Apple OKs 3rd-Party iPhone Applications

[cellmatrix]

looks like they will release a kit in February
Surur, its time to jump ship from microsoft to apple!


http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/000791a4a46769638ea0baae884bb271.htm

 

[dgoodisi]

Not so fast

Right up front, I don't own an iPhone nor will I ever get one.

When Apple first started with computers their primary competitor was IBM. Apple went the "we must approve all apps and developers" route while Microsoft (the OS on the IBM) went with "you own the OS, you can develop for it". Remember the result? All those Charlie Chaplin commercials touting the huge number of apps available for the IBM vs the miniscule amount availabe for the Apple? Who cared that the Apple and then Mac was easier to use when there was no software for it.

Apple is doing the same thing with the iPhone.

The only people creating apps for the iPhone under these conditions will be commercial software developers. Remember you have to apply for the right to develop and subject yourself to Apple's control over your software. Think the open-source community will go for this? Think Apple will certify any of the developers who contributed to the current round of hacks?

So if you want to PAY for everything, this is great news.

 

[Mike Overbo]

Right up front, I don't own an iPhone nor will I ever get one.

When Apple first started with computers their primary competitor was IBM. Apple went the "we must approve all apps and developers" route while Microsoft (the OS on the IBM) went with "you own the OS, you can develop for it". Remember the result? All those Charlie Chaplin commercials touting the huge number of apps available for the IBM vs the miniscule amount availabe for the Apple? Who cared that the Apple and then Mac was easier to use when there was no software for it.

Apple is doing the same thing with the iPhone.

The only people creating apps for the iPhone under these conditions will be commercial software developers. Remember you have to apply for the right to develop and subject yourself to Apple's control over your software. Think the open-source community will go for this? Think Apple will certify any of the developers who contributed to the current round of hacks?

So if you want to PAY for everything, this is great news.

I'd gladly pay a developer a fair price for some mobile software. All of the iPod apps that they've made (games with big companies) have been right around $5 if memory serves.

If the apps are signed by the developer or apple, that sounds like a security win to me. I get security and based on what iTunes charges for apps ($5 a pop), a fair price for apps (I've seen $40+ for palm apps!), and the developer gets paid.

And why call sour grapes on an SDK when we don't even know the delivery mechanism? Who's to say that a software collective won't be able to sign a bunch of open-source apps and hand 'em out as freebies in iTunes?

 

[cardfan]

Sounds like great news to me. Although it wouldn't be soon after that Apple is pushing version 2.0 of the iphone out.

In other words, if you're on the fence, stay on the fence a bit longer. We now know the apps are coming. We know that an improved version of the iphone will come out later.

After the wow factor a bit, i am finding i'm missing the navigator scroll button at bottom like on the 700p. I wish the home button would serve as this and let the on/off button on top be the current home button. Anytime you want to scroll down or make a quick call, it basically takes two hands.

I love the screen & browser..but getting weary of the finger swiping..fun at first, but now getting somewhat tiresome. But with the new Centro out i could see me ebaying the Iphone, cancelling AT&T since i'm still in the first month, and waiting til a 3G iphone is out which should have apps by then.

 

[oahu]

Windows apps sucks

If you have played with enough windows apps you will notice the different conflicts it has with other apps. The apple difference is that all developers follow the rules and apps work together, with less or no issues.

I wrote enough programs for both and 20 years later ... I still prefer writing for apple....... less problems.

I have a number of programs for Palm as well and there are issues too.

Nothing perfect, but apple sure does come close.

 

[nmprofessional]

I agree. I think if Apple creates a good pricepoint $5-$10 for a professional app I think they would sell a tremendous amount of software.

But, if they play the same game they used with the "$1.98" ringtone fees and try and sell apps in iTunes for $20 or higher... "because $20 is much lower than similar apps on Palm OS and Windows Mobile 5/6 which sell for an average price of $30" then few apps will sell.

Plus a agree with many here... the apps should be very stable.

 

[cmaier]

Assuming that Apple lets me into the party, I'd probably want to net $3 to $5 for the stuff I have in mind (graphical and improved native versions of my webapp games, for example). I figure Apple takes a cut, so not sure what that would translate into price-wise. THey may also charge a fee for a digital certificate, or to test/certify stability, so that would also play into the final price to consumers.

Hopefully they'll keep the "entrance fee" low.

 

[MacUser]

Come on iPhone apps...hopefully, some for V-Day? Too optimistic?

 

[pabo]

Right up front, I don't own an iPhone nor will I ever get one.

... Remember the result? All those Charlie Chaplin commercials touting the huge number of apps available for the IBM vs the miniscule amount availabe for the Apple? Who cared that the Apple and then Mac was easier to use when there was no software for it.

I'll take a shot at this one.

If you remember your history, that stack of crappy IBM apps was essentially replaced by the miniscule stack of Apple apps, which included but was not limited to the original versions of MS Word, Excel, Paint, etc, etc.

Where are all those great Lotus 123 and Harvard Graphics apps.

Long gone...

 

[cmaier]

The original MS word was not graphical. MS had several pre-office programs, including a spreadsheet called Multiplan, that were wysiwyg, but not graphical. At the time, they were pretty cool. The menu sat on the bottom, and popped up when you hit ESC. Instead of "file" there was a "transfer" menu. Among other platforms, this stuff actually ran on the TI-99/4A. Anyway, word and multiplan also ran on PC-DOS, commodore, etc.

Multiplan for Mac was actually microsoft's first GUI spreadsheet. Word, too, was first released on other platforms, supporting wysiwyg, the mouse, etc., but non-GUI.

In any event, the Mac versions followed several years AFTER the first versions of these programs on other platforms.

 

[iomatic]

...

So if you want to PAY for everything, this is great news.

So, you're saying you get all your mobile apps for free?

Wow. Clearly that means Apple sucks...


:hmm:

 

[pabo]

Anyway, word and multiplan also ran on PC-DOS, commodore, etc.

...so is this a history lesson (I stand corrected) or are you saying that the pc-dos version of the apps drove their acceptance, or the gui version.

One last question, how do you have wysiwyg without a gui ??

 

[Kupe#WP]

One last question, how do you have wysiwyg without a gui ??

The DOS version of WordPerfect didn't have a GUI, but the Print Preview screen was WYSIWYG. A lot of command line graphers and editors do this in Unix/Linux-based programs. WYSIWYG is not synonymous with GUI.

 

[cmaier]

...so is this a history lesson (I stand corrected) or are you saying that the pc-dos version of the apps drove their acceptance, or the gui version.

One last question, how do you have wysiwyg without a gui ??

Unlike prior word processors, italic showed up as italic, bold as bold, underlined as underlined, etc. The page looked more or less like what it would look like when printed. one didn't have to enter a special "print preview" mode to see character formatting (though there were only 2 or 3 screen fonts, no matter how many printed fonts you had)

There was a mouse, but all you could do with it was select text, and select menu items. No icons, windows, drag-and-drop, etc.

At some point, if I recall correctly, the last versions actually did have a "gui" but it was done in text mode (drawing boxes with text, etc.) I used these quite heavily at the time, having switched to an IBM PC-XT from a TI-99/4A and having tons of data i needed to keep access to. MS used to document their printer drivers and included a driver compiler, and i remember writing drivers for my epson wide-carriage dot matrix printer. good times.

In fact, the first version of word for windows was actually called "Word for Windows" to differentiate it from "MS Word" (and the binary was winword.exe instead of word.exe).

As for my point: The (at the time) more open ecosystems seemed to generate the programs that, in retrospect, won the war. I don't know that this is meaningful, but I just wanted to correct your statement about these apps originating on Mac, since they clearly didn't.

 

[pabo]

...MS used to document their printer drivers and included a driver compiler, and i remember writing drivers for my epson wide-carriage dot matrix printer. good times.

... ahh, the good old days...