Not true actually. I was a student member until December of last year and I have my copy of leopard that they sent me sitting in the drawer next to me.
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Late Breaking iPhone SDK Rumors: EDGE OK, Apple's Cut, Mac-Only SDK
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Not true actually. I was a student member until December of last year and I have my copy of leopard that they sent me sitting in the drawer next to me.
It's still bad news. There are developers with iPhones who would not touch a Mac with a stick. And I bet their numbers are way above the amount of developers with an iPhone and Leopard.
The small developer probably won't be too happy with having Apple to take a cut of sales. Just imagine if Apple demanded a sale cut from OSX apps!
If the commission is too high then Apple will be shooting themselves in the foot.
Apple are being a tad greedy. There's little difference between:
1. a commercial / shareware app being featured on Apple downloads ( http://www.apple.com/downloads/ ) - which does not attract a fee from the developer
2. a commercial / shareware featured on iTunes ( if it were possible ).
Apple should let the developer decide for themselves how their own iPhone apps will be distributed, via iTunes or not.
I can understand why the SDK will be OSX only - having to re-write XCode for windows will be a lot of work ( Apple will want devs to use GCC via XCode rather than directly ). Maybe XCode for windows will come in the future. A Mac SDK is better than none at all. Additionally, this will encourage people to buy Macs should they wish to develop for iPhone. Personally, despite Apple being greedy, there will be lots of interest in the iPhone SDK and will prove over time to be a success. OSX makes a far better development machine overall than windows does ( as long as your not writing windows only apps ).
Its great that Apple will cater for freeware / opensource apps.
If the commission is too high then Apple will be shooting themselves in the foot.
Apple are being a tad greedy. There's little difference between:
1. a commercial / shareware app being featured on Apple downloads ( http://www.apple.com/downloads/ ) - which does not attract a fee from the developer
2. a commercial / shareware featured on iTunes ( if it were possible ).
Apple should let the developer decide for themselves how their own iPhone apps will be distributed, via iTunes or not.
I can understand why the SDK will be OSX only - having to re-write XCode for windows will be a lot of work ( Apple will want devs to use GCC via XCode rather than directly ). Maybe XCode for windows will come in the future. A Mac SDK is better than none at all. Additionally, this will encourage people to buy Macs should they wish to develop for iPhone. Personally, despite Apple being greedy, there will be lots of interest in the iPhone SDK and will prove over time to be a success. OSX makes a far better development machine overall than windows does ( as long as your not writing windows only apps ).
Its great that Apple will cater for freeware / opensource apps.
Yea, but many countries that sell iPods, including the touch, don't have access to an iTunes store. I know, I live in Korea. If I had of bought an iPod touch instead of the classic, I would have very annoyed as there is no way that I could buy the upgrade pack. The countries that we are talking about here are all the Asian countries, bar Japan. If Apple wants to get the iPhone into these countries by the end of the year, then something needs to happen with the iTS to make it accessible by all.
Remember that the iTS services only 22 countries. I'm sure the iPod touch is sold in more than that.
Leopard only?
About the only thing that's got me upset is the fact that the SDK is Leopard only. That really feels like a Microsoftian thing to do - doesn't it? Now a free SDK will cost some of us $129 US.
About the only thing that's got me upset is the fact that the SDK is Leopard only. That really feels like a Microsoftian thing to do - doesn't it? Now a free SDK will cost some of us $129 US.
Nokia doesn't automatically ask for revenue from S60 applications, nor does it limit the platforms on which they can be developed or the people who can develop apps for it.
Goodbye iPhone. It was nice knowing you.
Goodbye iPhone. It was nice knowing you.
All of Apple's current development tools (Xcode 3, IB 3) already require Leopard.
I would assume that the SDK would be part of Xcode 3, which, as far as I know, only runs on Leopard. Not many software companies put new features into old versions of apps, and Apple are likely to want to push Objective C 2.0 as the language of choice for the iPhone, which means Xcode 3/Leopard.
As for being Microsoftian, I suppose that it is, in the sense that Microsoft don't tend to add new features to older versions of apps either.
In other words, anyone who cannot afford at least the £399 for the cheapest Mac Mini cannot develop iPhone software. Well, that will reduce the number of developers by at least 0.00001 percent.
iPhone apps will not be compatible with Leopard, Tiger, Panther or anything. They will be compatible with the iPhone. That's why they are called iPhone apps. You will very likely need the latest version of iTunes to install applications on an iPhone, so users will need any computer that is capable of running the latest iTunes version.
For developing Macintosh applications, someone developing on Leopard can create applications that will work on Panther, Tiger and Leopard and use features that are available on each system. If you want to write applications that run on Jaguar as well, you need to develop on nothing later than Tiger. In that case, your application will run on Leopard, but cannot use any Leopard-only features.
I think if you claim that you "would not touch a Mac with a stick", then Apple will not touch you with a stick. Anyway, you will have a very steep learning curve ahead if you haven't done any Cocoa programming before.
Apple gets a cut from every application that you buy in an Apple Store. Just like PCWorld gets a cut from every application that you buy at PCWorld. Apple also gets a cut from every song or video that is sold through iTunes, just like Amazon gets a cut from every book you buy there.
Safari
I don't mean to go off-topic, but I use Safari on Windows. I prefer it to Firefox
I don't mean to go off-topic, but I use Safari on Windows. I prefer it to Firefox
Your missing one significant difference: Apple don't force developers to put their OSX apps on to Apple Store in order to sell or distribute their product.
Apple may or may not force iPhone apps onto iTunes, we'll have to wait a few hours.
As someone else pointed out, all retailers take a portion of revenue, that's how they make money. That's how it works for iTunes games, music etc so why NOT apps? All that is nonsense of course if there's no provision for freeware stuff, but we'll see.
the slashgear team got invited again, but this time we will live blog on our sister site http://live.phonemag.com since it's phone related
Point me to the S60 SDK for OSX.
Oh, right. there isn't one. It's Windows only.
Well the iphone SDK is Mac only. Deal with it.
You want to develop for a platform, you get the hardware/software necessary to develop for that platform. If your company can't afford the price of a Mac mini plus ADC then it's either not serious about developing iphone apps or so close to bankcruptcy it wouldn't matter anyway.
Wow, a constructive comment! Well done, go and get a gold star from teacher.
Or not.
So... does anyone else think that if - and I stress if - Apple restricts the SDK to Macs and approved developers that they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot?
Or is it just me?
It was always going to be for Macs only as it's an OSX based platform. For a commercial developer, the cost of buying a Mac Mini is lower than the cost of developing for Windows Mobile (you have to spend $800 on Visual Studio Professional)
Approved developers only would be more of a problem, but I haven't seen anything that says they're going down that route.
The distribution by iTunes is a fantastic thing as far as I am concerned: As a commercial developer, if your app is in iTunes you're hitting a massive potential market
Good points. That may be the problem then, I suppose - a lot of the good S60 apps are made by 'bedroom programers' not professional studios who develop apps for the 'cos I can' factor. These guys are unlikely to want to buy extra hardware.
Still, there are plenty of creative folks with Macs so probaly not a real issue.
Still, there are plenty of creative folks with Macs so probaly not a real issue.
Judging from Jobs' comment that the person who wanted a iPhone-based blogging application should learn Objective-C and write it himself, I would expect that the SDK will not be reserved for developers approved by Apple. If it were to be, then I would agree that Apple is missing a good opportunity to make the iPhone and iPod touch a mainstream portable computer standard.
As for restricting the SDK to Macs, it seems only logical that Apple would want to have another reason to buy Macs over PCs. For PC-owning hobbyist developers, it's probably a blow, but serious developers will probably have no problem in justifying an iMac or MacBook, or even a Mac mini, in order to write commercial apps. And, to be honest, I'm surprised that people are only now starting to query this. Perhaps it's just me, but I always assumed that the SDK would just be a part of the Mac Developer Tools. I never expected it to run on Windows, any more than Apple's other developer tools do.
Maybe will bounce some Mac Pro sales. And can anyone tell me what time 10am in Cali is in Holland? Thanks!
