iPhone SDK

Now that Apple announced that there will be a real iPhone SDK available in February 2008, how are the chances to get a BlitzMax compiler for that platform?

I know that there are no technical details about the SDK available, yet, but I am curious to hear (esp. from Blitz) if there is any interest in it at all?

Personally I'm not interested, but I think those phones run an Arm core, and there was quite a bit of interest in an Arm version of Max when Si posed the question a while back.

It won't happen.

BM needs 3d hardware.

No it doesn't. It's a programming language, it has absolutely no interest in what videocard you've got. Now some of the existing modules for it might need 3d hardware, but that's hardly relevant since - being modular - they're not required.

Having said that, I still don't think it'll happen. You saw what happened with the Arm thread, so I can't see this going any differently.

Now now Winni... you knew before you posted this was a silly question ;-)

Perhaps if there was *already* an ARM compatible version of BlitzMax then I would say that it was possible, but since there isn't, and seems unlikely there will ever be (which is a shame, as it could open up a huge potential market), I suggest you focus your wild fantasies elsewhere at the present time :-p

Isn't it a nice, sunny day to entertain some wild fantasies...? :-))

But of course you're right. The chances of Java and Mono being ported to the iPhone once the SDK is released are more realistic, I'm afraid.

All the best,

I suspect your best (read easiest) route for iPhone development would involve learning / refreshing your HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills. It is rumoured that Widgets created in Leopard’s ‘new’ Dashcode IDE could be packaged for iPhone usage (after the SDK is released next year). Performance might be crap though.

Then, of course, there’s the Objective-C option [shudder].

Yeah, the Objective-C option is exactly the reason why I asked for BlitzMax... :)

Who wants to develop $5.99 (US) cellphone games for the iphone now thats it going business?

Who was talking about games?

Oh, maybe Wil Shipley ("Delicious Library") was:
http://wilshipley.com/blog/2007/10/video-game-ideas-iphone-sdk-edition.html

I was only thinking about having a nice programming language for writing code for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Besides that, there -will- be a very lucrative market for third party software for (not only) the Apple devices.