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Steve Jobs Announces 3rd Party SDK for iPhone for February 2008

elppa said:
Planned all along I say.

They had a hard enough job trying to get such a sophisticated piece of technology out the door for June. Trying to support third party apps would have made it even harder and inevitably lead to delay or serious problems. And serious problems would have damaged the reputation of the platform anyway.

Jobs clearly seems irked by some of the criticism, much of which from people with no comprehension of the engineering challenges and technical issues.
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I the initial release of the iPhone was - as many have said - more of a hack to get it out the door. The firmware update brought it more inline with a true mobile OS X. That's probably why the first SDK was more of a web kit. In some ways that's good because it pushed people to make cool web based apps, which there a lot. With the new SDK developers can take it to a new level.

I imagine a software and hardware update in January with new applications including an IM client and more integration with Leopard. Then the SDK which will be great.
 
I am very happy about this, but at the same tiem I have SOME mixed feelings.

I REALLY want an iPhone however I don't want to use it as a phone, I want the iPhone for VoIP, and I want the camera/speaker so I can easily share photos/sounds with people.

Hopefully this is still possible.

I would probably settle for iPod Touch if it worked with the Apple camera adapter, so while I travel I can sync photos to the touch and email them to friends/family/etc.
 
VaDor said:
This is great news...


BUT I think that their SDK only will be permitted to companies that will buy a digital certificate to apple.

I am not seeing in a near future a public SDK available... Steve give the Nokia example.. maybe Apple will do something like that..
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The implication in the text is that Apple are trying to outdo Nokia with an open platform that doesn't need certificates. ie. by limiting what the application can and cannot do to the phone.

M.
 
MikeDTyke said:
Yeah baby!

Now that's what i'm talking about. but before the zillion trolls hop on this thread whinging about how apple's just done an about face, 2 pennies worth.

iPhone OSX 1.0 thru 1.02 is based on Tiger code, ie. no binary signing, sandboxing of apps etc.
iPhone OSX 1.1.1 is closer to Leopard, ie. binary signing and sandboxing of apps.

Now when did 1.1.1 come out oh yeah Sept, and when is the premiere development platform for iphone AKA Leopard coming out? Oh yes 26th Oct.

So when Jobs says that an SDK is coming in Feb, it's not cause he's running around bolting a dev platform on, cause of all you whiners, it's because he's got a finite number of programmers and a product schedule that rates getting iphone and leopard out the door more important than working on an iphone sdk.

The SDK was always on the cards, just he couldn't say when, til now. Probably a bit of PR there to temper the hacking teams from ***** up iBricks long enough for Apple to do this properly.

M.
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Great post. Agreed.
 
Congratulations Apple for seeing the light.

The iPhone, once native 3rd party apps are here will be a true force in the smartphone world.

Mobile development on OSX is excellent.

PS. The majority of cell phone 'viruses' have come from trojans, or, via BT ( which are incredibly difficult to spread. )


EDIT: Existing AT&T cellphones can already do IM and VOIP - so there's no problem with the iPhone ( just lame excuses ).

neven said:
One thing to keep in mind: the certification process for these apps will almost certainly eliminate those that would harm Apple's iPhone profits. I don't think you'll see VoIP or IM, at least not until they can either convince AT&T to go with it or find a way not to lose money on it themselves (if they believe they would).

There may be other types of apps they'll decide not to allow; since we don't know the terms of their deal with AT&T, who knows what they might be. I expect endless bitching about this until an iPhone can be hacked to death with not only Apple's permission but endorsement (i.e. forever).

The terms Steve outlined work for me. But they'll annoy a small-but-loud group.
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"protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc."

I think this is really, really, really important.

I have been waiting for the first malicious 3rd-party app (doesn't even have to be a virus..) to make it into the Installer.app Community Sources. The "everything runs as root" model clearly doesn't scale. :/

In other words: I wish the SDK had been available at launch, but I got what I paid for (and hacked it at 1.0.2 to get more--1.1.1 still doesn't offer me anything significant over 1.0.2 + hax).

Even getting the iPhone to an OSX desktop level would be great...
 
MikeDTyke said:
Yeah baby!

Now that's what i'm talking about. but before the zillion trolls hop on this thread whinging about how apple's just done an about face, 2 pennies worth.

iPhone OSX 1.0 thru 1.02 is based on Tiger code, ie. no binary signing, sandboxing of apps etc.
iPhone OSX 1.1.1 is closer to Leopard, ie. binary signing and sandboxing of apps.

Now when did 1.1.1 come out oh yeah Sept, and when is the premiere development platform for iphone AKA Leopard coming out? Oh yes 26th Oct.

So when Jobs says that an SDK is coming in Feb, it's not cause he's running around bolting a dev platform on, cause of all you whiners, it's because he's got a finite number of programmers and a product schedule that rates getting iphone and leopard out the door more important than working on an iphone sdk.

The SDK was always on the cards, just he couldn't say when, til now. Probably a bit of PR there to temper the hacking teams from ***** up iBricks long enough for Apple to do this properly.

M.
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Interesting. Makes sense. Things like this do not happen overnight or on a whim. Rather they are well thought out so they can be executed correctly.
 
pacohaas said:
Phones plural as in "yes many people have our iPhone", or as in more phone models will be coming soon???
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I think he's referring to the phone industry in general. Cell phones have come a long way from simply having an address book and maybe a calculator. Phone capabilities and programming are extending everyday, even if you completely eliminate the iPhone from the picture.
 
erectorset said:
Yet again, the whiners and complainers have proven hasty. The reasons make total sense.
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Yes, yes. But, do you think that this would be getting pushed through so quickly if it were not for the tireless actions of the hacking community and the constant complaining of would-be iPhone owners? If no one had been complaining or trying to hack the iPhone, we wouldn't be getting this news today.

That's my $0.02
 
This is totally and completely awesome, very exciting news. Faith restored. :)
 
MikeDTyke said:
The implication in the text is that Apple are trying to outdo Nokia with an open platform that doesn't need certificates. ie. by limiting what the application can and cannot do to the phone.

M.
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I hope you are right and at the same time don't make apps away too limit..

We'll now soon :p
 
since 2008 is a leap year, I can almost sense Steve Jobs will release the SDK on February 29th at 6:00pm :)
 
This is what I hope:

For private testing, developers use private signatures and can use only their iPhones / iPod touches for testing. Much like XNA and Xbox.

For public release, the program has to be signed 'for real' by Apple.
 
Adokimus said:
Yes, yes. But, do you think that this would be getting pushed through so quickly if it were not for the tireless actions of the hacking community and the constant complaining of would-be iPhone owners? If no one had been complaining or trying to hack the iPhone, we wouldn't be getting this news today.

That's my $0.02
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I agree in part. They may have still released it by Feb., but we wouldn't know about it until then. This news alone is going to drive development starting today, because it will encourage developers that their efforts now in learning to program for the iPhone libraries are not wasted, and that their applications may receive much broader exposure soon.
 
Awesome! Now the Jesus phone can finally walk on water, without help from the Apostles.
 
Great news!!! Though I do agree with those that say we're not going to see IM clients or VoIP applications appearing with any kind of Apple blessing since that would almost certainly violate whatever agreement they have with AT&T.

So, glad to see it's coming, but the breadth and use of the apps that will be approved is still in question.
 
Marcjcd said:
Wouldnt make a difference if he said "definitely", we all know that when Jobs says February he really means the day before March 1st.
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And since next year is a leap year, Apple has an extra day of wiggle room to release it on Feb 29th. :)
 
Nicky G said:
I'm blown away, not only that they are doing it, but that they announced it now and not at Macworld... Makes me wonder what goodies await us in January, that such a huge announcement they are happy to spill now? Maybe they want to spur a lot of holiday sales of iPhone and iPod touch.
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They may have announced it now because they were getting some bad press. For example:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21206757/
 
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