No iPhone SDK Means No iPhone Killer Apps

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.'"

No killer app?

[SLOviper]

"the lack of an SDK means that there won't be a killer application for the iPhone"

Who's to say that Apple can't/won't write that killer app?

Unless...

[jellomizer]

Unless a programmer is good at Javascript, HTML...

And could write killer App with that.

I hate to sound like a Mac Fanboy but with some good Ajax codeing you could make a program that is as good as most other apps. Google shows that, and the fact you know the iPhone uses a more modern browser there is less multi-browser testing. And heck you iPhone Apps will run elsewhere too making them far more available.

Never!?!

[CarbonRing]

Just because there's no SDK today doesn't mean there won't be one later this year.

fully agree

[garbletext]

Apple is trying to defuse outrage over their refusal to provide an SDK (for "security"...) by saying "people can use rich web apps, it's the same thing!" This is incredibly disingenuous and I hope I'm not the only one who won't be getting an iPhone because of it's closed nature.

Article Summary

[umbrellasd]

"If you do something revolutionary like make an SDK unnecessary, you will fail." -- The Establishment

YouTube was written without an SDK

[Blakey Rat]

YouTube was written without an SDK, at least no more, or no less, of an SDK than the iPhone has, and yet I'd call it a killer app.

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.

Killer App?

[morari]

It's a phone, get a fucking life! I swear, mobile telephones just keep getting more and more annoying.

Re:Unless...

[Cereal Box]

Well, the problem with making AJAX the iPhone "SDK" is that the iPhone is 2.5G. Oops. Those neat-o AJAX apps won't be too much fun on a GPRS connection that is about as fast as a 56K modem (and in my experience, you get a burst of data, then nothing, then a burst, then nothing, ad infinitum).

There's Also No iPod SDK

[BlueMikey]

We know how terribly the iPod did without custom apps.

Also means less likely virus corruption

[Maxo-Texas]

No SDK means a lot harder to develop viruses and worms.

Is this article a troll?

[JimDaGeek]

Did anyone watch WWDC? I did last night. The iPhone has the full WebKit framework which means any Web 2.0/Ajax app will run on it if it runs in Safari. You can do things through Ajax like make a phone call. They did a sweet demo where clicking on links would bring up the mail app, make a phone call through Safari, send an address to Google maps, etc.

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.

Funniest Thing I've Read All Day

[mpapet]

Seriously.

The way that mobile phone industry works is the network provider is the only innovator. Perhaps the most famous example of this is music download service on mobile phone networks.

Oh wait, what about all the java-enabled phones? Outside of games, there isn't much of an API to do anything else with it. And it's not like mobile java apps actually run everywhere.

Re:No killer app?

[JimNTonik]

The killer app is the phone, you don't need an SDK to call people. It was pretty clear months ago that Safari would be one of the primary development paths on the iPhone. They said from the get-go that it had a fully featured web browser on it, why are people suddenly giving this knee-jerk reaction when nothing's changed. They can release a real SDK in a year, or two years, or even more if they'd like - nobody should have been expecting more. This is classic Apple. That said Apple has said numerous times that the Killer App _is_ the phone. _If_ it does well, it'll be because of Apple's UI + vertical integration from the PC to the phone. Yes, they're targeting the smart phone market, but Apple will rely on their own tools for the time being - there's no need to let developers mess it up.

Re:No killer app?

[Matt Perry]

Who's to say that Apple can't/won't write that killer app?

You might be right but other people might be able to see something that Apple can't. The article brings up the Mac as a point of comparison. MacPaint was neat but Photoshop was one of the apps that made the Mac a must-have platform, and Photoshop didn't come from Apple.

It's True of The Whole Mobile Space

[aldheorte]

This is true and symptomatic of the whole mobile space. If you have experience in the mobile space, this will come as little surprise to you. All the carriers want to lock down and control every bit that flows on their networks so they can extract all the profit out of every bit. It's amazing that Apple has got as much enabled on the phone as it has.

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.

It doesn't do what I need

[maynard]

The device looks very cool. It has all sorts of cool features for storing and listening to music, taking and showing photos, organizing a schedule, etc. Unfortunately, this is a 'convergence' product almost a decade late. Furthermore, it doesn't do the ONE thing I want and need: allow me to take eink notes or annotate over pdfs. Apple really missed the boat here. And I think here we see Jobs' bias against pen input really damaging the potential of this product. I don't need yet another calendar. I need a tool to manipulate divergent notes from a variety of projects. And being able to snap photos of text in a book or original source materials for batch OCR would be nice too.

Jobs made a very nice toy. Unfortunately, I need a tool - and the iPhone ain't it.

Re:Unless...

[CastrTroy]

Not to mention the latency of internet on cell phones. Even on 56K modem the response time can be OK for Ajax stuff as long as you're not trying to send too much data. However with cell phones, the latency is so high, that even the "who want's to be a millionaire" game I run over my cell phone is painfully slow.

Re:There's Also No iPod SDK

[Cereal Box]

OK... but no one really expected to run third-party apps on the iPod in the first place.

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.

Re:Another one?

[drinkypoo]

We *are* using the Firehose responsibly, right?

I can't help but notice that a user whose name is 'Applekid' is complaining about Slashdot reporting news that The Jobs himself delivered at the recent WWDC.

So far we know of precisely one way apps will be available to the phone; via the web. It does seem likely that we will also be able to lay down files in the user's directory. But even if we can fullscreen the browser to run our apps, we still become dependent on a web browser and are not free to develop any content outside that constraint.

That ostensibly eliminates our ability to access the OS directly, forcing us to work through Javascript or Flash. And it prevents us from using any backend more complex than, if we are lucky, flat files. It is not entirely unlikely that the only data we will be able to save to the device will be cookies. Even if they provide some more complex data store, you are still forced to use Javascript. It's a credible enough language, but given Safari's past record with Javascript compatibility, I am not impressed.

Personally I think the following from the FA sums the situation up best: "If AJAX is that good and the developers don't need an SDK, why has Apple built a dedicated Mail application or Google Maps software into the iPhone? Why not just reformat the CSS on the Web and open a special view to .mac mail, Gmail or Google Maps made just for iPhone Safari users ?"

If doing all development in Safari is good enough for everyone else in the world, then it ought to be good enough for Apple. But it is not, and they have on-the-OS apps running on the iPhone. Thus, it is clear that this will not be sufficient for everyone else, either. Apple is hardly the most imaginative company on this ball of rock and mud.

Lets be honest here:

[acidrain69]

The phone will live or die based on the fact that it costs $500 with a 2 year contract. You can make a really nice car that gets 100 mpg, but if the market can't afford it, you aren't going to revolutionize anything. Sure, it may end up like the Newton, with a rabid following; and yeah, some of that functionality will trickle down and affect the industry. But talking about the success of this phone is silly; it just costs too much.

They don't want binary apps on the phone

[ErikTheRed]

There's a reasonably good reason, and don't hold your breath waiting for the answer to change.

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...

[poot_rootbeer]

with some good Ajax codeing you could make a program that is as good as most other apps. Google shows that

Google shows that clever use of AJAX and related technologies can be used to create a web app that APPROACHES the quality of a desktop app, but they still haven't caught up 100%, or we'd all be using Google Docs instead of Word and OpenOffice.

On a mobile device with limited CPU power as it is, every layer between the app and the hardware is a significant performance handicap. I'm not seeing the wisdom of requiring developers to deal with a web layer between the app layer and the OS layer -- why? So I can run the same sudoku game code on my desktop as I do on my phone, in a 5x3" window?

Ask the iTunes developers.

[pavon]

If Web2.0 and AJAX were the end-all be-all of application development then why aren't all the other apps on the iPhone written that way? Heck even Google Maps, which was born as AJAX, has is a dedicated app on iPhone because there are things you can do with native code that you will never be able to do with an online app.

The most important being that you have to be online to use them. So no third party applications when you are on an airplane. And unless there is a WiFi hotspot nearby you'll be racking up AT&T data charges like crazy. Secondly, there are many situations where I neither need nor want my sensitive data to be stored online, where it is more vulnerable. Anything that processes this data should not be a webapp. Third, even with all the Web2.0 AJAXy goodness, webapps are still not as interactive as real applications, and nowhere near as efficient.

I think that the streamlined webapp capabilities are nice There are several classes of application that IMHO are best done as webapps, in particular any that are front end to some online data base or other content. Things like yellow pages, YouTube, photo album sharing, lookup up movie times, etc. I am glad that they made it possible and easy for these types of applications to integrate nicely into the iPhone.

I can also understand if they aren't willing to release a full 3rd party SDK at this time - they are rolling out an ambitious new product which is sure to have some problems, and the more variable they can remove at launch time the better. It makes sense to wait until things have settled down before releasing an SDK, not to mention the fact that they have probably been too busy to write and test one.

But trying to play it off as "Web2.0 is all the SDK you need" is just plain insulting. It's like saying that Dashboard Widgets are the only SDK that OS X needs.

Re:Also means less likely virus corruption

[0xdeadbeef]

A prize for repeating ignorant FUD?

AT&T and Cingular already sell smartphones running Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Series 60, and BlackBerry, and those all provide SDKs for anyone who wants one.

So, either you're full of shit, or Apple is too incompetent too implement the security features that would make AT&T comfortable.

Re:Article Summary

[drinkypoo]

"If you do something revolutionary like make an SDK unnecessary, you will fail." -- The Establishment

"If you do something stupid like claim that an SDK is unnecessary, you will fail." -- The voice of reason

There, fixed that for you.

You will not have access to the full functionality of the phone through the browser. Period. End of story. There will be things you cannot do. People will want to do those things. They will need an SDK to do them. They will not have it.

Apple is competing at a price point that mandates a true smartphone, not just a phone with a nice interface and a nice browser. They are not providing it. They will sell quite a few units to the idiots who have to buy anything just because it's pretty (Apple doesn't sell exclusively to this market, but it IS a major source of revenue for them) and then the platform will tank, unless they open the system up for unfettered development.

The reason that they will fail is that they have demonstrated that people will get excited over improved phone interfaces. So now everyone and their mother is making a phone with an iPhone-like interface. Apple will rapidly become just one of many that puts out a product that does basically the same thing. And several of the other offerings which are already in development are based on Linux! So development will tend to be wide open. And these phones will "fucking kill" the iPhone :) That, or Apple will open up development as they should have from the beginning.

The simple truth is that even with 3G, a mobile webpad is not a complete computer. And a smartphone is intended to be a complete computer, just as my PDA is.

Network providers don't innovate sh*t

[Aqua OS X]

"the network provider is the only innovator"

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.

Re:Photographing text for batched OCR

[maynard]

Right. I think the real problem is that the iPhone is targeted at a consumer audience, but it has a professionals price tag. If this thing manipulated text and raw source materials the way I need, I'd pay the price. Gladly. But who needs a $500 handheld toy?

Revolutions...

[danpsmith]

You know the usage of the term "revolution" to describe a cell phone device just makes me sad as a 21st 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 for silly import taxes for health coverage, worker's rights ,the ability for criminal corporations to poison our environment, politicians that adhere to big business's needs more than the will of the people, that'd be really doing something, but no, we'd rather have a phone "revolution." How far we've fallen.

Fake Bill Gates sees beyond the killer app

[Anonymous Coward]

The Secret Diary of Bill Gates [blogspot.com] says that Steve Jobs pulled a couple rabbits out of his hat with this move that nobody noticed.

• Apps developed with Web 2.0 + AJAX to run under Safari on iPhone will also be able to run on Nokia's Symbian S60WebKit browser, and Safari on Windows and Mac OS X, giving developers a bigger market out of the gate than just the iPhone (Nokia has been shipping a WebKit based browser on phones for a long time)
• Safari on Windows is really a gambit to roll back Microsoft Internet Explorer's standards-breaking dominance of the internet
• Safari on Windows added to Nokia's WebKit based browser, the iPhone, Safari on Mac OS X and FireFox 3 will total a significant percentage of the "web market" by next year, putting pressure on web designers and admins to support standards compliance, rather than IE bug compliance, benefiting the iPhone user experience, and the Macintosh user experience as a primary and intended side-effect.

Re:It's just a phone...

[dreamchaser]

The only outcome Apple is interested in is selling product and making money for their shareholders. That's what companies do. People who ascribe revolutionary motives beyond this to any company are misguided.

X-Code!!!

[Goth Biker Babe]

Don't be surprised if the next major revision of X-Code supports iPhone development.

802.11

[Gary W. Longsine]

Don't forget the iPhone has 802.11 networking built in. People spend so much time in hot spots these days that the lackluster performance of the EDGE network will be an occasional nuisance, not a crippling defect in the product. The future of 3G HSDPA [wikipedia.org] networks looks pretty bright, too.

Re:No killer app?

[magarity]

The killer app is the phone
 
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.

WHAT "Killer App?"

[C10H14N2]

For all the talk about NO SDK=FAILURE that has been going on since day one, I haven't seen anyone make even the vaguest suggestions of what they think such a killer-app might be that is absolutely dependent on a direct SDK.

Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon is going to wind up on the losing end of this battle. Basically all the world's GSM vendors are lining up on the side of a better user experience, since they believe that will lead to happier repeat customers and long term revenue. The wireless companies are mostly aware that they had it easy during rapid growth days, but their cost of getting a new subscriber has been going up, and it's already high. The iPhone might help AT&T see customer satisfaction as a marketing tool. If Verizon doesn't get that, they'll start losing customers who are more sophisticated, basically the high margin smart phone customers, not just to the iPhone, but to other companies that learn the lesson. Crippled bluetooth is going to hurt them in the long run because people will begin to see their friends doing stuff they can't do.

Re:Revolutions...

[untaken_name]

From dictionary.com:

revolution /rvlun/
-noun ...
3. a sudden, complete or marked change in something ...

Sometimes, words mean more than just one thing. I don't think anyone's referring to a violent overthrow of the cellular phone government. I think they meant a sudden, marked change in cellular phones. I mean, sure, you have good ideas and everything, but I think you're overreacting on this one. Not that I disaprove of overreacting. I enjoy it as much as the next guy.

Also, you shouldn't be a 21st century man. You should be a 21st century digital boy because it sounds so much better.

Re:No killer app?

[FyRE666]

It's also worth noting that Safari is a pretty rich development environment. Take a look at any of the dashboard widgets for an idea of what you can do. The canvas tag allows a lot of flexibility, and the latest versions of WebKit also support SVG, so you have a lot of scope for potential graphics. If you're developing for the iPhone, you don't have to worry about cross-browser compatibility, so you aren't limited to the lowest common denominator.

Dude, if you're stuck with having to cobble something together to run inside the web-browser, inside the phone instead of having the freedom of a native/java application, you ARE limited to the lowest common denominator! As always, Apple are just trying to screw as much money out of their fan-base as possible, and locking the device up so they have complete control over the software offerings is just another example of their greed. I don't know why Apple get any support on here - sure they make "the shiny", but their policies are more draconian than the other perceived evil empire we all despise.

I also own an ipod, but I'm damned if I'm buying any software for it through itunes when I'm not allowed to develop for it.

Re:It's just a phone...

[Tickletaint]

Oh please, that's such a meaningless cliché. If you saw an opportunity to make money (or otherwise advance your own interests) by fomenting rebellion against the status quo, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't any company? In fact, it happens all the fucking time.

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.

Re:It's just a phone...

[sterno]

What would be a revolution is a smart phone that doesn't crash and have to be rebooted periodically like all my Treo did and my T-Mobile Dash does. You know, a phone that... works? Working would be a solid leap forward :)

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.

Selling Expensive Data Plans

[SnailNobra]

Using Safari as the SDK moves all costs over to the application developer and the customer. Both being charged for bandwidth usage and the customer is getting royally fcuked with the expensive data plans it's going to require just to use all these apps. Cash money for the carriers.

Steve Jobs contradicts himself

[Spy Hunter]

Steve Jobs at All Things D two weeks ago:

I love Google Maps, use it on my computer, you know, in a browser. But when we were doing the iPhone, we thought, wouldn't it be great to have maps on the iPhone? And so we called up Google and they'd done a few client apps in Java on some phones and they had an API that we worked with them a little on. And we ended up writing a client app for those APIs. They would provide the back-end service. And the app we were able to write, since we're pretty reasonable at writing apps, blows away any Google Maps client. Just blows it away. Same set of data coming off the server, but the experience you have using it is unbelievable. It's way better than the computer. And just in a completely different league than what they'd put on phones before.

And, you know, that client is the result of a lot of technology on the client, that client application. So when we show it to them, they're just blown away by how good it is. And you can't do that stuff in a browser.

Steve Jobs yesterday:

Web apps are just as good as rich client apps! Really! [sets RDF generator to maximum]

You're not going to be able to use the camera in a web app. You're not going to be able to use the microphone or accelerometer or proximity sensor (or GPS when it is added). You're not going to be able to go fullscreen, you're not going to be able to access the address book, you're not going to be able to do animated graphics nearly as well, you're going to be slow due to high latency and low bandwidth (especially upstream) on cellular Internet service, you're not going to be able to access the locally stored music and video, you're not going to be able to add support for new audio/video codecs, you're not going to be able to do innovative UI concepts with multitouch, you're not going to be able to add new icons to the UI or add features to any of the built-in applications.

Don't try and pretend that web apps are going to be just as good.

Re:well..

[catwh0re]

this has been such a storm in a teacup.

I'm not sure if it's a willingness to publish anything that contains the word "iPhone" or a legitimate interest in development. But unless you're interested in turning your iPhone into a wifi scanner. (Something probably best left to the laptop anyway since it's got a fair few more MHz to waste.) Then I'm finding the SDK really unnecessary. The iPhone isn't a computer replacement, it's got a lowly powered set of hardware which is ideal for a phone, but not for a complex application. If you want to develop strong apps for the road use a laptop.. If you want to develop referencing apps, lookup programs etc, then just use AJAX on the iPhone.

I don't think anyone is going to get an icon on the main screen for a long time. (I don't think it's necessary either.)

With all that said, I have seen some very fun hobbyist applications for mobile platforms (e.g. like the palm programmable remote.) However I think it's the hobbyists that will hack away at the iPhone (with knowledge that it's just OSX) and figure out how to make their own mini-apps anyway.

Re:It's just a phone...

[vertinox]

The only outcome Apple is interested in is selling product and making money for their shareholders.

Actually, I would argue that only companies who do not adhere to the whims of the shareholders are the most successful ones. Usually these are companies with "dictators" at the helm or a small group with a vision.

Take Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for example. Some of their decisions go straight against earning the company money in the short term.

Not to mention Google's decision to not split the stock in order to keep it in a small set of hands. Appeasing the stockholders is a moot point if you have complete control over the direction of the company and you are free do whatever you feel like.

This could involve dumping money into non-profitable game console which later only becomes profitable in its second generation system or doing crazy things like ripping all ATI cards out of your computers because they made a good with a press release.

Most companies who had to comply with the average corporate share holders could not do such things and get away with it. However, since these companies are controlled by a small set of persons they can usually stick with their vision.

Ok, what then IS the killer app from others?

[SuperKendall]

WinCE (Sorry, Windows Mobile). Treao. Blackberry.

These devices all allow custom programming. They have been out for some time. So then, what is the "Kller App" for those devices that has come from third parties?

When I owned a Palm, I did buy a few applications, but they were just nice utilities, never apps I could not live without (evidenced by my not owning a Palm anymore once it died). Even today I don't see what is so compelling about the third party market that I must have on my phone that could not also be served by a well-written web application.

The Palm itself was a killer app when it came along, because of the totality of the device. The same COULD be true of the iPhone, we don't know yet - but it would not be a third party application that would cause it to rise or fall, even if it would allow lower level development. With consumer devices its the package as a whole that makes or breaks it.

Heck even game consoles today rest firmly on a foundation of first party titles to help buoy them up. Why should a phone be any different? Remember it's not that NO developers will get lower level access, Apple had already talked about things like the games the iPod offers today. It's only the wider market that has to use AJAX for application development on the iPhone, a tired development model that still allows for truly custom iPhone applications - and thus the potential of the mythical "Killer App".

Re:There's Also No iPod SDK

[iluvcapra]

OK... but no one really expected to run third-party apps on the iPod in the first place.

And they still don't. Maybe a big part of consumer electronics is managing expectations and not over-promising, by positioning your product in a known niche with high demand and not getting side-tracked by your engineers who seem to want to put a JVM in EVERYTHING, if only because they can. "Do one job and do it well" isn't just for Unix.

The iPhone is essentially a handheld computer and is going up against other handheld computers, like the Treo and the Blackberry.

The Tivo is essentially a living-room computer and is going up against other living-room computers, like the Windows MCE and the Apple Front Row. \sarcasm{ This is clearly why Windows MCE is in everyone's living room, and why I tell my friends to "Be sure to MCE the Sopranos tonight!" I can't tell you how often I've found it useful to have Word on my TV, so that I can be typing a document for work while I'm having a good time with friends watching TV!}

Sometimes we have to step back and realize that a general-purpose computer is not an end in itself. Further, the concept of the 'killer app' is a construct of business schools that were in a dither to try to explain why software companies were making mad money in the 1980s and 90s. It is an extremely recent phenomenon in business thought, and may not have much explanatory power outside of software in the 1980s.

Re:It's just a phone...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confusing means and motivation. It is possible for two people with different motivations, make the world a better place vs make more money, to have the same/similar implementations. I think the point here is not to fool yourself into thinking that a company considers the social affect of its actions (unless of course they consider that important in there business plan to make more money). If what they do to make more money happens to make the world a 'better' place, it is just a happy side affect. A better world is not their end game, and a corporation's actions to make more money does not always lead to a better world.

Re:well..

[dslbrian]

Then I'm finding the SDK really unnecessary. The iPhone isn't a computer replacement, it's got a lowly powered set of hardware which is ideal for a phone, but not for a complex application. If you want to develop strong apps for the road use a laptop.. If you want to develop referencing apps, lookup programs etc, then just use AJAX on the iPhone.

Not all apps need to be "killer" powerful apps. One thing I would like on my phone is a decent ebook reader. After all if the iPhone is good enough to read the web with it should be good enough to read a book on. Its unlikely to happen however given their stance. Such a simple app, really nothing more than a glorified text reader, would be trivial to make given a basic SDK. (I wouldn't have to carry around the Palm anymore which would be nice) An app like that isn't really a good fit for AJAX either, you don't want to use airtime to read an ebook.

I can think of a couple others off the top of my head. An encrypted password manager such as KeyPass would be useful (you don't really want to be passing passwords and whatnot across the net if you don't have to). Also a decent text editor, or simple notebook/list app, would be another (as opposed to the pure reader you would have in an ebook app).

However its sounding like Apple, like every other wireless carrier, wants to have the phone completely locked down. I tend to agree with the article, no SDK is just going to limit the phone's potential.

Re:well..

[enjo13]

That shows a supreme lack of imagination. Look at Palm, with it's thousands of apps (big and small) that enable it to be so much more than Palm ever envisioned. The same goes for Symbian... so much of the power of those devices is in the truly clever and innovative ideas that the third parties bring to those platforms. Even the most basic functions have benefited from third party development. You can find improvements in security, contact management, and a host of other functions on those other platforms. The OEM's provide a platform, the development community makes it better.

The tragedy here is that the iPhone provides even more opportunities for real innovation. With thousands of developers (the world over) building on top of the work Apple has already done we would have seen truly stunning advances in both the functionality and the form of the iPhone.

The iPhone may not be a computer replacement, but that doesn't mean it's not a computing device with immense potential.

Re:It's just a phone...

[dreamchaser]

Except that it's a crock of shit. A lot of people need offline access to data and/or applications. I'm one of them, and no I don't just *think* I need it. You posted as an AC of course because you're just trolling, and yes I bit, but that arguement is just a crock of shit.

That's not a knock on the iPhone at all either. It's a fact of life for a decent subset of mobile users. Any phone, from any company, that requires you to use airtime or have a good connection to use an app is not nearly as useful to many of us as an app that runs natively on the device and can access local data without a network connection.

Well, this is a slap in the face...

[lord_mike]

...who built Apple in the beginning? It was third party developers... Yes, it was a long time ago.. before the dark times... before the iPod..

The iPod was something that should have been programmable... it could have been made to do all sorts of cool things... but no, we can't have innovation... suers cannot be allowed to do what they wish with the product they bought...

I knew that the iPhone would be closed off to development.. after all, the iPod has been, and no one made a stink... so, why not close off everything else?

This is the beginning of the end of general purpose computing... if the iPhone is successful, more and more systems will get locked in... it's profitable! I think even the Mac will eventually be locked out to developers... with the cheapening of software development by inexpensive H1B imports, no one really cares about appeasing us... we are cheap and worthless in the eyes of the tech world... who cares what we want... users will do what they are told... they are lemmings and will be happy with what they've got...

Typical of Steve Jobs... and a very sad omen for the industry...

Thanks,

Mike

Re:well..

[that this is not und]

Google Maps, Flickr, Digg, Yahoo Pipes, Delicious... these ARE the killer apps of the last 5 years

Well, they're the budget (phone bill) and battery killers, anyway.

I don't get it when people start saying 'it is underpowered to run any real apps.'

Compare it to what Apple was selling as their powerful high-end desktop machine a decade ago.

As was said earlier in the thread, a lot of cool stuff has been rolled for PalmOS, as an example of a similar platform with an open SDK.

Re:well..

[catwh0re]

An amazing amount of common sense in that post. I don't know if perhaps the Apple brand has become too mainstream thus leading too many people with partial understanding of their existing and up-coming products to chime in with nonsensical memes or inaccurate fact bashing. (Or the fact that the community loves to build em up just to rip em down.) But I'm noticing a very loud anti-Apple audience fueled by mostly insignificant issues. I can only think the bad karma started with the iPod battery problems. (While I don't believe it's reasonable to have to replace an iPod for a new battery, I do know that there are many services that will replace the iPod batteries, and in my own personal experience through a few iPods I have never experienced any issues with batteries. - But people who are problem free never speak up in outrage, so the iPod bashing was a self-selected movement.)

This SDK argument is a good example of this. The phone isn't even in a consumers hand and we're finding posts like Apple have been denying the tech community through years of closed platform abuse. Anyone who actually has any history with Apple recognise a few aspects about them which has made them a muchly appreciated company in the tech community.
The most important aspect is that unlike a larger portion of the tech community - Apple almost always gives consumers what they demand: From somehow negotiating DRM free music to adding almost every sought after feature into OS X (even old ideas such as multiple desktops). Apple have a long history of giving consumers what they want. If consumers want a particular app for the iPhone(and it's voiced through emails/community) it'll happen. Apple gets most of it's cred from continuing development of their products and software after the sale. I can think of numerous applications that Apple have released for no charge, including much of the iLife suite(iTunes, iMovie & iPhoto started free, free instruments for Garage band), Safari(version 1), iChat, iCal, iPod feature updates including new codec support, YouTube for AppleTV, and i think even the dvd player in the 10.2 days. Plus a few more I can't remember off the top of my head

With Apple's success with the closed iPod they didn't foresee that there would be such a vocal outburst for an SDK so early into the piece. Yet already they have begun to address SDK issues, firstly by promoting the web standards nature of the iPhone (which is really where the trend for apps is right now. Also of note is that they promoted this at the first iPhone keynote, except they called these widgets.) Further down the track, we will no doubt see some incarnation of an SDK for the iPhone. However there are definitely revisioning issues they'll address before that happens. (As we're likely to see more than one model of iPhone, and I doubt they'll have an SDK ready until the 3G model is released in Europe.)

Re:WHAT "Killer App?"

[aminorex]

How about Skype?

Re:I love this

[Doctor High]

I disagree that stability is a lame excuse for the lack of an SDK because Treo and Blackberry owners have seen firsthand how unstable those platforms can be, particularly with poorly written apps.

No, it's still a lame excuse.

Bob makes a computer for Mike.
John writes a program for that computer.
Mike loves his computer. As soon as he installs John's program on his computer, it starts crashing.
When he removes John's program, it stops crashing.

Why the Christ would Mike blame Bob for his computer crashing?

All Apple has to do is say from the outset, "we can only guarantee the stability of the iPhone with programs that have gone through our quality assurance process." "Stability" problem solved.

Why would anyone blame Windows for crashing when you install any third party software? It's not logical, but it still happens. Users blame Microsoft for their troubles, even if the source of the problem is some third party software app. Users don't know the difference. Besides, it's sometimes difficult to tell which of the 10 programs running on a machine actually caused the problem.

My point is that while people like Slashdotters might understand what's happening on the device, a normal corporate iPhone user is going to blame Apple's POS iPhone when it crashes or doesn't work right. That's just the way the world works. So if iPhone owners go around complaining about how often their iPhone crashes, it hurts Apple even though it's not really Apple's fault. I think it's simply a practical business decision rather than a technical decision.

Even a Java VM is still crippleware. Give us Cocoa ffs, Apple.

I don't consider a Java VM crippleware. That's like saying that the Blackberry is crippleware because it's based on Java. As long as you can write applications, I don't see that it's really crippleware. It may not be the brilliant Apple SDK that you want, but it's far from crippleware. However, a real Apple SDK would be my preference as well.

Re:well..

[gig]

> I don't get it when people start saying 'it is underpowered to run any real apps.'

You also have to consider space and heat and battery life, not just specs or GHz.

For example, the AppleTV has a 1 GHz Intel chip in there, but it is supposed to sleep almost all of the time. When a movie is running, it's decoded by the NVIDIA chip in the graphics adapter. If you do something with your AppleTV that makes the CPU run (like decoding Flash video from YouTube with a third-party plug-in) then you are going to have to get some air around that AppleTV, and it's likely it won't last as long as if you only run H.264 through it. That's why part of Apple's YouTube on AppleTV announcement was Google converting YouTube to MPEG-4 H.264.

Same sort of thing goes for iPhone. Although it has a 1 GHz ARM chip which sounds fast, that is not a PC CPU, it lacks stuff we take for granted on PC's, Apple had to use LLVM to emulate some PC stuff, and to get 5 hours of battery and no first-degree burn on your palm, you have to use the device pretty much as Apple intended, so that their optimizations hold, same as AppleTV. As far as I can tell, there is no Adobe Flash in iPhone because Flash video requires a full PC, that is always required to decode a software codec. The iPhone does its H.264 in an H.264 chip. So you can't assume the iPhone can play all video formats because it can play Pirates of the Caribbean in H.264.

If they could run iMovie on there, I think they would. They have 10 years of iMovie development they could leverage. The "iTunes" that is on the iPhone is also not the real iTunes, which is a "Carbon" Mac app, it's 10 years old also, of course it is a little iTunes for iPhone, specifically optimized. No doubt what is in the iPhone is all from OS X, but it's just the minimal shit. It's like the first iPod had the same font as the first Mac, but don't think that the Finder is in there.

Re:*OR*

[gig]

> OGG player

The iPhone's video decoder is ISO MPEG H.264 only. It can't decode Ogg. If you were to install an Ogg decoder software onto the iPhone, if there were even a place to put it (no QuickTime), and if you could get full frame full-rate playback, you would probably drain the battery in an hour or less instead of five.

You could potentially make an iPod dock accessory that decodes Ogg in a chip. However if people wanted one this would already exist.

The thing with Ogg is that is scratches an itch that only 0.0000001% of humans have, and you have to understand patents to even understand why it exists. And you have to think that paying a few bucks for an encoder that has a matching free decoder is a bad thing, which nobody in the audio video business actually does. We pay Apple $29 every couple of years and they maintain a collection of professional codecs as QuickTime plug-ins that work throughout the system and within all of your applications. For example, you can open up the Mac version of Microsoft Word and put H.264 video into your documents. You can export H.264 from your 3D app, your video editor, Adobe Flash.

MP3 has come and gone, so has Ogg. The world standardized on MPEG-4 in 2001, 2002. Google is converting YouTube to MPEG-4 right now.

Re:well..

[dave420]

If you think those are as killer as apps could get on a phone, you need some help. Seriously. I'm thinking about killer apps like routing calls through wifi instead of the cell network, or voip using unlimited data plan instead of voice calls, etc. Web 2.0 is bullshit. It's a marketing term people throw about in meetings to make it seem like they somehow understand technology, when really they're just referring to techniques and technologies people have been using for years. It's all bullshit, and no proper SDK on the iPhone is bullshit too.

Re:It's just a phone...

[gig]

> that requires you to use airtime or have a good connection to use an app

Local storage is not an issue. The Web browser stores things locally all the time. With Ajax it is a bit more complex technologically, but not for the user.

Check out Google Gears it is compatible with WebKit v3 (iPhone, Safari 3 for Mac and Windows, Mac OS X Leopard).

The key is the apps you download stay in the sandbox. You don't get access to the user's storage. And they install and update themselves.

However, you have to be careful complaining about "having to have a network" because to many users there is no point in even bothering if they don't have a network. Most consumers won't even run a Mac or PC if it doesn't have a live connection, and there is much more to do on a solo Mac than on solo iPhone. People don't want to run puzzle games on iPhone, they want to run MySpace and Flickr and Twitter and look up movie times because iPhone has a real Web browser. The iPhone also has Wi-Fi "n" that is ubiquitous where I am, I even have a Wi-Fi phone. If you are in Wi-Fi the iPhone switches to that for data, there is no meter.

Re:Ok, what then IS the killer app from others?

[Thumper_SVX]

Depends on your requirements, really.

I have a PocketPC phone; an HTC TyTN. I love the fact that I can install... let me see here...

OK... I have a third party set of networking tools... namely WiFiFoFum (wireless scanner) and VXUtil (includes stuff like IP subnet calculator and so on). Oh, and not to mention a copy of Putty when I need to SSH to a box. Damn that keyboard is nice when I have an urgent need for SSH. Finally, I have a Remote Desktop Client and VNC installed so I can remote control just about anything (within reason).

I have pRSSReader, which I use to read my RSS feed when I'm sitting at a coffee shop so I don't have to whip out my laptop (thoug I still do sometimes). It's handy sometimes, and better than a newspaper 'cos it's more targeted to my needs.

Oh, and yes... my cellphone came with a location app; Telenav. I tried it out, and immediately went out, invested in a 2Gb MicroSD card and installed TomTom (coupled with a Bluetooth GPS device). If I choose to, I can change that for different software.

You see my point? None of these are "Killer Apps", but every one of them increases my productivity in a SINGLE DEVICE. If I desire, I can have (and do have) another 2Gb MicroSD card with a selection of MP3's on it that I can play back at will. And no, I don't use Windows Media Player... there are better solutions out there. My TyTN has actually reduced my reliance on lugging my laptop around with me, because if I happen to be out and about and a customer calls me with a problem, I can sometimes even resolve the problem from the touchscreen of my phone without ever having to run back to the car to grab my laptop. Obviously, wifi is best for this kind of stuff... but HSDPA works like a champ in most of the areas I frequent (St. Louis, MO... Chicago, IL etc.). In a crunch, I have used Edge... but it's rather sad and pathetic... and not because of the browser! Oh yeah... that's Third Party as well: Opera.

It's about CHOICE. Quite frankly, I may be somewhat of the exception rather than the rule... but my cellphone is a business tool for me. As such, I have tools installed on it that facilitate my job as a consultant and "technical guru". Each of these is a third party application that provides functionality that Microsoft does not. Their tools are OK... there are better tools out there.

By the way, I also happen to be a Mac user. You might think that I would be all over the iPhone, being technical and a Mac guy... but I'm not. Quite simply, even on my Mac my applications are third party: My web browser of choice is Firefox (though today I happen to be testing Safari 3 and will be going back to Firefox soon...). My mail app of choice is not mail.app but rather Entourage. I don't use iCal, or Address Book... and I use Microsoft Word instead of Pages. Despite having some decent apps out of the gate, Apple does not produce the be all and end all of applications on my Mac. I even have Fink and X11 installed so I can download and compile a bunch of Linux and BSD apps any time I feel the need for them. The only software I use that came "out of the box" on my Mac is iTunes... and even that's just for managing playlists that are synced to my TyTN through "The Missing Sync". Oh look... more third party.

If you're a Mac user and can honestly say that everything you use on it was created by Apple and came out of the box with it, then the iPhone might be a good match for you. If you're a Mac user who actually wants to have some choice in his applications, then perhaps you should rethink your desire for the iPhone.

I'll admit, I like the iPhone's style... and I like the interface. However, neither of these is worth $500 of my hard-earned cash. Even until recently, a Mac wasn't worth my hard-earned cash even though I had a soft spot for OSX; I only bought into the Mac world with a first gen Macbook Pro because I had a choice; I could install and run Windows either in a VM or on the hard drive directly (I do both, by the way). Choice is way more important to me than v

Re:well..

[mgemmons]

The platform is Safari. The development community can make web 2.0 apps. Google Maps, Flickr, Digg, Yahoo Pipes, Delicious... these ARE the killer apps of the last 5 years and iPhone will run them all and allow them to interface with the phone and the user's data

...

Unless you don't have cell coverage or WiFi access. In which case you are screwed. Or if you are talking on the phone and there is no Wifi access (and thus no internet access). In which case you are screwed. Or if you want to write a high-performance app (like a game) that would require OS level integration. In which case you are screwed. Not to mention the fact that potential developers will have to provide a server to host the widgets on in the first place.

Re:Ok, what then IS the killer app from others?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Password manager.

I'm sure others will have different killer apps, and that's part of the point here.