iPhone SDK Reactions and Ongoing Questions

[mrod]

That's turned out to not be true. It turns out the $99 charge is also required to load your apps onto the iPhone for debugging. And there's no word on if the apps will run untethered at all yet. Very unfortunate.

It's worse than that Jim... It's $99 per year to be able to run your own code on your own property.

I wonder what the EU competition commission would have to say about this monopolistic practise.

P.S. I'm not even thinking of the iPhone here, more the iPod Touch which has no impact on telcos.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

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.

You're making my case for me. If the world doesn't know or care how to load apps onto the iPhone outside of the app.store, then why does Apple need to force it? Let the market decide. If the store is the best place for apps to be then that's where they will be. If an app isn't in the store b/c it wasn't forced there then one has to wonder what flaw in the store is preventing the app developer from using the store?

 

[GQB]

Great video! Thanks. Ballmer completely missed the point and ultimate direction of the iphone and ipodtouch. BTW, I have actually never met anyone who owns a Zune.

I such a best in the wild recently. It was someone who had won it in a company raffle at the Christmas party.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

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).

You are aware that the OSX kernel (among other parts) is Darwin, which is open source. It was built from Mach and BSD which were also open source and free. I never understand the Linux sucks, but OSX is great because we paid for it argument when OSX itself is built on free software.

 

[GQB]

mail viruses?

Just out of curiosity, given the SDK access to the address book, what keeps an app from using someone's addressbook to send send mail without their permission?

 

[genshi]

Just out of curiosity, given the SDK access to the address book, what keeps an app from using someone's addressbook to send send mail without their permission?

Exactly why Apple will be screening and approving (or rejecting) these apps before allowing them to be sold through the App Store.

 

[PharmD]

As a pharmacy student starting rotations in June, the addition of native eppcrates is going to be so great.

 

[whatever]

You are aware that the OSX kernel (among other parts) is Darwin, which is open source. It was built from Mach and BSD which were also open source and free. I never understand the Linux sucks, but OSX is great because we paid for it argument when OSX itself is built on free software.

Yes, I do, however, an OS is not defined just by it's kernel or by it's GUI, but a combination of the two (and several other factors, such as ease of install, support, and upgradeability ). When taken as a whole, OS X is superior to Linux (in my opinion).

There are also many misconceptions about Open Source such as:

The contributions to the Open Source community is done mainly by non-corporate entities (you know the independent developer working nights and weekends on their free time) or Firefox. This is so far from the truth.

Open Source companies are not for profit.

Alright I'm not sure why I'm on a soap box talking about this, so I'll stop.

 

[GQB]

Exactly why Apple will be screening and approving (or rejecting) these apps before allowing them to be sold through the App Store.

So you're thinking that the security wall will consist purely of Apple Approval?
I'd think that it would be easy to hide malicious code in a compiled app.
Or will Apple be inspecting source code as well?

While we're at it, anyone heard how distribution of apps to multiple machines will be controlled? If I buy an app and get a new machine, how will I xfer it?

 

[OS X Dude]

The last time I saw a breakdown, the iTunes Store $ (for a song) went something like this:

$.03 to the credit card company (special rate for Apple)
$.02 profit to Apple
$.25 Store Costs, Servers, Bandwidth, Admin (some Apple, some 3rd Party)
$.70 Record Label

The record label pays the artist $.10 (and bitches at Apple to let them charge more than $.99)

I suspect the breakdown would be (somewhat) similar for games and other apps sold and distributed by 3rd party "software" labels

Lets just look at a few costs that you might incur if you were to sell your app on your own site:

$25 month web site development ( $500 prorated over 20 months)
$15 month web hosting
$100 month Shopping Cart ($2,000 prorated over 20 months)
$25 month download, signing & encryption software ($500 prorated over 20 months)

7% credit card costs per transaction.... if you could even get a merchant account and accept credit cards (Prolly requires maintaining a minimum $25,000 balance in an account, and $1,000 up front)

So, after several months preparation, with several thousands $ spent, out of pocket, you are now ready to sell some apps.

Oh, how will anyone find you... Simple, You advertise (invest in future sales). What's a reasonable amount to spend per month $10? $10,000?

Gee, that $99/yr and 70/30 split starts to look like a pretty good deal!

Fair points, but the fact that I'm a greedy f**ker undoes all of your logic

 

[axcess99]

So you're thinking that the security wall will consist purely of Apple Approval?
I'd think that it would be easy to hide malicious code in a compiled app.
Or will Apple be inspecting source code as well?

While we're at it, anyone heard how distribution of apps to multiple machines will be controlled? If I buy an app and get a new machine, how will I xfer it?

My uneducated guess is the same way they do music, movies, videos, games, bookmarks, contacts, cal-events, photos,... Sync them back to your mac from your ipod/iphone and they are then available to be copied to your other iphones/ipods/safari/ical/iphoto/etc...

 

[OS X Dude]

I am in the same boat...I want to build some apps, but I am not sure what the need is...maybe macrumors should have a content. Users submit ideas and the developers that build the best apps wins something??????

An awesome idea - I've started asking friends and doing polls on sites as to what people want from their phones, besides email and internet which the iPhone does with aplomb.

Sadly, for the majority, it seems that's it

I'm thinking maybe proper Bebo/MySpace programs that format the page to fill the screen and optimize the site for iPhone, but, as Facebook have proved, that's just a web-page optimization away for those companies.

Blogger app? Firefox?? <£5 says Apple censor it lol> Mercury Messenger? Sad thing is, you can't take open source apps like Firefox, compile them for iPhone and charge for them coz it's against the T&C of the software (Firefox at least) - else I'd have ££££s coming at me like fat kids to the opening of a new McDonalds.

But yeah - sound plan man.

 

[genshi]

So you're thinking that the security wall will consist purely of Apple Approval?
I'd think that it would be easy to hide malicious code in a compiled app.
Or will Apple be inspecting source code as well?

Fair point, I guess we'll see.

I used to work in the video game industry for many years and when the company I worked for released it's first Playstation One game, it had to go through Sony's approval before being allowed into manufacturing as did all Playstation games. And incidentally, one of my tasks as Game Test manager was purchasing the Development Playstations for the testers to work on. This included an SDK, a Blue Playstation (missing the lock-out chip so we can test burned, in-house copies of our games) and costed $3000! And I had to buy 5 of these! (I still have one.) So for me, everything about this whole iPhone SDK deal is just great!

 

[AlphaAnt]

Fair points, but the fact that I'm a greedy f**ker undoes all of your logic

Not necessarily. If the cost of doing all of that on your own ends up higher than the 30% that Apple charges, then the greediness factor says to go with iTunes. You also have to take into account the labor costs in managing all of the things that he said, which alone would probably make the iTunes charges worth it. That's time you could be spending writing other apps, for example.

 

[aswitcher]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo

Ballmer,
Ballmer,
Ballmer....

Yeah, its all about him.

 

[OS X Dude]

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!

Yeah I since found out that the £50 is the money you pay annually to develop for the OS, presumably for licenses, tools etc.

I only thought it was a little high because I've never done this before and I have no past tariffs from companies to compare it to - I'm coming to this blind essentially.

Now, after knowing that they process it, market it to millions 24/7 and sort out the headaches, it seems a fair deal.

I've been into Apple since I was 8, and I remember thinking "wow, one day I would like to be able to make a program and see it be successful" (or 8 year old's words to that effect ) - and now I am finally doing what I've wanted, and I'm really excited - just need to get experience on the costs this work incurs and host reliability etc, all of which will come in time.

I intend to program for iPhone, iTouch, Mac and probably Windows and maybe Linux in the future..... just see how I go with this first lol.

 

[pflau]

That's turned out to not be true. It turns out the $99 charge is also required to load your apps onto the iPhone for debugging. And there's no word on if the apps will run untethered at all yet. Very unfortunate.

That would suck. That would be the one thing in this whole thing that I don't like.

But you can look at it this way: those who pay the yearly $99 fee can have any app loaded on to their iPhone. Any app, unlimited number of apps, provided they can get a hold of the source code.

Think of the possibilities.

 

[Rocketman]

As I have been saying since day 1 of the pre-release, the iPhone is a computer in the palmtop with broadband. It also is becoming the ultimate thin client for client-server computing if you consider desktop application performance from 3 years ago "thin".

Some would properly call that THICK client-server computing.

That fact it is already standards based with BSD unix, and Safari web, and much of the desktop mac experience, is good. The fact it is about to obtain full client-server parity with any terminal, desktop, or vertical application out there, is more that that. It is amazing.

With all due respect, gents, we have arrived at the beginning edge of end-user computing nirvana.

All applications everywhere.

Rocketman

Carmack was an early adopter NeXT user as well as an early adopter (successful) Mac programmer. The fact he is a rocket geek doesn't hurt one little bit.

 

[arkmannj]

I'm really excited for June!!

I just watched the video, and wow I didn't know the spore guys, AIM, etc. all built what they had to present in about 2 weeks !! that's pretty amazing.
I wonder since they will have more time, it it would be possible for the AIM team to build in Audio chat (tleast when hooked up to wifi) that, would be awesome.

 

[pflau]

I'm really excited for June!!

I just watched the video, and wow I didn't know the spore guys, AIM, etc. all built what they had to present in about 2 weeks !! that's pretty amazing.
I wonder since they will have more time, it it would be possible for the AIM team to build in Audio chat (tleast when hooked up to wifi) that, would be awesome.

But that would be Skype. They probably don't want to alienate the iPod Touch users who have no speakers on their device.

 

[dangleheart]

OS X Dude, if you're serious about selling your software, the app store is the best way to go. The charges are not much, especially for what you get. Apple takes care of all the distribution costs and you get free marketing through the store.

But...

That's turned out to not be true. It turns out the $99 charge is also required to load your apps onto the iPhone for debugging. And there's no word on if the apps will run untethered at all yet. Very unfortunate.

For me, more than the $99, what if my app bundles with it some data, like a catalog of music that a bunch of our friends/social network has. And I want to write an app that works off of that data and share it with my friends. This app is completely useless to the rest of the world. It is those kind of opportunities that will get missed with the currently proposed way of distributing the apps. I think what Apple is offereing to paid and free app hosting and distribution is great but that should not be the only way to get an app on to the iPhone.

I bet you this. Someone is going to write a very thin layer app that exposes an equivalent API. Once you load that app, you can write an app you want and directly download it to the iPhone. I do not think that is inconceivable. It is too bad people will have to resort to such a thing since it will involve sacrificing efficiency and the elegance of the iPhone API.

 

[snowmoon]

As I have been saying since day 1 of the pre-release, the iPhone is a computer in the palmtop with broadband.

As long as it's locked in to both a carrier and a store it is not a computer, but an Apple revenue generating device. Now some people may decide that this is worth the cost, but I would never mistake it for a computer.

Short of greed their was no reason to lock it from installing 3rd party apps from their computer without a signature. It would be like iTunes not allowing you to rip your own CD's to load on the iPod.

 

[joemama]

Best distribution model....ever....

Just imagine this same concept for an iTunes record label. Artists could create their own music, sell it directly on iTunes and make a 70% profit.

Much better than the current 1-5% artists get from record labels.

Hmmm.....

 

[spazzcat]

As long as it's locked in to both a carrier and a store it is not a computer, but an Apple revenue generating device. Now some people may decide that this is worth the cost, but I would never mistake it for a computer.

Short of greed their was no reason to lock it from installing 3rd party apps from their computer without a signature. It would be like iTunes not allowing you to rip your own CD's to load on the iPod.

There is 100% a reason to require a signature on the apps... security I think people forget these are phones...a cell network. This is nothing like taking a CD you bought from a store and ripping it. There are bad people out there and yes they ruin it for everyone.

 

[arkmannj]

But that would be Skype. They probably don't want to alienate the iPod Touch users who have no speakers on their device.

True, the difference with Skype/AIM though is that most of my no tech savy friends and family already have AIM accounts and the chances of my ever getting my parents and others to use or understand Skype is slim. But they do already have iChat/AIM load-up when their computers start and now know how to accept an audio chat invitation. (after several years of teaching LOL)