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No iPhone SDK Means No iPhone Killer Apps
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jun 12, 2007 03:49 PM
from the dang-no-photoshop dept.
from the dang-no-photoshop dept.
iPhoneLover/Hater writes "Gizmodo is running an article analyzing the potential failure of the iPhone as a truly revolutionary platform. The reason: no SDK to harness the true power of Mac OS X and the frameworks contained in Apple's smart cell. From the article: 'According to Apple, "no software developer kit is required for the iPhone." However, the truth is that the lack of an SDK means that there won't be a killer application for the iPhone. It also means the iPhone's potential as an amazing computing and communication platform will never be realized. And because of this and no matter how Apple tries to sell it, the iPhone won't make a revolution happen.'"
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well.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Revolutions... (Score:5, Funny)
You know the usage of the term "revolution" to describe political affairs just makes me sad as a 17th century man. The fact that this is what we apply the term to nowadays shows our supreme lack of imagination or want for something better. If we could have the type of revolution our forefathers had using timber logs, potter's wheels, the ability for criminal corporations roll their carriages, politicians that adhere to big business's needs for more mobile cannons, that'd be really doing somethin.
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It's just a phone... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's just a phone... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ask any Verizon subscriber how "easy" it is to move address book contacts in and out of the handset. Or music. Or videos. Or any other kind of data.
There are only two effective ways to break this control. One is legislative. (You can stop giggling now.) The other is for a handset maker to create a handset so powerful and compelling that people fall all over themselves to try and get one, and then for the maker to stand firm and refuse to give control of the handset to the carriers. Eventually, market pressure will force at least one carrier to cave in and take the phone as sold, after which, all the carriers will follow suit.
Apple has an opportunity to help this happen, but it's not clear if they're interested in that outcome.
Schwab
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Re:It's just a phone... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some people who appear to believe corporate interests are always and necessarily opposed to social responsibility. This is bullshit, and these people do damage to their own purported cause by setting up this false dichotomy.
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"Just a phone"???!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It's just a phone... (Score:5, Insightful)
It helps that the phone has a real browser and supports Ajax, but it's still limited. And how much fun will it be when you're important apps aren't working because you're in a tunnel, or the middle of nowhere where edge service is spotty. Eventually they'll need to provide a way for people to write apps for it.
I think once they've established the credibility of the phone and that it's reliable, they'll be better positioned to open the platform up a bit more. Hell, they could put together a certification program that would get third party apps access to the Itunes store, or some such. They could make sure the apps are solid, and take a cut of the money at the same time.
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Another one? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not out yet.
We *are* using the Firehose responsibly, right?
Re:Another one? (Score:5, Funny)
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Lets be honest here: (Score:5, Insightful)
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fully agree (Score:5, Insightful)
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
They're canceling the iPhone, disbanding the dev team, and selling the entire production run at Overstock.com and everyone gets a free Clio while supplies last.
Oh, and you're invited to a party at John Dvorak's house.
You have to bring the Tostitos, Shaw Wu's bringing the Dr. Pepper.
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Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
YouTube was written without an SDK (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion that something has to be compiled into machine language to be a killer app is kind of wonky, if you ask me. Everyone out there already making clever web apps might have something to say about that.
No SDK? Call MacGyver! (Score:5, Funny)
Right, 'cause it's impossible to develop software (and/or quality software) without an SDK. I guess we'll have to pull a MacGyver: get me Emacs, a compiler, some libraries, a pack of gum, some yarn, a can of WD-40 and some Hot Pockets...
Is this article a troll? (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems like a good way to go IMO. You don't need to learn yet another SDK. If you can program with Javascript, HTML, you can make apps for the iPhone. If there is a bug in your app, you don't have to create a new installer and get that new version out to millions of people. Just update the code on your server and now all users have the latest-and-greatest.
Through Safari, you will be able to do tons of things with the iPhone and web 2.0/Ajax stuff, all the core functions of the iPhone are available to you.
It's True of The Whole Mobile Space (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of thing is why mobile networking in the U.S. and many other countries is a total and unmitigated disaster. All of the networks have tried so hard to make sure they get all the profit potential out of the networks they have made it very unattractive for third party developers. As a result, the mobile networking space just rots waiting for a competitor or new form of getting data to mobile points that make the existing mobile networks obsolete (this is hard because of governmental regulation and selling of exclusive rights to frequency bands, so it is also a regulatory disaster). This is why all the services you hear prognosticators in Wired and other magazines rhapsodize about never materialize. It's also ironic in that the carriers would be making more money if they had opened up to the killer apps and therefore increased the overall demand for networking.
In short, through the regulatory processes and lack of fair trade enforcement, the U.S. has sold its mobile networking potential and commons into the hands of thieves, whose greed and hubris have essentially delayed progress in mobile networking for at least a decade. If I could make that statement in stronger terms, I would. The mobile space is essentially what happens when you have the complete antithesis of 'network neutrality' and, though network neutrality might not be a great regulatory strategy in the fixed-network space, the complete opposite of it is surely well-nigh catastrophic as can be seen from the mobile space.
Please stop the handwringing, already. (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, go refer to the D5 discussion with SJ and BG. Pay special attention to the part where Steve talks about iPhone apps, particularly why it was felt that a native Google Maps app was more appropriate than a web app.
Second of all, "No SDK required" != "No SDK available". The SDK already exists, but is not required to develop apps targeted to the iPhone. It's called Mac OS X+XCode+Dashcode. Curious that the "Webclip" feature coming in Leopard was conspicously demo'd by Steve, and yet is missing from both versions of the Safari 3 Public Beta...hmm? Safari for Windows exists because of the iPhone, plain and simple.
The "Mystery 12th App"? Obviously the "Movies" widget that Steve demo'd. Just as that came on, I realized one of the most commonly accessed apps on my Palm phone, my Nokia 770, and my other cell phone (Samsung SPH-m610), is movie listings. Of course Apple, with the largest movie preview site on the Internet, would provide such a feature for the iPhone.
It's been obvious since the first intro of the iPhone to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that all the apps on the iPhone are the exact same things that run under Dashboard on Mac OS X. Why would anyone think that Apple would reimplement already existing code when they've already shown that the iPhone and AppleTV both run Mac OS X, especially given the extreme emphasis put on the fact that the iPhone runs the same WebKit engine as the regular desktop OS?
I going to laugh to see all the naysayers tripping over themselves to get ahold of an iPhone and a Mac in a few months once they realize they've missed the boat
They don't want binary apps on the phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not the phone is "really" running OSX is debatable, but keep in mind that many of the CPUs used in embedded devices like phones don't have nearly (or sometimes any of) the memory protection offered on a desktop or laptop CPU. You're also dealing with a much lower-MHz device (for battery consumption reasons) and chances are 100% of the code on the phone runs in Ring 0 (assuming other rings exist) for performance reasons.
So for them to allow third parties to run binary apps would pretty much allow unlimited circumvention of their DRM for the iPod portions (which would violate their agreements with record and movie companies), and as Jobs mentioned publicly would allow any poorly-written or malicious application to completely destabilize the phone or potentially interact with the cellular network in some disruptive or destructive manner (probably violating their agreement with AT&T). I have a Treo with PalmOS on it, and I can attest to the validity of at least the phone stability concern.
So there are a few very legitimate reasons to sandbox third-party code. That being said, there are features sorely lacking on the phone that won't fit in a sandbox - the first of which (for me and my customers) is a VPN client. The last thing I want is a phone running POP3 or IMAP "transparently" connecting over insecure WiFi infrastructure. I'd also like an SSH client, a Terminal Services client, an X Client, and a unicorn - so the iPhone probably won't be for me (dammit).
I would imagine that down the road they will find a better way to provide said sandbox (maybe a Java or Ruby or Python runtime environment?) but in the mean time I respect their desire to provide a phone that emphasizes reliability, even if it means it won't work for me (at least in the first iteration). The wife will probably get one, though.
Re:Unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Unless... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:No killer app? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Network providers don't innovate sh*t (Score:5, Insightful)
BS.
Anything innovative in that market is almost always created by a third party and proposed a network provider. And network providers usually find a way to botch those things by turning them into restrictive billable services or features.
The only innovative things network providers create are fees shorty, fees.
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Re:No killer app? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the phone has already been invented. The iPhone needs a killer app to keep from being a phone with an "up to 5 hours" battery, in which I (and probably a lot of people) have no interest. An SDK would let some clever person who doesn't work at Apple come up with something even the clever people there haven't thought of. Everything shown on the Apple site for the iPhone's software abilities (web browser, calculator, notes, clock, etc) are already done by other phones on the market now. So maybe the iPhone does those tasks in a more user friendly way; so what? Not enough to get many people to switch to such an expensive device. No, the killer app for the iPhone has yet to appear.
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Re:There's Also No iPod SDK (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone is essentially a handheld computer and is going up against other handheld computers, like the Treo and the Blackberry. Being able to write an arbitrary application that can access the phone's data and functionality is possible on those two devices (and has lead to some very useful applications), so naturally we're a little disappointed that the iPhone won't allow the same functionality.
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