole 9 yards. Your IM app that you can’t make in Ajax, could be done easily in Flash (especially a full on Flash Player 9).
#2 Flash seems to get blamed for bad ads. What you have to understand is that if Flash wasn’t around, advertisers would just use other technology to annoy you. Believe me, they’d find a way, so it seems odd to blame the platform technology for what content producers do with it. Besides, some of those ads are pretty swanky ( http://www.gettheglass.com/ )
Just some thoughts.
It doesn’t bother me that Apple will most likely sell a dev kit to specific developers that will grant them native access to the phone.
It doesn’t bother me that Apple will, most likely, be making for applications available for the iPhone as time moves on. I mean, seriously, this is a given.
It doesn’t bother me that Apple wants to maintain control of their device for both their advantage and the advantage of their carrier. I don’t have to buy this phone, or support it. They’re not stealing anything from me.
I think the Widget meme of developing “applications” for the phone a great compromise between a completely closed system and a completely open system. I fully expect there to be an extended API available to Javascript that will expose all of the animation goodness and what not that makes the iPhone so slick.
The reason behind all of this is simply that Apple, as it typical, wants to better ensure the customer experience by holding a tight leash on the device. Especially for the time being. They needed a supportive carrier to make the entire phone experience better (specific example being voice mail), and making the phone experience better is the Secret Sauce that Apple feels will distinguish their phone from a competitors phone.
Pissing off Joe Random Developer at this stage is of no consequence. Either the phone is a hit, or it’s not.
If it is, then it establishes Apple in the space, and they can build on the platform and perhaps convince other carriers to offer supporting back end services that the phone relies upon. Their market will grow, and growing markets attract developers.
If not, if the phone implodes and dies a Cubes death, there aren’t going to be any developers for it anyway, because there will be no market. So, no loss.
In time, as the phone space converges from simply offering phone service and paying for “minutes”, to being more IP based, and the US providers mature, the phone will open up.
This is just the first go round folks. We’ll know a lot more in 6 months time.
As a software developer, I am used to having computers do my biding. That includes smartphones. I will never buy a smartphone that is stupid 🙂 Sorry, Apple, but no sale with me. Provide a free SDK and you have a sure sale (Hundreds of thousands in fact since I am an average developer). Until then I will use the inferior systems (Win CE and Linux mobiles) that give me the power and don’t leave it in the hands of the providers. (Motorola this goes for you too)
Steve’s claim that Leopard will be the first 64bit operating system capable of running 32bit and 64bit applications side-by-side is of course completely bonkers. Windows’ 64bit versions have had this capability since Windows XP 64bit Edition (for the Itanium, 2001)
Errrrr, no. The Itanium provided basically no 32 bit backwards compatibility support at all, and the support for 32 bit applications on a 64 bit system has been sketchy at best.
As far as I can see, only Linux systems have managed this with any degree of sanity to the point where no one notices.
As far as I can see, only Linux systems have managed this with any degree of sanity to the point where no one notices.
Don’t talk nonsense, Segenendum. 64bit Windows has been able to run 32bir binaries since day one; it wasn’t very good performance wise on the Itanium version of Windows because the Itanium sucked balls when to came to 32bit binaries. But it CAN do it. Since 2001.
The non-Itanium 64bit version of Windows runs 32bit binaries just fine. Since 2005.
What Steve Jobs meant is that there is no WoW64/lib64/lib32 on Leopard. Everything is covered by universal binaries.
Good Holiness, when will people LEARN that Steve Jobs is the über PR guy and that his keynote serves only one purpose, namely spinning PR to the media and developers who didn’t attend the WWDC?
When will people learn that Tiger and Leopard are called “evolutionary” releases because that’s precisely what they are?
When will people learn that whenever Apple integrates something the vocal peanut gallery will complain that they are robbing 3rd party opportunities and applications?
When will people learn that whenever Apple limits itself to demo incredibly complex foundation technology like Core Animation they are precisely enabling mind-blowing 3rd party opportunities and applications? Still, the vocal peanut gallery is outraged that Apple didn’t release CureCancer Express (with student discount)!
Every year people shout “APPLE, FTFF!!!”! Then again, Apple just Fixed TFF, yet people complain “yawn, Apple Fixed TFF.”
I guess the bar is really set way to high for people not to whine and bitch that EradicateFamine Pro isn’t out.
Come on, what revolution do you expect to happen within the confines of the Personal Computer form factor?
*hint, hint*
And once again, don’t forget that JUST THE PREVIOUS WEEK during D5 Steve Jobs himself said the Real SDK(TM) is coming by the end of the year.
This is *NOT* the SDK. This is NOT the first class programming environment of the iPhone.
My suspicion?
Not only the SDK isn’t ready for prime time, they are RUSHING the preliminary iPhone firmware as Golden/RTM because they couldn’t get the public API properly secured, sandboxed and finished in time at all.
In the last month-and-a-half alone Apple stocks valued over 30% in anticipation for the iPhone. Just try to imagine what would happen if it got delayed. Apple stock would be dumped like the pest.
It was all about stock value damage control. And evidently anyone that has the full scoop is under heavy NDA scrutiny.
Don’t talk nonsense, Segenendum. 64bit Windows has been able to run 32bir binaries since day one;
Microsoft may claim that, but in practice seamless 32-bit application support on a 64-bit system has been highly sketchy at best depending on what application you run and what it does.
it wasn’t very good performance wise on the Itanium version of Windows because the Itanium sucked balls when to came to 32bit binaries.
Yep, because Itanium had to do that through emulation.
But it CAN do it. Since 2001.
That doesn’t make it a particularly special example.
The non-Itanium 64-bit version of Windows runs 32bit binaries just fine. Since 2005.
Other systems have been doing it for far longer, and more reliably to boot. Windows isn’t a particularly good example.
Apparently, 32-bit drivers will work on 64-bit OS X, which is a plus against Windows. The dearth of drivers on 64-bit Windows is utterly needless, and is basically designed to get people to throw out perfectly good hardware.
I was hoping ZFS would be used for this, but contrary to what Jonathan Schwartz said, there has been no official word on ZFS, yet.
And there never will be any official word, if ever. Sun always makes some big, bold statement about Apple (the ‘cool’ company that Sun would like to be) adopting some new Sun technology and it never happens. It’s simply a recurring theme we seem to get every once in a while.
LOL, there HAS been one, today.
No ZFS.
because he was standing on a stage, infront of real developers saying that Web 2.0 is good enough, when everyone in that room knew it wasn’t.
I don’t see them doing work to make the Safari apps look like real apps, there is no point. If they want to really expose more of the phone features it won’t be through Safari, it will be a real SDK.
This is just a stop gap to keep people from saying the iPhone is closed. With all the Web 2.0 hype, how can you really argue for Google Apps and against Safari as a real SDK?
The real question is, how much does Apple really want to expose to developers? They obviously realize they have to provide something…
Apple has done an amazing job when it comes to performance; each release was actually faster than the previous one, and I hope Leopard will continue this excellent trend.
Well, that’s not difficult is it? Whenever I use OS X it’s always still a lagging user experience compared to Windows or a Unix desktop.
That’s not fair. You’re comparing that to what? Windows XP?
Windows XP flies on modern hardware (given that it’s an OS that was released on 2001). However, Vista is a DOG compared to XP on “medium” hardware.
Say you have your Pentium 4 with HyperThreading (3, 3.2Ghz) 1 GB ram, your 120 GB hard drive… a DVD-RW, and a “decent” AGP/PCI-e ATI or NVIDIA Card (or even a not so decent integrated Intel Card or something).
Windows XP will give you a decent experience for day to day tasks and even some more. You could happily Install SQL Server, VIsual Studio 2005, MS Office and it will work.
Try Vista there.
So far my experiences with vista is that under the same XP hardware, it is quite impossible to use to the point where all the good things Vista has, are obscured by slow operations and stuff like that. I don’t have a very powerful BOX to test Vista with 4GB RAM and Core 2 Duo Chips with 10.000 RPM Drives; I imagine that it must be a better experience.
But saying that OS X has a lagging user experienced compared to Windows is not true. My Macbook Pro (Core Duo 2) 2.0 with 2GB RAM doesn’t provide me with a Lagging user experience.
The Windows VIsta partition I installed in the box I mentioned above, does. (Hence I formated it and went back to my XP Professional).
This has got nothing to do with iPhone SDK tho. Apple should sandbox a UserApplications section of the iPhone with limited access or stuff like that and release the SDK, the same way .NET has a Compact Framework that is fully accessible from Visual Studio.