All Articles Tagged sdk

We’re not able to liveblog the event here at Phone different, but we are able to put our two cents in — stay tuned to this blog post during the event for color commentary on what Apple announces. It won’t be up to the second, but you’ll get a little more analysis in exchange for those extra minutes.

Bonus: comment on this post and we’ll quote our faves in at the top.

T-Minus 25 minutes. When you see the “read more” link below, it’s showtime!

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MacScoop [via] drops some new rumors just hours before the Roadmap event. Biggest piece of news is that applications will have access to the EDGE radio, contrary to previous rumors. Also: Apple gets a cut of application sales – color us shocked. Lastly, development needs to happen on a Mac, obviously, with an updated version of XCode

We weren’t invited to the fancy-pants event, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be watching it with our beady little eyes. Check back at the main page a sometime during and definitely after, though, for some color commentary and a wrap of of the whole deal. Here are some folks who will be there:

• Phone mag
• Ars Technica
• CNet
• Macworld, who also claims that MySpace already received an early version of the SDK.

Also asked and answered at the Apple shareholders meeting covered earlier was a question about the oft-rumored Flash player for iPhone. CEO Steve Jobs put a Goldilocks-esque kibosh to the rumor thusly:

• Desktop Flash is too slow on the iPhone to be useful.
• (Mobile) Flash Lite isn’t sufficient or advanced enough to iPhone.
• And there just isn’t a mid-level version that would be just right.

John Gruber’s toldjasos and youmustbejokings were interrupted only by Jobs stressing that Apple and Adobe (who makes and markets the ubiquitous player) maintain good relations, so potential enough remains to feed the rumor-mill for posts to come.

However, it’s worth remembering that:

• Flash is a notorious resource hog on OS X and Adobe has never really addressed this for the desktop
• Regardless of its ubiquity Flash remains a proprietary standard and Apple has stressed open standards (like AJaX for MobileSafari)
• And perhaps most importantly, Flash is a competitor to Apple’s (admittedly languishing) QuickTime and Apple could very well be preparing to put some of their sudden mobile browsing penetration behind their own product rather than just handing Adobe the space.

Macworld also adds that, with regards to raining on Dieter’s iPhone SDK parade tomorrow, “you’ll see a lot of applications out there this summer.”

Mike and Dieter speculate on the SDK announcement, discuss enterprise email support, and read from your letters. Listen in!

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

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Thursday brings the SDK. You know, the one that needs no other identifier. The one that the entire tech-verse has been chomping at the bit for since roughly 0.001 seconds after Steve Jobs slipped the iPhone from his pocket at Macworld 2007.

But that’s all we know: SDK Event March 6th.

We don’t know whether the SDK will be ready to code that very same day, who’ll be given access to it, how they’ll test for it, what type of approval process Apple will require, how apps will be distributed, how they’ll be priced, and most importantly for the end user: whether or not “OMG teh iPhone can has WoW!!11”

However, that doesn’t stop us from guessing!

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iLounge brings word that, according to their sources (all familiar with the situation and plans, of course), the upcoming SDK will sport the following “features”:

• Locked down via iTunes. All apps will be distributed exclusively via Apple’s iTunes store in a manner similar to today’s iPod games.
• Approved by Apple. Apple (no doubt via a single Steve Jobs thumbs up or down) will elevate any given app to the heavens of iTunes, or drop them to the lions of perpetual delay or refusal. No unapproved apps will be released or releasable.
• No docks for you. 3rd party apps will not be able to call on the connector, removing hardware keyboards and other dock-dependent offerings from the table.
• Radio/camera open. BT is unknown, but 3rd party devs should be able to access most if not all core features of OS X mobile, including Wi-Fi, phone, etc.

Also, the same sources agree with previous ‘net chatter that the March Event will only see a beta release of the SDK, not the full fledged version, along with increased enterprise support.

Tom Cook, Chief Operating Officer of a little Cupertino company named Apple, spoke at the Goldman Sachs Investment Symposium, mercilessly teasing the faithful with the following bombs:

• Apple is not “married to any [single carrier exclusive] business model”. It’s apparently all about the “best phones in the world”, baby, and if unlocked, CDMA, and/or pre-paid proved, in the future, to provide the greatest sense of childlike wonder (or complies with future Congressional mandates), Apple could (possibly, maybe) go with that flow.
• Apple believes the global unlocking epidemic is a good sign of the iPhone’s potential, and that there will always be a percentage of unlocks in the wild because of the high demand.
• That the upcoming iPhone SDK would allow developers to “only be limited by [their] imagination.” (And whatever restrictions Apple imposes on accessing the metal and distributing via iTunes, ‘natch).

To the delight of Wall Street, Cook also continued to hold firm on the 10 million iPhone march through the end of 2008.

Check out Apple Insider for all the details.

Is Cook telling us Apple will make good on their promised smart phone utopia? Or Is he just cranking on his own mini Reality Distortion Field? Hit the comments and let us know what you think!

It’s coming, the SDK is really really coming. Thank the lord. Apple has sent out invitations to an event titled “iPhone Software Road Map.” That may or may not mean they’re actually releasing the SDK, but it doesn’t sound like we’ll be getting a slew of new apps next week.

Yes, it technically is late for the February release, but it’s a relief to not be so in the dark anymore. Also interesting:

Apple also said to expect details on “some exciting new enterprise features,” which at first blush sounds to me like a method of getting the iPhone to work more closely with corporate e-mail software – CNET

Hello Exchange support?

If you’re a dirty, dirty iPhone Jailbreaker or iPhone Unlocker, move right along because I’m sure it’s going to take awhile for this to shake out. If you’re a mere mortal, though, go on and open up iTunes and apply the update to version 1.1.4. What’s on it? “Bug fixes.” That’s all we know for sure just now.

Hopefully one of the bug fixes is getting rid of the dropped calls (especially with Bluetooth) that folks have been reporting (hat tip to Merlyn3D for reminding me that this issue persists).

Hopefully it also contains some behind-the-scenes updates to get every little thing ready for the SDK. Good thing this year is a leap year – it gives Apple one more day to get that SDK out. Or maybe it really will be late. I guess we’ll know for sure before the week is out.

Thanks for the heads-up, Chadman!

Update: Installed and I’m still impressed with iTunes’ backup and restoration ability – everything was exactly as I left it, from the pin I was looking at on Google Maps to Web Clip icons on my homescreen. Poking around, it sure doesn’t look like there are any new features. Chadman mentions that it’s a full 162.1mb download, that sounds like a “bug fix and framework for the SDK” to me…

The SDK might be delayed one to three weeks, says Arik Hesseldal of BusinessWeek:

I’m hearing from one source that its going to be late. I’m not yet hearing any reasons why, and it’s sounding like the official release date could slide by anywhere from one to three weeks. [...] However I’m also hearing that the situation is fluid, and a lot of last-minute decisions are close to being made about what precisely will or will not be disclosed next week, if anything. There are, apparently, a lot of moving parts to something this complex.

A lot of “moving parts,” eh, ya think? It would be a major bummer if the SDK is delayed, but it wouldn’t be too shocking – the sand is quickly running out of February’s hourglass. Fairly soon, though, we’re going to have some information about the SDK and I have to admit that my expectations are rising the more I think about it.

This is related (again) to Mike and my discussion in our iPhone Podcast last week. As I see it, there are four ways that the SDK announcement (whenever it comes) can shake out. Read on for some thoughts on what we might see and what I hope to see.

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