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iPhone SDK Reactions and Ongoing Questions

Native epocrates is HUGE HUGE HUGE for me. Done deal, sign me up for an iPhone 2.0! Until then, I wait for the Verizon contract to expire.

I can't wait to see what other relevant medical apps come to fore with this SDK, I might even try to do some myself.

Is arn a physician? The article read as if he was. If so, what do you practice, arn?
 
umairjaanu said:
As I recall, Steve said SDK will be released late February and now he's making developers and iphone users wait until June. They are taking existing SDK Apple developers use and releasing to general developers so I'm not sure why he's making everyone wait for next Firmware update.
Click to expand...

FALSE!!!
The SDK is available! Release of the installation mechanism for resulting apps is June.
 
Stella said:
It seems odd that you can't install your own app on your own iPhone without paying the $99 for iTunes hosting. Is this really correct?

If so, if I developed iPhone apps, I'd be very weary about releasing a product if its not been tested on the real device.
Click to expand...

The $99 is for a cert, so you can sign your apps. iTunes will not sell any app that isn't signed.
 
dicklacara said:
Apple said that they will pay developers every month... that is good.

It is not clear, however, if Apple will furnish the developer the Name, email, etc. of those who purchase the app.

I, personally, would like to see this!

It is a great selling point to creators... to be able to see who is buÿing their product.

Other stores that sell 3rd party content provide this info. For example: CDBaby sells CDs and downloads of unsigned Indie artists. They pay weekly & give a list of each person who bought the song.
Click to expand...

You could just put your name and email address in the app.
 
Stella said:
It seems odd that you can't install your own app on your own iPhone without paying the $99 for iTunes hosting. Is this really correct?

If so, if I developed iPhone apps, I'd be very weary about releasing a product if its not been tested on the real device.
Click to expand...

I think you can (or will be able to) when 2.0 comes out.

I think when you have 2.0 on the iPhone, you select an option in XCode to compile for the device instead of for the simulator.

I think the $99 is to assign you a digital watermark so that the app can be installed through the iTunes Store.

SJ said that Apple will know who wrote each app, and if it is malicious, Apple will go tell your parents! Really, he said something like that!
 
okay I am a little confused I read people complaining about the 70/30 split and the $99 and several people saying $99/yr um I don't recall Steve saying $99/yr nor does it say it at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/ I believe its a one-time $99 fee NOT yearly.


Please show me where it says $99 a year....


My second issue is something Steve failed to mention now when I purchase a Application from the App Store now when I connect to iTunes on my Computer will it download a backup of my purchases or if I have to restore my phone or I have to get a warranty replacement do I have to repurchase all the applications again. I think this is something Steve Job's failed to address how do we backup our purchases or does the store remember our Apple ID and just let us redownload?
 
AoWolf said:
I think so, but I wonder if AT&T will be the biggest road block.
Click to expand...

Not much choice. When it comes to GSM, the T-Mobile is really the only game in town save some smaller regional carriers. Most of the other major carriers use CDMA networks incompatible with the iPhone.
 
Developers are forced to use the App Store....

eastcoastsurfer said:
I don't think anyone is complaining that the store isn't a good idea. It's the idea that you're *forced* to release through the store that people have a problem with. If the store is going to be as good as they say, then why force anyone at all? They'll naturally gravitate towards using it...since it's so great and all.
Click to expand...

because Apple wants to make sure people get a good experience here, no the BEST experience here. You can load music onto your Computer without using iTunes, but how many people do that really who aren't geeks? Apple's all about seamless everything. Expecting the world to know how to load programs onto an iPhone on their own is anything but seamless.
 
SARO91201 said:
okay I am a little confused I read people complaining about the 70/30 split and the $99 and several people saying $99/yr um I don't recall Steve saying $99/yr nor does it say it at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/ I believe its a one-time $99 fee NOT yearly.


Please show me where it says $99 a year....


My second issue is something Steve failed to mention now when I purchase a Application from the App Store now when I connect to iTunes on my Computer will it download a backup of my purchases or if I have to restore my phone or I have to get a warranty replacement do I have to repurchase all the applications again. I think this is something Steve Job's failed to address how do we backup our purchases or does the store remember our Apple ID and just let us redownload?
Click to expand...

I did read somewhere on apple's site that its $99 a year...which is still a deal.
 
iCal Support

I'm looking at the librairies available. Is it me or they only allow you to use Address Book and not the Calendar features of the iPhone. Hence no todo integration possible. At this point, I'm not even sure there's Mail integration.

.Mac sync over the air doesn't seem possible either at this time. I have a feeling it will have lots of limitations in terms of integration. Apps will work well on their own, but not with others.

Anyone else notice ?
 
dicklacara said:
Apple said that they will pay developers every month... that is good.

It is not clear, however, if Apple will furnish the developer the Name, email, etc. of those who purchase the app.

I, personally, would like to see this!

It is a great selling point to creators... to be able to see who is buÿing their product.

Other stores that sell 3rd party content provide this info. For example: CDBaby sells CDs and downloads of unsigned Indie artists. They pay weekly & give a list of each person who bought the song.
Click to expand...

That's a really good point. I'd hate to have to annoy customers with a stupid registration form.
 
SARO91201 said:
My second issue is something Steve failed to mention now when I purchase a Application from the App Store now when I connect to iTunes on my Computer will it download a backup of my purchases or if I have to restore my phone or I have to get a warranty replacement do I have to repurchase all the applications again. I think this is something Steve Job's failed to address how do we backup our purchases or does the store remember our Apple ID and just let us redownload?
Click to expand...

It'll work exactly the same as the iTunes WiFi Music Store on your iPhone; anything purchased from and downloaded directly to your iPhone will then be transfered to iTunes on your main computer next time that you sync.

Is this what you were asking?
 
umairjaanu said:
As I recall, Steve said SDK will be released late February and now he's making developers and iphone users wait until June. They are taking existing SDK Apple developers use and releasing to general developers so I'm not sure why he's making everyone wait for next Firmware update.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about.

The SDK (which stands for Software Developer's Kit) is in the hand of developers. Granted this is six days later than expected, but the kit is there.

Apple did not promise the Firmware to run the iPhones SDK developed apps until yesterday. And Apple has gone above and beyond by providing developers a standard way of delivering their software.

Please define a "general developer".
 
Stella said:
Testing on a simulator isn't good enough, you need to test on the real thing device.
Click to expand...

Let me start off by saying that I'm very excited about the SDK and am trying to grasp yesterday's news as it relates to me (a professional software developer planning to do after-hours development for the iPhone). In addition to some lingering technical questions about the SDK itself (bluetooth support) I'm starting to think about the distribution model with current best-practices in professional software development. The thing that a lot of people are really missing here is an understanding of a typical development lifecycle. People are crazy to think that real apps can be coded in 2 weeks. Demo-ware is another flavor of vapor-ware --those apps that we saw yesterday aren't ready for primetime. Let me do a quick and dirty rundown of a typical cycle for what really happens over the next 3 months for a typical consumer app with a lot of stuff missing to keep this short.

1. SDK is released yesterday.
2. Ideas are brainstormed and eventually Requirements are made (by either developers or analysts or whoever).
3. Developers (using the methodology of choice) do design/code/unit test iterations using the emulator.
4. Developers do real-world testing on their own iPhones.
5. Product goes through some sort of Alpha/QA phase where a lot of bugs are found by a small group of testers.
6. Product goes through beta testing by a larger group of testers.
7. Product finally is ready to ship/go GM/whatever.

Apple hasn't addressed a good portion of the typical lifecycle. How the heck are developers going to get alpha/beta testing with the current distribution model? I think this is all great, but there are still basic CS 101 methodology concerns that we don't know about yet with the distribution model. I'm not ready to quit my day job with it's mature processes to become a full-time iPhone developer just yet. (So I'll just slacking off and reading macrumors this friday afternoon instead)
 
Based on the comments from Apple and the $99/year signing requirement and no way to load custom software from your computer without paying Apple the iPhone will be licensing incompatible with GPLv3.

Tivoization: Some companies have created various different kinds of devices that run GPLed software, and then rigged the hardware so that they can change the software that's running, but you cannot. If a device can run arbitrary software, it's a general-purpose computer, and its owner should control what it does. When a device thwarts you from doing that, we call that tivoization.
Click to expand...

Personally I could care less since I don't plan on ever buying the iPhone or the Touch because of cost, but this will affect porting "Free Software" to the Mobile OSX Touch platform. Developers will have to be very careful to avoid any gplv3 software.
 
adzoox said:
I had wondered if Apple was going to make some announcement about 3G ... in the mean time I discovered a way to get 3G on any iPhone + access the iTunes music store ... see my blog at fixyourthinking.com
Click to expand...

Given you have to not only have three devices but be connected to a power outlet, it's not exactly the ideal mobile solution.

Edge isn't that bad or WiFi hotspots that rare to make it worth the bother IMO
 
2.0

interesting post on personafile products about iPhone 2.0 final software, they are claiming it will support new hardware, a 3g iphone and a new video capable digital camera. that would be cool. they say that the 2.0 beta is free of these bits (no doubt).
 
I think the $99 developer fee is not going to be a problem for most. You can fiddle around with the emulator all you want before paying, and it seems to be a good emulator.

My worry is Apple being a gatekeeper. While it's good that they will keep malware from hitting the iPhone, I am certain there will be cases where good software is denied because of this.

For instance, emulators. Someone writes an excellent SNES emulator for the iPhone, but Nintendo whines, so it gets pulled from the store. The developer now can't distribute anymore. How do we know Apple won't cave to the demands of companies claiming apps are illegal when they're not?

Also, "bandwidth hogs" is very vague. What does Apple consider a bandwidth hog? If Adium is ported to the iPhone, will being connected to seven IM services at once over EDGE constitute a bandwidth hog? How about a VNC client?

A gatekeeper is alright as long as it's a GOOD gatekeeper that doesn't cave to third party demands. I guess only time will tell how good a gatekeeper Apple will be.
 
OS X Dude said:
While I'm here, would Firefox ever be compiled for the iPhone, or even a Linux distro???
Click to expand...

Firefox yes.

But Linux, no.

I'm so tired of all of this Linux talk. Why would anyone want to take a stable device and cripple it with something that it was never intended to run. I already hear, well, Linux is opensource, blah, blah, blah. But stop and think for a second, you have already paid for the OS! It works. It's like asking if Apple will distribute Windows Mobile. Sounds like a stupid question, well so does asking if there will be a Linux distro.

Granted I openly admit that I'm not a fan of Linux, because I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for. And I'm no UNIX newbie, I started playing around with UNIX in the 80's on a VAX and have used many versions of it on various platforms, from AIX to Solaris to good ol' SCO UNIX, to various distributions of Linux and OS X (which is by far the best OS I've ever used).
 
It took five years for the iPod to become the unstoppable Juggernaut that it now is.
The iPhone hasn't been in existence for a year yet...

The line about training for Crackberry using companies is amusing. How much training do you need to check your email?

The blackberry is another over-rated device that works and sells on massive peer pressure within the insanely conformist business world.
RIM has tapped in to the dullness of 'business' and profited, just like micro$oft.

I do not see either dull monopoly lasting much longer.

Be happy, perhaps the iPhone will wake some of these Ballmer-types from their weird 1950's snooze-world.
 
OS X Dude said:
I'm 16 and iPhone/iPod Touch will be my first foray into software engineering, and what has seemed a lil unfair is the price of all this.

OK, so it's £50 ish pounds per year to get the dev certificate you need, then they get 30% of your proceeds. So, in a year (with programs priced at £5 and an average of 150 downloads), thats £1825 gross to you every year (£152/month). Then out of that comes the £50 hosting fee (£1,775) and Apple takes 30% of the remaining figure (so that's you £532.50 out of pocket) finally leaving you with £1,242.50 take home in a year (£103.54/month).

That seems to me a little bit greedy on Apple's part - surely the £50/year is enough for Apple considering the amount of people who will develop for the platform?? Or am I just too damn inexperienced and this is fact the norm??

Sorry if the maths is complicated :p
Click to expand...

A little high?.........maybe. I thought the hosting fees was already taken cared of by Apple? In any case kid this deal by Apple is a good thing not a bad thing. And if you got the talent they actually want to give you the tools and support to succeed. Your on the ground floor of a very big opportunity so take advantage of it!
 
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