Apple Still Considering 3rd Party iPhone App Development?

[Stella]

Given the relative simplicity of the iPhone platform, compared to Mac OS X, Apple shouldn't have that difficult of a time rigorously sreening potential third party apps for the iPhone. I think Apple wants to be the main if not sole distributor of iPhone apps, not because they want to corner the market, but because they want to control the quality of everything that could potentially reflect on the perceived quality of the iPhone.

And how much do you think it'll cost for Apple to QA every 3rd party app?

Whos going to pay - Apple or the developer? If developer, say good bye to a large amount freeware / shareware apps.

Apple should quit being so controlling. iPhone will only benefit by having an unrestricted 3rd party environment - just like every other phone platform - smartphone or not, has.

Apple's controlling nature killed the Mac platform from being a main player in the the computing world ( Mac still has a very small minority of users at 6% ), and it'll kill iPhone too in the same way. iPod is different - you play music and that source is readily available e.g., rip CDs.

 

[EagerDragon]

Given the relative simplicity of the iPhone platform, compared to Mac OS X, Apple shouldn't have that difficult of a time rigorously sreening potential third party apps for the iPhone. I think Apple wants to be the main if not sole distributor of iPhone apps, not because they want to corner the market, but because they want to control the quality of everything that could potentially reflect on the perceived quality of the iPhone.

Apple is going to need to add people to secure code review all apps that maybe heading to the iPhone. If the 3rd party app passes the code review then the reviewers would test the app for a while before they sign the software and make it available.

Apple does not want viruses and other malware running in their phone, and they also don't want the software corrupting anything.

Given that it is an ARM cpu, this cpu may not have hardware support to protect memory pages (just a guess on my part) so an application maybe able to crash the OS. This may be the reason why they are being careful. Read my previous post at the top of this page for the entire treatment that Apple may go thru in order to protect themselves and the user experience.

Besides they don't want the extra customer support needed when users install junk and it makes a mess of the phone. To my knowledge AT&T will have a very limited role in the support of the phone, it will be mainly Apple getting the calls for help based on what I have heard so far.

 

[EagerDragon]

I really want a terminal app so I can ssh into a server remotely in an emergency. Other than that, there aren't too many apps I would care about. Primarily, a phone should be a phone.

In any case, I don't think I will be getting one. While I currently have Cingular, I will probably be dropping them in favor of Verizon because of severe lack of coverage where I am planning on moving to. Verizon coverage is sketchy, but it is there ... out in the middle of nowhere. I have to drive 30-40 minutes before I get Cingular coverage.

Sounds like a very reasonable request (SSH), I could see Apple making something like that available. Your experience may vary in such a small screen and typing commands may or may not be as easy as you would like. Then again we have not seen the final product.

 

[Teddy's]

I thought that the iPhone wanted to be an Outlook killer and a mass switcher trigger.

Now I don't know.

What most MR postings are saying is "adapt iPhone to PCs" then it will be popular. Uhmm... No, I'd prefer to switch the world to Macintosh.

Ok, third party under Mac Platform please.

 

[JMax1]

I can't remember - will the Safari on the iPhone be able use java or flash or other online applications? if so, can one get around those apps by writing for java or flash that can be accessed online?

 

[EagerDragon]

I thought that the iPhone wanted to be an Outlook killer and a mass switcher trigger.

Now I don't know.

What most MR postings are saying is "adapt iPhone to PCs" then it will be popular. Uhmm... No, I'd prefer to switch the world to Macintosh.

Ok, third party under Mac Platform please.

iPhone is a money delivery mechanishm for Apple. To my knowledge it will interface with Macs and Windows via iTumes. iTunes on the Mac lets you upload calendars, notes, and other stuff, and it does something similar with windows (not sure to what extend). I expect that window users will be given similar capabilities as Apple wants their money, if they can convert them to the Mac great, but I do not think that is the main goal of the phone.

The phone market is huge, around 2.5 billion phones worldwide. That is bigger than the number of PCs out there. So there is more money and more brand recognizion with the combination of Apple TV, iPod, and iPhone.

Apple wants the electronic market real bad.

 

[PubGuy]

If Apple releases an iPhone-specific IDE for programming apps, that would solve a lot of the issues. The IDE can restrict the functionality of how deeply the app can go into the system. Stick with the API calls and the app should be stable and not be able to damage anything related to iPhone functionality. It would also allow freeware and shareware authors to go to town developing custom apps.

There are some people that want 100% access to the system, but let's face it, a good IDE would solve 99% of the problems stated here.

Another thing to keep in mind, no one here knows the specifics on the contract between Apple and AT&T. We know for sure that AT&T had to change their network and systems so that visual voice mail would work. Seems that no other provider was willing to change their systems to make this a reality. As such, there may be contractual obligations preventing Apple from allowing anyone to write VOIP apps. If so, well, we will have to live with that until the contract period expires. No big deal, most people don't even know what VOIP is (Mom, Dad, Granma, next door neighbor, etc). WE all know what it is, but we are techies on these forums, not the AVERAGE user.

So, Apple had to NEGOTIATE with the provider and there was give and take on both sides during the negotiation. If Apple can not offer VOIP at this time, then so be it. That will just be another software update in the future.

The iPhone is turning the cell phone industry upside down. The crap phones that most providers offer have terrible user interfaces. Most people don't even use the calendar functions because they are just to much of a pain to use. The Treo phones aren't much better. I've got an older Palm-based phone that uses the same Palm interface that came out YEARS ago ... great innovation, eh?

I can't wait for the iPhone,,,it blows all the others away!!!

 

[EagerDragon]

Hey how I got that 6502?

What does it means, besides the old CPU 6502?
I just got it, and it rippled to all my other posts (it seems).

 

[oscuh]

They could always start with a limited approach, like partnering with a few select companies. After all, they dont want to have people calling in to apple support everytime some 3rd party widget screws up their phone especially if phone communications is critical part of a business.

Werd. And beyond an inital roll-out of those select few still keep control over the apps being released might be in order to maintain the high quality level of the product. All Apple needs is a bunch of people installing crap on their phones which causes issues and then yrun around and blame Apple for the probelms they encounter.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Given that it is an ARM cpu, this cpu may not have hardware support to protect memory pages (just a guess on my part) so an application maybe able to crash the OS. This may be the reason why they are being careful. Read my previous post at the top of this page for the entire treatment that Apple may go thru in order to protect themselves and the user experience.

That depends to a large extent on what generation of ARM they're using.

The iPods have mostly used ARM7TDMI cores (without any memory protection). The iPod Nano 2G uses an ARM940T core, which offers an MPU (individual pages of memory can be protected) but no MMU (therefore no possibility of individual virtual address spaces for each process).

However, there are other ARM cores out there that do include full MMU capabilities -- these are the devices that can run WinCE/Windows Mobile, the full Linux kernel (as opposed to uCLinux which has been ported to the iPods), etc.

 

[Teddy's]

iPhone is a money delivery mechanishm for Apple.

Right, there is no need to say more.

 

[EagerDragon]

That depends to a large extent on what generation of ARM they're using.

The iPods have mostly used ARM7TDMI cores (without any memory protection). The iPod Nano 2G uses an ARM940T core, which offers an MPU (individual pages of memory can be protected) but no MMU (therefore no possibility of individual virtual address spaces for each process).

However, there are other ARM cores out there that do include full MMU capabilities -- these are the devices that can run WinCE/Windows Mobile, the full Linux kernel (as opposed to uCLinux which has been ported to the iPods), etc.

Thanks for the confirmation, I was not sure if ARM had the ability or not.

Based on what you stated, I wonder what they are using in the iPhone?

 

[macintel4me]

MS Word and Excel??

Anyone know if Excel and Word docs can be opened or even edited on the iPhone?? Definately a must for enterprise customers.

 

[mozmac]

Apple has a chance to blow the cell phone market up. If they allow Third party apps to run on the iPhone, the possibilities are endless! BlackBerry, Nokia, and Windows Mobile allow 3rd party, but most of the apps...ahem...programs, aren't that good. Even though they are "open devices" they feel closed because of the restricted environment. However, the iPhone is running on OS X! What better OS could you run on a phone! If they play their cards right, they could replace iPods, cell phones, and PDAs with this one device. Business people love consolidation, so Apple....bring it to them (us)!

 

[puckhead193]

I think they are affrad of people screwing up their phones. Apple should open it up and through itunes store have apps that have been tested.

 

[Digital Skunk]

If iPhone development opens up, iPhone widgets would be my new hobby.

Using them or making them.... for me using them would be my new hobby. And Apple should definitely take their time opening up the iPhone to 3rd party developers. I agree with everyone that says they don't want to call Apple support everytime my buggy word processing app decides to erase my phone book or destroy my entire OS.

 

[vitaflo]

Apple is testing the waters here. We have been approached by Apple to potentially do something on the iPhone in the future (which of course we want to do), but that's about as far as it's gotten right now. I think Apple is feeling out the potential here before they jump in.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Anyone know if Excel and Word docs can be opened or even edited on the iPhone?? Definately a must for enterprise customers.

Not yet but that is what we are hoping for. I would love to see a micro version of Apple's iWork on the iPhone and hopefully a micro version or their spreadsheet app. I don't use spreadsheets at all and neither does the general populous but if the enterprise people want it and that is the only thing keeping them from buying millions of iPhones and dropping their crappy blackberries and blackjack and crap smart phones then LET'S DO IT!

 

[Digital Skunk]

I think they are affrad of people screwing up their phones. Apple should open it up and through itunes store have apps that have been tested.

That would be cool... buying apps from iTunes and downloading them wirelessly.

Oh yeah... and opening the phone up to Sprint and Verizon customers.

 

[EagerDragon]

Anyone know if Excel and Word docs can be opened or even edited on the iPhone?? Definately a must for enterprise customers.

At the moment it was announced the answer was NO, they also stated it did not support JAVA.

It would be logical for them to support MS documents and JAVA, and I suspect they will sooner or later. There is a chance that it may come out with the support when it is released, but Apple is not telling.

Apple is not going after the Enterprise market, but they allow for mid to small size businesses. For enterprises you also need to be able to lock the device, encrypt all documents, passwords and other information on the phone, erase the phone (mutipass erase) if someone enters the password wrong too many times, it needs to receive and act on a remote erase (multipass erase) command, it also needs to sync withthe company email servers, and all transmissions need to be encrypted. Say goodbye to Yahoo mail, Google mails your ISP mail and others, in an enterprise all of those would be blocked along with many other sites the enterprise does not approve of. I do not believe Apple wants to go after the Secured Blackberry market at this time. Maybe later (1 to 2 years). At this time they want the heart and soul of the consumers and their bank accounts.

Enterprises own their phones and lend them to the employees. They have the right to record and read / listen to all transmissions in and out of their phone, and they get to lock it so only the apps they want can run on the phone. Apple is not yet ready for this. In the stock market it is an SEC regulation to record all forms of comunications of ceirtain individuals, any and all comunications with clients also need to be recorded and made available for auditing. Without those controlls the Enterprise could be out of bussiness or at a minimum in a lot of hot water. A lot of financial institutions also run by similar rules.

 

[matthewHUB]

PDA funtionality

I really don't mind if this thing doesn't have 3rd party apps. As long as there is a decent PDA-stye-life-organiser-calender app. I'm tired of carrying roound a diary/filofax. I need it to be slick, and sync properly with iCal. I don't use iCal much at the moment because i find it too much effort. I mean, whats the point of having your diary on you computer when someone asks if you're free for an appointment on the go? kind of sucks. being able to edit on the go would be amazing. Let's hope Apple sorts it out.

 

[dernhelm]

Remember, consumers are not forced to install 3rd party software on their iPhone. If they want 99.1% stability instead of 99.0%, then just don't install any software.

Agreed! Let the consumer make that choice.

I hear a lot of "OMG, I might install some software that horks something up and I might miss a call" arguments. But unless you are a 911 operator, missing a call is rarely life or death. I drive through dead spots every day on the way to work (underpasses, tunnels, whatever). For me, just getting in my car and driving could cause me to miss a call. I don't need to be 100% available, and I doubt most people that think they do are actually correct either.

So, Apple, please do not limit your phones fun-factor or usefulness because of some paranoia that a 3rd party app that was poorly written might crash your phone.

The "must be available 100% of the time" argument just doesn't hold water with me.

 

[yzp]

damn this goes against 's philosophy???

 

[tny]

Regardless, the processor in an iPhone appears to be ARM, not PPC or x86. No existing OS X apps will run unless recompiled for ARM. It would be great if Apple gives developers tools to do that.

I suspect that many of the "applications" written for iPhone will be widget-based, and the different processor wouldn't matter terribly much for most Dashboard widgets, as the widgets themselves are not compiled binaries but rather script-based and interpreted by WebKit. Only widgets that use compiled plugins would be affected.

As for the stability of the platform: this thing is going to be running on a metered telephone network, not your usual unmetered internet line. I can see the argument for being a little more careful about what kinds of applications can run on the platform.

 

[vga4life]

IM is the biggie for me (though I'd love a good Scrabble port like Handmark's version for PalmOS).

Unfortunately, it looks like Apple's solidly in the sack with the "gatekeepers" on this one - no iChat, just SMS. If Apple intends to keep IM locked out and force texting (at ridiculous extra cost) instead, they can keep their iphone. No sale.

Now, if Apple opens the iPhone, I don't care if they supply iChat for it - it will take about 5 minutes for a free AIM client to show up. That'd be fine with me.

I'd also like an open-source SSH client like pssh on the Treo. That's a lifesaver when I'm travelling, making the difference between me carrying a laptop or just my phone. (I won't log in to my servers from a machine I don't control - keyloggers are rampant at cybercafes and libraries.) Again, I don't care if Apple delivers it, as long as the iPhone is open enough so that someone can. Just opening it to select vendors willing to pay won't be enough because for something security critical like ssh, I want to be able to review and the source code myself to make sure my data aren't being passed to third parties.