iPhone "SDK" To Receive Improvements, Remain Web-based

[iSee]

Does concentrating application development on web based only applications allow Apple to remain flexible on processor choice? Do they not want to open the iPhone because of planned future changes to the architecture?

I know security is one reason to limit third party apps, but if they do plan to switch chips to intel from samsung, are they just trying to get momentum behind web base applications so that they can build a library of titles that do not have to be recompiled and rewritten when new hardware comes out, similar to the games on the iPod problem they have now?

Obviously they are concerned about future architecture with battery life and 3g, the technology is just maturing now, maybe they are hedging their position to remain neutral so they can be nimble with the hardware.

Yes, the web apps would be platform neutral.

With the addition of offline caching of app code, resources and data, along with some access to iPhone features (main menu placement is just one), this could be pretty decent for a lot of things.

Still, there are drawbacks.

Javascript is really, really slow on an iPhone.

The web graphics capabilities are also pretty slow. A canvas tag opens up a lot of graphical capabilities, but it's too slow to use much.

Also, it is very unlikely that Apple will expose all the functionality of the iPhone to the Javascript engine. Webkit apps will likely remain second class citizens in many, many respects.

 

[burrito]

big thing to consider-- since apple did borrow leopard developers to work on iphone, maybe they're setting iphone development aside until leopard ships. new apps/3rd party development may very well be on the to-do list, they just haven't had time or resources to properly implement it.

 

[Edmar]

totally agree

Why can't there just be a "controlled" system, sort of like Apple's Widgets? Got a cool App? Get it reviewed and approved by Apple and you can download it via iTunes! This way Apple gets the control it wants and innovative apps get to the people. What's the problem with that? C'mon Apple.

I totally agree with this, I think this the only way to address this problem. Btw I don't fee bad for those who ended up with
brick phones after unlocking, apple has an obligation to protect their relationship with ATT.

 

[arkmannj]

Web Apps

Safari has enough of a job being my web browser believe me.

but if that's the route they are taking, then they also need to more fully implement support for Java, Flash and Quicktime.

* Java - we have no support, but support on some decent level would go a long way.

* Flash - I don't think I need to say a whole lot here.

* Quicktime - Ok so iPhone has some quicktime functionality, but it is pretty limited compared to what quicktime is actually capable of. We are missing Quicktime VR support (I think the finger motions lend itself to Quicktime VR almost perfectly) and we are missing basically everything that has t do with interactive quicktime support.

* Copy+Paste

* Save images from emails into Photo's

* Small storage area [disk mode space] for downloads from email, internet, etc.

If Apple insists that there will be no "true" third party native iPhone Apps, then I would sure hope that they will make the web path as robust and versatile as possible.

 

[TurboSC]

would be nice if Apple designed a sort of "container" storage on the iPhone where the programs were underneath so that they could be removed etc if they messed up your iPhone, or have a temporary home on the iPhone.

 

[Fast Shadow]

Oh and for God's sake - let me drag and drop individual songs and videos to my iPhone when connected to iTunes. I loathe playlist sync.

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

I don't see how any customer could be against having the iPhone open for third party development. What Apple are doing in closing up the platform benefits nobody but themselves. For the sake of making a few extra bucks Apple is absolutely crippling the iPhone.

Honestly, I already own an iPhone and had been recommending it to all my friends, but since Apple locked up the device I can no longer recommend it to anyone. In fact, I'm telling everyone to stay well away from the iPhone unless Apple get their head out their ass and open up the platform.

While power users would be more concerned about third party applications, you really should consider what kind of user each person is. I'm willing to bet that most people do not care about putting third party applications in their phone.

 

[plumbingandtech]

OMG. I just checked out the poll on the front page and even on macrumors (which should have a much much much higher percentage of people "hacking" their phone) and the majority of people do NOT hack their phone.

Loud, loud subset of people in the grand scheme of things.

 

[JPark]

I don't see how any customer could be against having the iPhone open for third party development. What Apple are doing in closing up the platform benefits nobody but themselves. For the sake of making a few extra bucks Apple is absolutely crippling the iPhone.

Honestly, I already own an iPhone and had been recommending it to all my friends, but since Apple locked up the device I can no longer recommend it to anyone. In fact, I'm telling everyone to stay well away from the iPhone unless Apple get their head out their ass and open up the platform.

I hear you. The week 1.1.1 came out I was planning on buying one. Now not only did I skip the phone, but I'm selling my stock. I'm just not as proud of being a shareholder as I once was.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Offline capabilities akin to Google Gears = cool as hell.

Or maybe they are working closely with Google to get Google Gears working on the iPhone/Touch. That would be a plus for everyone- Google, Apple, devs who are already experimenting with Gears, and endusers.

Although I understand the broader functionality of native apps, good offline web based apps (Google Docs, etc.) would suffice for me, and ease the pain if breaking 1.1.1 takes a long time.

Apple also needs to rev its native apps, in order to provide the improvements/enhancements that would otherwise be taken care of by 3rd-parties.

I prefer Jailbreak but would actually be happy with the above scenario on my Touch (offline web apps, improvement of Apple native apps)

EDIT- One problem with Web apps is that the Safari cache doesn't seem to be very large. So if you want to provide offline access, I don't know how to get around that. Even if you load a Web 2.0 app with offline access, you might watch a video or something and inadvertantly flush the app out of the cache.

 

[RidleyGriff]

I think the ultimate truth here comes down to a couple simple points:

1. Apple believes that a rock-solid consistent experience is their key selling point compared to most phones, and will continue to be.

2. Apple believes the best way to ensure that they will be able to keep delivering this is to keep the platform closed. In a sense, I understand where they're coming from; I know countless people that think Macs are crash machines, because their only experiences were back in college labs in the 90s, machines overloaded with 3rd-party extensions and the like that caused all kinds of stability issues. This is a stigma that exists in the world of the casual user much more than we realize, and is only now, slowly, being overcome.

3. Apple ultimately believes the future of the iPhone is not in selling to us, the users that would hack a phone, or to those that like to dig under the hood. It is to to the people that have no interest in dealing with the technical know-how of their devices, and simply want them to work as well and as consistently as their toasters. Because there are a whole lot more of them than there is of us. They are the ones that have made iPods so successful.

I can't say I disagree with Apple on this last point, either. If Apple is able to listen to their users and integrate new features as the actual users want them, I don't see Apple being challenged in this space anytime soon. Ringtones will be something they need to address eventually, as that is a feature people want, and is a common-sense feature, and I'm sure we'll see them develop along the way, but as for the rest... Nokia can spend as much money as it wants promoting how open its platform is -- the customers that care about that are not Apple's target, and haven't been from day one.

 

[JPark]

OMG. I just checked out the poll on the front page and even on macrumors (which should have a much much much higher percentage of people "hacking" their phone) and the majority of people do NOT hack their phone.

Loud, loud subset of people in the grand scheme of things.

Plus there are others (myself included) who decided not to buy one because of Apple's stance on 3rd party development.

 

[Doctor Q]

Who needs freedom to innovate? Let Apple limit 3rd party developers all they like, since every good application has already been invented, and nobody needs any feature that isn't already on the iPhone.

 

[iJed]

This is in no way a substitute for native applications!

How are you supposed to write native looking GUIs, fast graphics code or make an application of reasonable complexity? Web based applications do much of their processing on the server rather than the client and JavaScript has never been a nice solution for well anything really.

It would be much better if Apple released a native Java VM with bindings to the UIKit. At least then we'd get similar functionality to the many J2ME phones out there.

 

[JPark]

...
3. Apple ultimately believes the future of the iPhone is not in selling to us, the users that would hack a phone, or to those that like to dig under the hood. It is to to the people that have no interest in dealing with the technical know-how of their devices, and simply want them to work as well and as consistently as their toasters. Because there are a whole lot more of them than there is of us. They are the ones that have made iPods so successful.

When (for a short time) Apple killed Linux on the iPod, there was a small murmur of complaint. When they killed 3rd party apps on the iPhone, there was a tumultuous uproar. Maybe it's just because most existing iPhone owners are early adopters and more inclined to care about stuff like that. Who knows. It's probably too early to tell, but this just seems to be a much bigger issue this time around.

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

I hear you. The week 1.1.1 came out I was planning on buying one. Now not only did I skip the phone, but I'm selling my stock. I'm just not as proud of being a shareholder as I once was.

I think people are overreacting a tad over a phone.

 

[Stridder44]

I don't see how any customer could be against having the iPhone open for third party development. What Apple are doing in closing up the platform benefits nobody but themselves. For the sake of making a few extra bucks Apple is absolutely crippling the iPhone.

Honestly, I already own an iPhone and had been recommending it to all my friends, but since Apple locked up the device I can no longer recommend it to anyone. In fact, I'm telling everyone to stay well away from the iPhone unless Apple get their head out their ass and open up the platform.

Thank you. This is the exact reason I'm not getting one.

 

[grappler]

I'm really curious about the application that added a sort of pseudo-GPS capability. Can someone who is familiar with it explain how it works?

 

[plumbingandtech]

Plus there are others (myself included) who decided not to buy one because of Apple's stance on 3rd party development.

True. And there are most people (that don't really care about hacks) (like 2 of my friends in the last week) that want a phone, and ipod, mail and a web browser and the iphone fills the bill better then anyother phone they have used in the past.

 

[tuartboy]

Don't care, don't care, don't care.

I develop web apps for a living and even I want native apps on the phone. There is so much power in this phone and you shouldn't have to use javascript to exploit it. Tap Tap Revolution would be a complete pain to even attempt in JS and would likely run the battery dry. Out of curiosity I've run top over ssh while testing apps and heavy JS code tends to run really hot while native apps (save the NES emulator) are usually quite efficient.

Really, why are they spending dev time on this weak safari API when they could be working on a true API? An OS API makes business sense and is the responsible thing to do for their shareholders as it would increase visibility in the community and improve the product capabilities overall. I have already recommended to 2 of my friends serious about getting an iphone to hold off until all this is sorted out. They are both taking my advice. That's ~$3,000 (w/ contract) they are missing out on right now just because of 1 customer. How many more people are holding off?

 

[Unspeaked]

Oh and for God's sake - let me drag and drop individual songs and videos to my iPhone when connected to iTunes. I loathe playlist sync.

The iPhone doesn't let you do this?!

 

[bignumbers]

Offline capabilities akin to Google Gears = cool as hell.

Yep, they've been talking Google Gears and WhatWG implementation for a while.

Problem is, they need to announce this publicly, in a huge way. Especially right now in the midst of this PR disaster. Even if they said "wait six months and it'll be ready" that would be better than silently killing all third-party efforts.

Now this isn't the same as a "real" OS-level SDK, but it would provide the capabilities to do many (not most) of the things I'm interested in. Development would also be simpler - probably a hyped up version of Dashcode.

I believe they ALSO need an OS-level SDK. Again I'm fine if they say it'll take a while (to stabilize the OS, finalize API's, etc.). But they're dead silent, which I don't like.

And I'm still on 1.0.2 just for ringtones - using songs I wrote myself, and am essentially sticking with the old version out of silent protest.

 

[plumbingandtech]

when they could be working on a true API?

How do we know they are not working on both?

Even after a true API, web apps will be important.

How many more people are holding off?

Judging by sales since the price drop... not many.

 

[Unspeaked]

OMG. I just checked out the poll on the front page and even on macrumors (which should have a much much much higher percentage of people "hacking" their phone) and the majority of people do NOT hack their phone.

Loud, loud subset of people in the grand scheme of things.

Uh, yeah, because 49% of iPhone owners is a huge minority...

 

[tuartboy]

I think people are overreacting a tad over a phone.

I don't think it's about the phone. This whole situation reeks heavily of what most of us hate so much about other computer/technology companies. Apple was different, but that difference is starting to disappear and this is the first time in the almost 3 years that I have been a customer that I have been really questioning my relationship with Apple as a company.