iPhone SDK

Now that it is partly there and after His Steveness presented some sort of a roadmap and the attached business/distribution model...

...and now that iPod Touch users know that they will have to pay for the 2.0 software update, like they had to pay for the January 2008 Update...

Is anybody (still) interested?

Maybe it's because I'm currently physically sick, but I'm finally so tired of Apple that I am already thinking of selling all that crap on eBay and start all over again -- in the free software world, with no subscriptions attached.

..I dont know why people bother with Iphone...that thing cant do half things Nokia E61i can do..and all things working..oh, and Nokia is cheaper.. :)

There is an open source Linux phone kit you can get I think. Might be a lot more fun :)

Ja, and Nokia just closed a factory here in Germany to move to a cheaper production location somewhere east and people lost their jobs. It's noteworthy that they had gotten a lot of financial support by the German government for this factory.

Just for the record: I boycott Nokia.

boomboom: Do you mean OpenMoko? That baby actually works with C#...

Those 2 week dev time games looked not so bad for a phone.

I think the "exclusive 'App Store'" thing is kind of a shame, but it does make sense from a business perspective.

Overall I'm not too interested anymore, mostly due to the way that it is being handled.

@Winni, same thing happened with hello Moto Motorla in scotland couple of years ago, its bizness I suppose but people have short memories.

as for the iphone SDK how much is the initial package and subsequent upgrades for the SDK, is out worthwhile when weighed up against the amount you make from selling iphone software ????

@Winni, I know, it sucks... but like this thread proves ppl want cheaper and cheaper stuff, free if possible.

The Other option is to pay a lot, preferably even few "upgrade fees" after you bought the thing. Now how many here like the Apple way, really?

Nice of Apple to gouge iPod Touch buyers yet again.

Other than that I like the SDK. It has a low barrier to entry if you already have a Mac ($99) and it seems to be Objective C/Cocoa based and pretty much everything I'm used to working with on a real Mac already. I'm curious to see how easy it'll be to port some of my existing stuff onto there.

Ah crap, that SDK is amazing! Trouble is, the iPhone / iPod touch have just enough bad points that I would not really be content with one. (Screen resolution, difficulty of dumping videos to it - especially on a Linux machine -, lack of a vibration motor or Bluetooth in the iPod touch come to mind). Oh, and the SDK only likes Macs, which kind of hurts.

Unless Nokia does something ridiculously amazing very soon, it looks like their Maemo platform will take some time to catch up, and Intel is still taking for bloody ever with the MID stuff. (Although I would really like one of those, given the existence of Ubuntu Mobile).

Oh well, on the bright side, this means more attention for MacOS, which ultimately means less for Windows. Maybe, some day, Apple will have a change of heart and start giving back fully to the open source software which has benefitted them so much. At least they're getting people to use OpenGL. MacOS and open source operating systems like Ubuntu or Suse could easily complement each other.

Hmmm, so

$99 for an SDK,
i-phone: Amazon are now offering an unlocked iPhone from £419.99.,
£200 for a Mac OS X Panther 3 years old in good condition Version 10.3.4 Processor 1.25 GHZ Power PC G4 Memory 256 MB DDR SDRAM CD Writer Apple Software Original Packaging All Manuals Keyboard and mouse (if that runs the SDK)

A little research seems to suggest about £670 for a full iphone development and testing suite, oh and an iphone to boot. vfm ? I don't know. S'pose it depends on how much applications for it retail at.....?

I would like to know the 'limitation' the iphoneOS has inside...or there is a 'council' that will judge the good apps from the bad ones?

Nope, Blitzplotter, that machine won't run the SDK. You need an Intel Mac with OS X 10.5.2.

However, you do -not- need an iPhone to write the software, because the SDK comes with an iPhone simulator.

You also do not need to spend the $99 for the SDK; but the 99 bucks (annual fee) buy you the way to the app store.

I think the iPhone and iPod Touch have one killer argument going for them: Whoever owns one probably has a functioning credit card and won't mind spending more money on software or other content... Apple customers traditionally don't care for "cheap". They care for "cool". So they are a lucrative target audience from the sales person's perspective.

@Picklesworth:
Apple giving back to OSS: Well. Their OS is based upon FreeBSD, which comes from the University of Berkeley and has been developed using American tax payer's money. Since Apple and Microsoft (who also used parts of FreeBSD back in the day) pay taxes, I don't think either one has an obligation to donate anything back. Besides, that is not the point of BSD-licensed or public domain software (like SQLite, which is also used by Apple); these licenses are not about contribution or reciprocity. But still, Darwin, the core of OS X, is open source. Furthermore, Apple also actually bought a few open source projects, CUPS being one of them, and so they OWN the stuff. Asking them for more is like asking them to give away the farm. These guys are not SUN. Open sourcing everything would not work for Apple. (The jury is still out on whether it works for SUN.)

And why would be it be in Apple's interest to complement a Linux desktop? As it is, GNU/Linux has absolutely no significance on the desktop -- which is a good thing for both Microsoft and Apple. Why would they want to change that?

Well. Perhaps we all should use GNU/Linux or FreeBSD exclusively instead of the commercial monsters that try to control everything we do. It would be the -right- thing to do. Not the easy thing, but the right thing.

iPhone Simulator sounds good. Intel Max with OS X 10.5.2 ... oh.

Another nice thing with this SDK is that it demystifies a lot of stuff so I feel less doomed seeing the beautiful interface, knowing that it is still filled with hacks and kludges just like everything else.

For example:

Granted, it's not a bad hack but a clever one. Proves the OS is not immortal as it initially seemed, though, but that it's all just illusions!

i tried the two games that came with my ipod
trying to play solitaire with the dial is bloody annoying
the breakout 360 type game was ok but sometimes unresponsive
dont know bout iphone and touch but the controller for ipod isnt very games friendly imo

Sun announced that they want to port JavaME to the iPhone, but Apple has not yet reacted with a statement.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/07/sun-iphone-java_1.html

Ginger,

This sdk is really only for iPhone and Ipod Touch - not the other iPods.

Craig - the Super Monkey Ball and Spore demo teams were very specific about their terminology. They did not start from scratch, they 'got it up and running in a few days' - which for me means they ported those sections of the games to the iPhone. which is pretty good, but they are experts not beginners and so I believe it kinda overstates the possibilities. Having said that I am now looking into this over the next few weeks as a registered developer.

And if you havent bought an i-Pod Touch - wait until July, then the upgrade will come with the device - that's what I shall do methinks.

IPete2.


IPete2.

nah all i was saying is the wheel on the ipod isnt the best for gaming
for solitair its down right crap

god knows what a touch screen controll method would be like for non DS type games

I received an iPod Touch 16Gb for Christmas (from my company). I love it! I often surf the web on it; even though we have a couple of laptops in our house. It just so darn convenient.

I'm quite excited by the SDK. I watched the full SDK presentation, and it looks to me like Apple have taken the time to do it right. The idea of developing for the iPhone/Touch is very appealing to me personally.

I just wish I had a Mac so that I could play around with it...

Unfortunately, it turns out that would be against the fine print: http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2008/03/06/apple-bans-firefox-spidermonkey-lisp-lua-ruby-python-rhino-java-opera-gcc/

Sheesh, the lunatics! Are they trying to create an underground iPhone software community? (Nothing stopping people from manually installing their own applcation downloader to the iPhone that uses the SDK for code which is not accepted...).

I have an iPod Touch and I would really like to develop for it with the SDK. But I don't have a MAC.

Can all Macs/MacBooks run OS X?

I can buy some old Macbook cheap so if......

from a post up there it has to be an intel mac

Does that mean I should be able to use the SDK if I install intel OS X on a PC?

Rather sad that you have to be a Mac owner to use the SDK... I've been thinking of doing some good word puzzle game for the iPhone, since I had a good project for a portable device just burning up inside me.

Rather sad that you have to be a new Intel based+Leopard OS Mac owner to use the SDK.

The 'total cost of developement' for this iphone is quite high for my finance. (I'm speacking as bednight developer not as professional of course).

Yeah, at least Microsoft allows you to be a Vista x64 and C# 2005 owner for the XNA development. Much rather see Microsoft do something like this for Zune, too.

Maybe Apple will make the SDK for Windows allso!!

I reckon the cost of development for mosy hobby-ists would prevent development from happening. Maybe... apple will make the SDK for windows, would be a good marketing ploy if only encouraging a small percentage to buy the extortionate i-phone.

Here are some announcements about devtools with upcoming iPhone support (no details about the costs):

http://unity3d.com/company/news/iphone-press
http://www.stonetrip.com/index.php?lang=en

Nice.