After waiting for so long since I reviewed my iPod Touch on December 2007, Apple has released its iPhone SDK for download finally.
According to Apple, Apple’s iPhone SDK has been downloaded 100,000 times just in four days! What a hot reaction fro…

Good discussion.

What I’m saying is that Apple wants to control the developers not the user experience, and there is a difference.

If they want to control the user experience then they can set quality criteria that must be validated during the certification/verification process.

But what they have done is to enforce limitations on what the developers can or cannot do.

You can control the user experience by setting quality criteria, e.g. 1) the app must not interfere with the operation of any other app, 2) the app must use memory conservatively, etc.

But to force black and white rules on what type of application, e.g. browser, music store (will be rejected for sure), background, multi-threaded, should be allowed is more about controlling what can be developed so as not to have developers build game changing applications that will harm Apple (e.g. think Amazon’s mp3 store).

Apple cares about the quality of the user experience only because they care about their brand.

But if they ALSO cared about the greater good they would let Amazon, Firefox and a million other developers bring their applications to the iPhone with Quality being the only crietria.

Some of those 3rd party applications may be positioned to replace existing iPhone applications because they offer certain popular features that the iPhone versions will not offer (due to Apple’s business model or lack of focus on a particular area.)

Comparing the iphone costs to other sdks that are on the market(not google since it is still in planning stages). Wii 10K, ps3 10k, xbox 360 15-20k, xcode tools free, visual studio express free with many catches(but .net sdk is free), RIM, and many others cost thousands of dollars just to look at the SDK. I personally believe *every* computer should come with a developer toolkit that is easily accessible. That is what made me the programmer I am today (BASIC on the apple II).

btw javame is crap. It lost when there was CIDP MIDP, etc et etc. More crap.

Limitations breed creativity

An analogous question is:

What if MS controlled what gets published on the PC? Would we have gotten Netscape, Napster, BitTorrent, Skype and Firefox?

I don’t think so.

Same goes for Apple and the iPhone.

Let’s say that a developer comes up with an idea that could change the world, but it changes the game for Apple in some way. Would Apple approve it? I doubt it.

The subtext to my argument is that they’re not afraid of viruses. They’re afraid of developers running ahead of their own strategy.

If you do not have your own strategy, you’re part of someone else’ strategy.

Apple wants the developers to be part of its strategy.

Some developers want to set their own strategy.

There is the conflict.

The iPhone as it is, is very close to perfect. Its features still leave me in control instead of controlling me. Exchange and Notes connectivity and corporate networking enhancements will make it indispensible in the enterprise.

The device has been out just short of six months. Be patient. Let’s see what happens in a year’s time.

If this was an idea pad I could describe 10 more compelling applications that must be able to run in the background.

For example, an application that delivers location-based advertising as you pass by store fronts and restaurants (i.e. ads from those places) You don’t want such application to bug you with ads on constant basis but you may want to set a filter for a specific item, e.g. ice cream. If I happen to pass by any place that sells ice cream then I want to be alerted immediately. There are many things that people want to be notified about in real time context, not just chat messages.

And that’s just one application.

The wiser choice for Apple (in my personal view) is to charge developers a higher price for certifying/verifying their applications. They can outsource the job to companies that specialize in certification/verification.

Now add to that the strategic mistakes of banning Firefox and Opera from the iPhone. The Firefox team has been working on a touch screen version of Firefox specifically for devices like the iPhone.

I know that they wish to control the quality of the user experience because they make their money off of hardware not applications. So they need to assure that people have such a great experience with it so it dominates its space like the iPod did for mp3 players.

But they can control the quality of the user experience through a sound/tight certification/verification process.

They don’t need to ban competing browsers (that doesn’t sit well with anyone) and they don’t need to put shackles around the hands of application developers.

After all, the iPhone is a single hardware/software platform and verifying the safety/sanity of applications against a single platform is feasible, IMO, especially if they outsource the job to companies that specialize in that.

My 2.0 iCents.