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First, go read his blog post.
I think we'd all be able to stomach the lack of SDK if Apple gave us the impression that they were working on it. Instead of throwing the AJAX pacifier at us and saying "Sweet.", they could have simply said that they were working on a real SDK and that AJAX would be a good temporary fix. Everyone understands how difficult it is to make an SDK that is secure, stable, reliable, and won't cause programmer-introduced bugs to reflect poorly on Apple. They could have made it, as Wil suggests, that you could void the warranty on your phone in order to run third party code. This would be fine by me and I might actually go out and buy one of these things if I could get an SDK in exchange for no tech support.
I've done a lot of development in the past for various incarnations of Windows Mobile, including Windows CE, and Windows Mobile 3.0 all the way through to some experimenting with Windows Mobile 6.0. One of the huge selling points of this mobile OS to me was that I could run .NET code on it. Sure, the Compact Framework is smaller and has limitations that the full framework doesn't have, but it's still .NET and still C# - which means I get to re-use a huge majority of my existing knowledge if I want to write code for mobile devices, including smart phones and PDA phones.
Oh well, here's to hoping that the "Sweet" AJAX SDK will eventually be replaced by a "Real" SDK that uses a trimmed down version of Cocoa and Objective-C. Until then, my mobile development will remain firmly rooted in Windows Mobile - much to my chagrin considering the fact that the iPhone looks like a developer's dream...but this dream isn't currently coming true.
My question is....
I don't know... every one I know that has a Windows Mobile device has
downloaded third party software - mostly because you can find a truckload
of free software for it, or shareware. If there is a lot of 3rd party stuff
available, people will download it.
well, do you know primarily fellow technogeeks or average folks? Is the
pre-iphone smart-phone demographic dominated by technogeeks?
I'd agree with James that the current market it minute . . . but . . . the
iPhone syncs via iTunes - it's the first phone that requires a computer to
use, rather than optionally syncs, and I believe that's a better model than
direct over-the-air Java downloads. There's enough of a market for iPod
games, and I suspect that's a small number of iPod owners. Make it easy to
acquire and install third party apps, and I think the market could grow
substantially.
All Windows Mobile 5.0 PDA-phones use ActiveSync in order to synchronize
data, and just about every single owner of a "real" (non-tiny) WM PDA phone
(like my old PPC 6700) regularly downloads new wallpapers, themes,
applications, games, productivity tools, etc. These aren't programmers,
they're power users, and power users use a lot of apps. I'm not saying that
people won't buy the iPhone because of the lack of SDK... I'm saying that a
lot of the Blackberry/Treo/WM5.0 crowd might actually convert if they see a
large base of third party applications and customization options.
Kevin,
As I said, an SDK will not be required to entice the public to buy an
iPhone. Also, consider the rumors that a smaller iPhone with less
functionality might be on the horizon as well. The size of the
blackberry/Treo crowd is unbelievably huge. If you work in a metropolitan
area, then chances are 3 out of the 5 guys standing next to you are
strapping Crackberries, Treos, or WM smartphone/PDAphones of some kind.
it will be interesting to see what happens. If customers are clamoring for
it, Jobs usually gives it to them.
