Apple's iPhone Developer Crisis 315
David Gerard writes "iPhone development sounds closed-shop but simple — apply to be a developer, put application on the App Store, you and Apple make money. Except Apple can't keep up with the request load — whereas getting a developer contract used to take a couple of days, it's now taking months. Some early developers' contracts are expiring with no notice of renewal options. And Apple has no idea what's going on or the state of things. If you want to maintain a completely closed system, it helps if you can actually keep up with it."
Reader h11:6 points out news of a recent study which suggests that "Android's open source nature will give it a boost over Apple's iPhone," and thus take the lead in sales as soon as three years from now. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the flood of proposed apps as their popularity rises.
HTTP 500 (Score:4, Informative)
Android (Score:4, Informative)
As for the apps, the open source nature of the Android really showed (in more ways than one). On the one hand, there were some very interesting and innovative apps in the marketplace (and elsewhere on the web). For instance, there were several cyclocomputer apps that take advantage of the GPS and mapping abilities of the device. I didn't get a chance to try any of them out, but depending on the quality, I could see an Android phone replacing a $300-$800 dedicated GPS cyclocomputer (hell, there's probably even a way to tie a cadence monitor into the Android). OTOH, there were also a whole ton of crap programs in the marketplace. But I think the ratings and reviews are doing a decent job of weeding those out.
Overall, I do have the feeling that the Android will become a pretty major player in the coming months/years.
Re:Android vs. Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention PyS60 which is Python for Symbian 60 based phones.
Nokia has developed a Python API which give access to GPS, Camera, Internet, Native GUI, Canvas based GUI, SMS, Phonecalls, Phonebook, MMS, accelerometer, OpenGL and a lot more.
And just to show how easy it is to program a SMS application with PyS60:
import messaging
messaging.sms_send("number", u"message")
But it's not only Python, you can still write software in C/C++ and J2ME. Though C++ applications requires a signature from nokia to be able to run.
My Data Point (Score:5, Informative)
I've been actively developing simple apps for the past few months. The submission process has been straightforward and acceptable. Nothing has taken longer than a week. Critical questions (banking, etc) have been answered in one day.
Would I like it to be faster? Sure. But right now I'm satisfied.
Re:I hope the article is right (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Would Love an Android Phone (Score:3, Informative)
Re:apple developer (Score:4, Informative)
Have you payed your $100 yet? I think you're missing one step... which is not the 'become a developer' part.. it's the 'become a distributor' part... which is what the articles should say.
Anyone can become a developer without a license etc. etc. but to become a distributor you need Apple's blessing and a contract, which appears to be taking longer and longer to get.
Re:Android's open-source nature is irrelevant. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually GP is partly right. Google block unlocked phones from downloading paid-for apps on the Android Market.
Re:Android vs. Apple? (Score:1, Informative)
And what is supported is often locked down by the service provider. (Eg. no non-web socket connections unless you're an AT&T Partner.)
Of what I've seen, J2ME has/had the best _potential_. It's nominally platform independent, has lots of APIs for all the cool hardware, and you download something to the phone by just copying a file over or letting a user download from any web site (the app store concept is not very compatible with F/OSS or for in-house apps...things I just want to write for my own use). But yeah...optional implementation and requiring official code signatures hurts. A lot.
Re:I hope the article is right (Score:1, Informative)
I just searched the app store with no luck. Could this be under a different name?
It's not on the official app store, you have to get it through Cydia.
Re:In practice, it's not more open. (Score:5, Informative)
The iPhone is pretty hard to program for, the Android is holy crap hard compared to the iPhone.
However if you're a mac developer already, the iPhone is easy.
The Android is Java, and not even standard Java. Most of it's still undocumented (yay they have the names of the functions, but NO DAMNED INFORMATION ON WHAT IT DOES for a lot of the Android API.) At least every single function is documented in the iPhone SDK, although apple needs more examples. Android has examples that don't even work.
Re:Android's open-source nature is irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
However, as I mentioned in my previous post: if you have a phone running the developer version, you can fully backup the whole phone (the entire thing). Install the "consumer version of it", do as you will, backup your "consumer image", reflash the dev version.
If you are a developer, it is as simple as changing phone covers. I know that as I own a G1 running the development version of the OS, and have performed the described operations.
No Source for Research (Score:5, Informative)
Be cool if the journalists of the world still looked into the motivations of their sources. Informa needs to send IBT, Businessweek and the rest of them a check for advertising fees.
Re:Android's open-source nature is irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
Would you please be so kind to stop modding posts you disagree with as troll?
I mean, everything in my post is factually correct:
The Cydia iPhone App Store just launched (Score:4, Informative)
Just a day or so ago, Cydia [saurik.com] (the awesome package manager for jailbroken iPhones used by reportedly more than 2million iPhones) launched a new app store of its own.
There have always been paid apps for jailbroken phones, but usually they would require you to go to the developer's or another web site to purchase the app. Now however, it appears that not only can you write apps that have full access to the device and without censorship, you can also use the Cydia store for a seamless shopping experience.
The Wall Street Journal [wsj.com] and others [macworld.com] have more information.
Granted, this doesn't give you exposure in the App store and there are issues with dealing with jailbreaking your phone, but it does provide iPhone developers and users with a choice.
Re:I hope the article is right (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is windows is a very awesome developer friendly platform.
As a developer that started out programming on windows, I whole heartedly disagree. There is nothing simpler than turning a text file's execute bit to "on"... chances are any unix system will just figure out how to do it with automagical consistency.
If you don't believe then you wont understand why people don't like to write code for linux.
I don't have to put my faith into anything. This is completely testable and repeatable by anyone.
I would imagine people that don't write programs for linux simply do not know how to in the first place. If the expectation is to simply jump ship and find yourself in the exact same ship, then you make no sense.
Most of the API's - networking, sound, filesystem, gui have no cohesion and are basically duct-taped together. It does not have .NETs simplicity and ease of use. Since .NET ties in the client, server and web through various technologies
What you're failing to mention is that networking, sound, filesystem, gui... have nothing in common other than being API's. They've been in development for about 40 years now (obviously some longer than others), redesigned and re-factored over and over again. I'm pretty sure most of the usability kinks have been implemented already, and what we have today is the aggregated result of that process. You mention .NET but often times its like swatting a fly with a sledge hammer. The problem simply isn't big enough.
Even the Mac was a horrible platform until OS X... And even OSX was buggy as hell until recently...
So... until it became a unix system?
What OS, in your mind, does not contain rather large flaws?
Cue fanbois ranting...
Oh the irony...
Contrary to the parent's quote that the only motivation would be fandom... I think I'm only doing this cause I'm bored and maybe for the benefit of anyone who wouldn't know better.
Re:I hope the article is right (Score:3, Informative)
No there aren't.. don't make shit up.
There are a couple of frontends to Safari. Apple will *not* allow a 3rd party browser on the iphone.
Re:I hope the article is right (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple is hardly promoting it as a dev platform (Score:3, Informative)
I found Objective-C easy to pick up. It's the Cocoa(Touch) API which is tricky. The differences between C and Obj-C fit in a page, and the garbage collection isn't even in the iPhone version of the language.
But yeah, the iPhone/iPod touch are the third portable device type I've wanted to develop for, and the second to actually be accessible. Sure, it costs money (Macbook+subscription+game engines are among my expenses), but Nintendo haven't yet done anything like Wiiware for the DS, and even that is not entirely open to the indies.
The iPhone OS is at least as cool as the Palm OS back in the 68k (pre-ARM) days, and easier to program. Once you get past the Apple approval threshold, that is :)