Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone SDK Reactions and Ongoing Questions

SDK + Enterprise Features = Good

I see many people are still unhappy with the way Apple is running this iPhone show. "First there was no SDK, then it was web apps only, then the SDK was to be released in February, now we have to wait until June. ZOMG!1" I also enjoyed hearing,"The iPhone will never be truly successful as it doesn't appeal to business users."

Well people, what other company listens and responds to the demands of the market in such a way and in such a short time? The iPhone has only been out for 8 months and Apple is now promising everything that has been touted as standing in the way of the "true" success of the device.
 
OS X Dude said:
See, I have no prior experience to base any of this on, I don't know how many downloads I should be getting per month/year. Before today I thought Apple was ripping people off with the 70:30 split and £50/year thing, but now I think it's quite reasonable for what you get (why did BREW develoers get 80% though? I bet they didn't market/promote/process it like Apple so could give more to devs).
Click to expand...

The carriers get 10% of the BREW reveune share --- so Qualcomm doesn't have the extra marketing expense. It is a lot more cost effective when you are working with the carriers.
 
more

the iphone sdk was WAY more than I expected. im sure you can run nes, ds games etc.. on emulators. I think it is going to soon replace the laptop.
 
macintel4me said:
Best distribution model....ever....
Click to expand...

Agreed. Its very good. For Apple, and Developers, and even consumers.

No one loses here, except I guess the consumers who have to buy the apps to make the business cycle itself. But, we're not forced to buy anything, and a large selection of apps will be in the free - $1.99 range (you'll see), and they are sure to be stunningly helpful to some or most people.

Anyone who develops great app ideas and can actually create them in an app can make a fortune off the app store.

Thank you Apple
 
QUESTION:

Are their any legitimate complaints here? I can't think of any. Aside from the control that Apple can exert over what apps go on the store, there is no downside here.
 
for windows?

I have a mac, however it's not as fast as my windows desktop, so I would prefer to make apps on it, does anyone know if there's Xcore, or all of the developing software to make the apps, for Vista?
 
bradenkeithcom said:
I have a mac, however it's not as fast as my windows desktop, so I would prefer to make apps on it, does anyone know if there's Xcore, or all of the developing software to make the apps, for Vista?
Click to expand...

No, these are Apple tools made exclusively for the Mac.

In all honesty, I don't think programming is too demanding on a system - speshally iPhone programming.

So long as ur G4+, u should be OK mate.
 
gaberamos615 said:
the iphone sdk was WAY more than I expected. im sure you can run nes, ds games etc.. on emulators. I think it is going to soon replace the laptop.
Click to expand...

I doubt Apple will allow emulators - and I think you're exaggerating with the laptop replacement - PDA replacement hell yeah - but it's too early to kill the laptop.
 
I think this news about the licensing of Active sync is bigger than most people realize.

Assuming for a moment here that Apple is not restricted to only use that license on the iPhone, but instead is able to deploy it on all of its products, this also means that it will be available soon on the Macs and other future devices.

One of the reasons why the Macs were not allowed in corporations was that it could not sync with exchange in a secured manner. Well now it is a matter of time before it can.

We are likely to start seeing a small adoption of Macs in a lot more companies. Specially those that do not want to put the money into dealing with the thousands of viruses and those that would use Linux and open source.

This is great news not just for the iPhone but for the Mac and for us that are tired of using a PC at work.

Drinks for everyone, let's cheer.
 
SDK Missing pieces

1) Of course the biggest missing piece to the iPhone SDK is the 2.0 firmware on the iPhone or Touch device. This, of course, prevents testing on the device, itself.

2) The simulator does not support OpenGL ES.

3) The simulator does not support rotation of the device-- though it looks like it should: Menu--->Hardware--->Rotate Left. Maybe this is a bug.

4) The simulator does not support MultiTouch gestures-- I was wondering how they were gonna' do that... turns out, they didn't!

5) The simulator does not support the accelerometers.


I feel that these omissions are rather significant... it prevents "learn by playing".

No amount of "looking at the code" can substitute experiencing the "cause and effect" interaction.

If the simulator is to be more than a stop-gap pacifier (until the new firmware is available) Apple should address these issues ASAP.

--Build a subset of Mac OS X OpenGL for the simulator

--Allow free rotation of the device in the x,y,z axis via the mouse and/or arrow keys... maybe borrow some code from Pages :)

--Allow simulation of the accelerometers with arrows keys, multi-keypress, combined with command key for rapid velocity increases.

--Allow simulation of MultiTouch by: right-click to establish/disestablish each active touch point indicated by a transparent colored circle on the screen. then offer a menu of MT gestures from a popup menu (pinch, drag, etc).

Of course, MultiTouch will be a lot easier to simulate when the Mac has a MultiTouch screen :D

Hey, Maybe I could write an iPhone app for the simulator that does all these things.... but, there'd be no way to test it....

Oh.... my head is beginning to hurt :confused:
 
reaction to restrictions

Many of the so called restrictions people are grumbling about don't seem to be restrictions.

I spent serveral hours watching all the iphone developer tutorials on my appleTV last night. They are rather informative. and really cool to relax in bed and watch on an apple TV.

And it seems that the background limitiation is not a policy, but more to the fact that the Iphone does not support multitasking.

To scale osx you have to make compromises and I guess multitasking was one of them.

WM 6 has multitasking support and I have to say I find it more problematic sometimes then useful.
 
Can anyone comment on how a developer will be able to allow buyers to register their application(s) for support? I haven't seen any information on this so far.
 
OS X Dude said:
I doubt Apple will allow emulators - and I think you're exaggerating with the laptop replacement - PDA replacement hell yeah - but it's too early to kill the laptop.
Click to expand...

Yeah... but I'll bet we see a bigger MT device from Apple before too long (the clock is ticking on that 2-year lead).

Maybe several: UltraPortable, Tablet, or an iPhone on steroids, say, 3"x5"... it would still fit in most pockets.
 
gr8ful said:
Can anyone comment on how a developer will be able to allow buyers to register their application(s) for support? I haven't seen any information on this so far.
Click to expand...

I hope that Apple will capture buyers name, email, etc. as part the selling process... then furnish these to the developer.

CDBaby does this for artists who sell their CDs or downloads through the CDBaby store.
 
dicklacara said:
Sorry... SDK is for Intel Macs only!
Click to expand...

Indeed!! An oversight on my part and I apologise for thr misleading info.

It's coz I started downloading the SDK at 11am GMT and, at 18:03GMT, there's still 3hrs 25mins on the clock!!!!! I AM GOING MAD.
 
michelle21 said:
I spent serveral hours watching all the iphone developer tutorials on my appleTV last night. They are rather informative. and really cool to relax in bed and watch on an apple TV.
Click to expand...

I shall hold you to this and try it tonight - God help you if I end up confused and unable to sleep!!! lol
 
rstone3 said:
This is right on. I am a doctor and the only thing keeping me from buying an iPhone is the lack of Epocrates. I will buy one the day after that program is released (hopefully also 3G) and say good bye forever to my Palm, Verizon cell phone, and pager in favor of one device.:):)
Click to expand...

same here..im a med student..and im dying to pick up the iPhone. Now that epocrates will be native, it will work great. But i want an iPhone with a decent camera, at least a 3.2 autofocus lens camera..:)..3G would be nice as well.
 
dicklacara said:
2) The simulator does not support OpenGL ES.

4) The simulator does not support MultiTouch gestures-- I was wondering how they were gonna' do that... turns out, they didn't!

5) The simulator does not support the accelerometers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by this as well. Of further note, the simulator does not appear to reflect processor speed or memory constraints. I'm guessing a true emulator would have been possible and may even exist within Apple, but would have been a huge boon to hackers.

Basically, this means that useful hobbyist game development will not be possible until "June".

I was surprised to find out the iPhone uses the PowerVR (tiled rendering) architecture. From what I can tell, it is a "Lite" version which probably doesn't have the vertex processor. I suspect it will fall somewhere between the DS and the PSP in terms of performance, probably closer to the DS. I've seen reports on the net of the iPhone having some sort of vector floating point unit; not sure if this is true, but it would be awesome if so, especially if supported with GCC inline asm or intrinsics! Well, we'll have to wait until summer to find out, unless of course one of the licensed developers breaks their NDA and tells us first!
 
sorry if this has been asked, but does anyone know when Apple will be adding in the Interface builder update to the iPhone SDK?

The current version does not update the Interface builder application to have mobile/iPhone interface stuff. :confused:
 
dicklacara said:
Yes.. Option+Click seems to allow pinch as well as rotation.

Where did you find that gem of info?
Click to expand...

Quoting myself here...Simulator: Shift+Option+Click seems to allow 2 finger drag, where the touch points stay a fixed distance apart

Also, some apps do allow rotation-- WhichWayIsUp. But this appears to be enabled by the app... seems odd, especially when Kalimba displays in Landscape but the simulator insists on being held in portrait.
 
Popeye206 said:
People are funny here... June is NOT a long time to wait... developers have something now.. this is good. And anyone that thinks the 70/30 split for world-wide distribution through iTunes is too much has no idea of distribution models for software.... this is very fair and reasonable.

The SDK and the program Apple has put together is great... it's going to change the value proposition for the iPhone and for the iPod Touch too... this is big.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Anyone who has been in retail knows that a 30% gross margin is a VERY reasonable retail markup. Plus, with a market space at this level of development there is no competitive landscape preventing a developer from asking as much as it likes, adjusting later as needed. Finally, this includes instant visibility in a worldwide store with millions of potential customers. It's a gift horse in my view.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back