Hi, I'm Michael Mistretta, a student passionate about technology, photography, and design. Welcome to my online home where I write about technology, reviews, and my thoughts and opinions on technology-related matters. Apple has done it again.
They released an under-featured, 1.0 product into an over-saturated market, and managed to dominate the competition. They saw the junk that was coming out of the phone industry. They saw the feature bloat. They saw the hardware developers that didn’t know a thing about writing good software. And they said, “we can do better”.
And they did.
With the iPhone, they have done in 8 months, what Microsoft or RIM or Nokia or Palm did not do in 10 years. They didn’t just reinvent the phone, or revolutionize the iPod. They created the next-generation of the Internet. The internet that lives in your pocket. Already, they have garnered over 70% of the mobile Internet-browsing market with only 4 million phones sold.
On March 6th, Apple did it again. I think Fake Steve said it best:
I mean 29 June 2007 might be the day the world changed, but today it just changed again. BlackBerry is dead. Microsoft is dead. Windows Mobile is dead. Amazon is dead. Kindle is dead. Nokia is dead. Motorola was already dead but now they are even more dead. Google’s Android is dead. Samsung is dead. LG is dead. Sony is dead. UTStarcom is dead. We’ve thrown $100 million into an iFund so people can build iApps to sell on iTunes and give us 30% of their iMoney. The coming onslaught of new applications will make iPhone the only smart phone that anyone in the entire world will ever want to use.
With the iPhone SDK, Apple did everything right. Through classes like UIKit, Apple has given developers access to every aspect of the phone - wifi, camera, and EDGE - as well as providing them with technologies like Core Animation and Core Location to help them create the best possible applications.
Apple could have just taken the easy way out. They could have kept the iPhone a proprietary phone with a heavily crippled SDK, and lackluster developer support. On the contrary, they provided a full development kit with all the applications needed for designing, coding, analyzing, and testing iPhone apps.
They even created a whole new framework known as Cocoa Touch, that will allow developers to create applications that integrate with the built-in iPhone apps, and respond to a slew of multi-touch gestures.
They managed to give developers all this control, while ensuring a safe and sandboxed environment. It sure took Apple a long time, but it was definitely worth the (very long) wait.
Before the SDK, the iPhone was simply a phone, an iPod, and a mobile Internet browser. With the SDK however (which is a free update to all iPhone users), the iPhone now becomes a powerful computer in your pocket. It is a killer gaming platform. It is a medical research assistant. It is a business communicator and organizer. It is a digital communicator. It is iPhone.
Imagine apps like Skitch and Delicious Library and PhotoBooth and GarageBand for the iPhone. Suddenly, the iPhone has an infinite number of uses. Businesses will love it. Universities will love it. Consumers will love it. In many ways, the announcement of the SDK is almost bigger than the actual iPhone itself.
Why?
I’ve written about it before. It’s a growing trend this year. Software is more important than hardware. We saw it with both the AppleTV and the iPhone updates at Macworld. Apple added functionality to both of these devices without actually changing the hardware.
And now with the SDK, this is truer than ever. The hardware of the iPhone has had the ability to do all these things the entire time, but just now the software is being released that will make that possible.
After watching the apps get demonstrated I had this “my iPhone is a sleeper agent” sort of feeling. Realizing there is way more under the hood which I, as a user, haven’t fully had the chance to experience yet. [...] I don’t have to buy another $500 phone.
The first version of the iPhone may very well be the greatest 1.0 gadget released in history.
This is an ongoing trend that I think we’ll see more of in the future. The software is simply catching up to the hardware.
The single biggest realization I had while watching the SDK event was that Apple listens to their customers. Although they still love to keep secrets and build up rumors, they are listening to their users. They gave businesses all the enterprise features they wanted for the iPhone - even Microsoft ActiveSync compatibility. They gave developers an entire development kit with APIs and classes that will help to make the absolute best third-party iPhone apps. And they gave all of their existing costumers a free upgrade to version 2.0 of the iPhone (which, I’m sure will include even more, great new features).
The iPhone SDK has changed the state of the iPhone platform. Now, the iPhone has more potential than any other device on the market, and is positioned to take over the mobile landscape. The only question left in my mind, is when can I get one of these in Canada?
I think that there was one mistake Apple made and that was not allowing apps to run in the background.
Comment by rmaspero — March 11, 2008 @ 2:28 am
Well written article mate, and i agree with you comlpetely.
Keep up the good work.
T
Ps. maspero I think they will let the bigger third party developers access to run apps and processes in the background
Well i hope anyway.
Comment by Tom — March 11, 2008 @ 4:04 am
From what I heard, it is technically “doable” to have an app run in the background, but it is against Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. I’m sure that when they “bless” the applications, they will let IM clients, and apps that are necessary run in the background. They do it so the entire iPhone experience doesn’t slow down.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — March 11, 2008 @ 7:47 am
The iPhone, with the SDK, is probably the coolest gadget ever made, and I don’t make claims like that lightly. I mean, it’s the internet in your pocket, and it’s done in a way only apple seems to be able to do it. Certainly it’s not the first phone or platform to do this sort of stuff, but it’s the first one to do it RIGHT. The concept of all the apps the thousands upon thousands of developers are currently working on is incredibly exciting.
The only frustrating thing here is that I probably won’t be able to get one for years. Even if it comes to Canada, I don’t have $400-500 of spare change to spend on it, let alone the insanely expensive plan that’s sure to come along with it (this is, remember, Canada, where the cell companies delight in ripping us off on every feature the can… because they can).
Comment by Grant — March 11, 2008 @ 10:06 am