As you probably know by now on the 6th of March Apple announced that they will be opening up the iPhones platform for the developers to create some really cool native apps. Apple announced three parts to the iPhones road map Enterprise, SDK and a Software update. I am especially interested in what can be produced with the availability of the new tools to create, I think it was inevitable that it would happen, the web apps were never going to happen, they were to restricting.
The Enterprise
Personally I have very little interest in this aspect but many have been calling for proper Microsoft Exchange support and finally they got it. With loads of other what seem to be cool features for a business.
SDK
The SDK is of large interest to me as it is the main thing that they announced that will affect me. I am not a coding freak but I know having the same API’s that Apple use is a big thing. The demo of Spore they showed was amazing, and they only had a few day to create that, If you can buy games like that for the iPhone and iPod Touch I just can’t wait to find what els there is to buy. One thing that the rumour site have been saying is that Apple have a one at a time limit, so that you can’t run in the background, which is a really annoyance because if you think about it loads of potential Apps will want to run thing is the background (rumour sites are now saying its a guideline rather than an absolute).
The App Store
If you noticed they seem to have changed the calculator and the iTunes Store icons and there is soon to be an new addition to your home screen the App Store and I think this would be the best way to distribute content such as App’s. Firstly it allows Apple to control the content going out which could be good but can be bad. Secondly it makes it simple for the common technophobe, all they have to do is to navigate to the home screen then click the store icon and there they are. They announced that the developer get to pick the price of the product and they also get 70% of the revenues form the sale.
Software Update
Apple will also be allowing developers to download the latest firmware for the iPhone and iPod touch for them to test there Apps on. He also mentioned that the iPhones upgrade will be free but there will again be a small charge for the iPod Touch’s, which is a annoyance. The 2.0 firmware will come out some time in June and that is when we will all be able to get our hand on some cool bit of software, if you saw the keynote you know that they showed off a couple of app coded in two weeks and they looked pretty good and all they needed was a small amount of tweeking and they would be ready to ship in less than another week, if it is that easy I can’t wait to see what will happen.
