I heard iPhone app development works like this:
Confirm/Deny?
Well, why don’t we all just give the iPhone 100% of the market share already, then? No need for anything else since this is the ultimate end-all smartphone. Anyone buying anything else must be insane or criminal.
For a hacker/programming blog, I also find it absurd that this post failed to even mention Android.
Before you mess your pants, there’s two problems:
The thing STILL can’t multi-task. Some computer.
The Nokia S60 is the most popular handset IN THE WORLD, BY FAR. The Symbian O/S is multi-tasking, and building apps for it isn’t hard, and Nokia also has an “app store” built into the phone.
I wouldn’t say that Apple has won the war yet, but the iPhone may well mark a pivotal point in a change in the way that carriers and the phone makers operate.
Don’t forget that much of the crippled phones out there are because of the carriers themselves. They want to lock down the phones and install their own garbage. Reminds me of a Nokia phone I had that although it could play mp3’s as ringtones, the function was disabled by Vodafone, mainly because they had their own ringtone store, and wanted to force their customers to use it.
It’s hard to say whose fault the millions of crappy variations in phones are, but Google and Apple are at this point succeeding at dragging the mobile carriers kicking and screaming into the 21.1st century. Carriers don’t want to be dumb pipes, but like any other service provider, they’re just dumb pipes, and most people could care less about them.
My vote is for android.
I’ll go one further than you: I predict the iPhone will eventually be judged as more significant than Wintel.
Try selling the iPhone in Japan … they cannot give them away, the Japanese realise they lack features, the Panasonic P905i is now considered old hat and out of date, it can do everything the latest iPhone can do now, and has a better camera, and can work as a TV … all this was released back when the iPhone was without a camera at all or even 3G
In Japan the iPhone is playing catch up and losing…
Things that will keep it from growing.
Try building your own global marketing and distribution system and then complain about $99 and 30%. I don’t think you’ve really thought your comment through very carefully.
I sell software on Windows desktops already and I don’t need some sort of Microsoft Superstore to approve them. It’s called MY WEBSITE. I do marketing, I spread the word and I make a living out of it.
I wonder how many people can live on $.99 apps. It’s easy to say “sell to 1 million users”. Did YOU ever sell to 100? I did - it’s HARD.
Funny, my WM never crashed (so far). Not that I would think it’s without bugs, but what OS isn’t? Certainly not Apple’s.
Check out iGOs map coverage. Thing is TomTom has NO maps for my my neck of woods. So my point is: on Windows Mobile I have the choice to install something else. On iPhone I have NO CHOICE.
Because Windows Mobile is OPEN. Much like IBM’s original PC. As opposed to Apples closed platform. Guess who won. History is just repeating itself…
Wow, took you long enough! I bought my iPhone last August and I think it was the first ever Apple product I purchased.
I love the thing, but I grantee you, you’ll get over the initial wow of the phone after 3-4 months, and the geek at heart you are, you’ll be jailbreaking the device. Then, you’ll find out what the device really can do and can really say that its a computer in your hand.
The developer community for the iPhone is great, and I love it, but I really wish Apple wouldn’t hold them in their own little virtual sandbox to develop in with those weird rules and policies. They need to open it more so developers can integrate more with the phone. Windows Mobile does it just fine, I don’t see why Apple has to be any different.
For the best Apple™ experience, you run custom Appletm applications on artfully designed Apple™ hardware dongles.
I disagree, in my experience, the best Apple software is written by third parties. Look at NetNewsWire, Delicious Library, VooDoo Pad, PhotoShop, and anything by Panic or Rogue Sheep.
Did Atwood just wake up from a coma and discover the iPhone?
Cell phones don’t have to be a closed, proprietary private garden. While Apple may have made a nice private garden, it’s not going to end up being revolutionary or a “turning point”, any more than the gardens at Versailles ended up being more important than the Homestead Act (to stretch an analogy way too far 
).
There is already OpenMoko or even the Android G1. There is no reason why cellular service has to be a locked-in multi-year contract; the cellular network doesn’t require that kind of guaranteed revenue to build, it has been already built, and it didn’t require multi-year contracts when it was being built.
It is nice to see a market place where independent, small software programmers can make money. Eventually, as the pocket-computer market matures, open systems will dominate just as Apple lost their leading share to the PC in the 1980s, and the software market will change and free programs will dominate, etc. I am sure it will partly follow previous computer platform cycles and some new things will also happen.
Kids used to play at fishing with a stick that was free, now they use a $400 computer plus whatever the app costs. It reminds me of another app, I know the person who wrote it, where you toss the iPhone into the air and it records how high you tossed it and posts it to a high scores list on the web so you can compete with your fellow iPhone having cavemen in strength contests ( it is called either hangtime or iphonehangtime, not sure). My point is: for a large number of these apps, the iPhone is just a smart rock.
Yes, it’s sleek and pretty, and to some people who put a priority on gaming or for whatever reason need to be able to check their email at any time, it’s worth it, I guess.
For most others it’s just another example of excess that’s sadly so prevalent in our country.
I felt the same way about the first revision (and about cell phones back in '04!), but then last year’s 3g came out and with its GPS inclusion and subsidized price was enough for me to take the plunge (I was going to get dragged into a new phone contract anyhow and didn’t want to drop the cash for a GPS AND a phone).
It has been totally worth it. My first Apple product ever and it has completely transformed the way I compute. Nowadays I turn the computer on mostly for games or
And this isn’t excess. This is what the tech industry is all about. Regardless of whether you buy an iPhone or some other phone the next time you need a new one, in a few years you’ll be gaining the benefits iPhone users have had all along. It sounds like that’s fine with you, so just sit back, ignore those of us who are excited about SHINY, and wait for the extraordinary to become the everyday.
Nowadays I turn the computer on mostly for games or some web browsing/writing. Feed reading, lots of email, looking up all manner of info happens when I think of it or have some downtime, wherever I am, on my iPhone. I actually dislike maps.google.com now because the experience on the iPhone is so much better with the automatic searching in my immediate vicinity.
I am dissapointed that people blindly exxagerate Apple’s success at home market and misleading sales figures (they hype how many units they had delivered to operators, etc - not actual amount sold) into promoting is as major worldwide phone manufacturer. It is neither major or worldwide.
You are wrong in every respect. Apple’s overwhelming success with the iPhone at home is very well documented: “In its May 2009 Mobile Metrics report released today, mobile advertising firm AdMob revealed that the iPhone and iPod touch now account for 69% of the U.S. smartphone traffic on its ad network.” These are unfakeable figures of actual use. And they date before the release of the iPhone 3GS and the $99 iPhone 3G. Concerning Apple’s sales figures reporting, you must be mixing up the iPhone with Microsoft’s Zune. Apple only reports actual sales from its own stores, not channel shipments. And considering that every third party store was completely sold out of the iPhone 3GS, that one million 3 day figure was actual sales, not shipments.
So far as Apple being worldwide – they sell the iPhone in 88 countries, including most Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Russia, a bunch of African nations – sounds pretty worldwide to me. If their still not selling it in the Ukraine (I’m guessing that’s where you’re from), that’s too bad, but you don’t need to sell there to be worldwide. But take heart – Ukrainian language support is in iPhone 3.0, so sales there can’t be too far behind.
Sorry, but the game-changing device was released in the mid-90s, it was the PalmPilot and it did what Apple couldn’t do with the Newton. The PalmPilot had a lot of great features: small, touchscreen, “handwriting” recognition, 1000s of applications available on-line - many for free, and best of all there was a tool-set that could be used to develop applications, for free.
It was probably the most enjoyable “computing” device I’ve ever used. Its UI is still far superior to any mobile phone I’ve used, even the Blackberry I currently own.
It’s a shame Palm stumbled on the transition to a mobile phone.
As much as I agree with your premise - that the iPhone is amazing in every way - there’s one point where I vehemently disagree:
It’s anti-developer.
The only reason I haven’t even considered buying an iPhone is that I refuse to spend time and money to develop an application, only to have Apple turn it down arbitrarily and for stupid reasons.
Until the developer agreement changes dramatically and Apple’s approval process is completely revamped, I can’t help but see iPhone developers as dumb little sheep.
I’m with the others on Android. I have a G1, and I absolutely love it. It can do everything the iPhone can do, and more.
It had a barcode scanner for price checking almost from day 1. My friend just showed me the barcode scanner on his iPhone that finally came out, and you have to take a picture, then hope it scans… unlike the Android apps which scan it with the video stream (autofocusing for you). With the cupcake release, I can now shoot videos and upload them to YouTube, STRAIGHT FROM MY PHONE!
I can even ssh into my linux box!
$99 to develop? I prefer free, thank you very much. Require me to buy a Mac? I prefer my linux box, thank you very much. Don’t let me load whatever app I want? I prefer loading any random app I want, THANKYOUVERYMUCH. And the openness of Android is a breath of fresh air to the mobile market. I’ve already played with development on it, and had no problems loading my apps and testing them on the G1 (not a developer model, either).
I’m quite surprised you missed mentioning Android as a possible future, Jeff… I honestly believe it has the potential to slowly overtake Apple as more devices come out… I have developer friends locked in an AT&T contract with an iPhone that are jealous of my G1.
By the way… I switched from AT&T to T-Mobile to get a G1 (I will continue to avoid the iPhone, thank you very much).
Jeff,
Just to be fair can you site a iPhone developer you have talked to? Build and iPhone app then come back to us…
Interesting, no one said it yet:
The iPhone is the Firefox of cell phones. Or can be, as long as Apple doesn’t mess up - it’s the closest to Firefox customizability that’s happened so far.
The iPhone is a good platform. Personally, I like Android a bit better since it has apps I like on it that aren’t available for the iPhone, but the iPhone is definitely the first hand held platform to really energize this type of product.
Let’s face it - the handheld, always connected, geo-aware, augmented reality device is the future. We are just seeing the birth of it now - it will become more sophisticated and powerful in the very near future.