iPhone disappoints mobile developers
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InfoWorld - No one ever said Apple marketers weren&#39;t clever. So if they wanted to start a firestorm of ISVs developing applications for the iPhone, how better to do that than to make development as simple as possible with the least barriers?
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One per cent is aiming too high Comment Steve Jobs sounds modest with his 2008 sales prediction: "10 million iPhones is one per cent of the mobile phone market". This is indeed true, but it's not a useful benchmark.â¦
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âThe phone is so sleek and thin,â reports David Pogue (New York Times) in his review of iPhone, that âit makes Treos and Blackberrys look obese.â And the software transcends. âItâs fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate.â If you need âto answer a call, you can tap Answer on the screen, or pinch the microscopic microphone bulge on the white earbud cord. Either way, music or video playback pauses until you hang up.â As for email, itâs âfantastic. Incoming messages are fully formatted, complete with graphics; you can even open (but not edit) Word, Excel and PDF documents.â And âthe Web browser,â he points out, âis the real dazzler.â No âstripped down, claustrophobic My First Cellphone Browser; you get full Web layouts, fonts and all, shrunk to fit the screen. You scroll with a fingertip â much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.â In short, Pogue calls the iPhone, âthe most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years.â
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Analysts are telling companies that the iPhone isn't designed for business use and they'd be better off keeping it out of their workers' hands. Try telling that to the worker -- or the CEO -- who wants one.
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(InfoWorld) - The Java platform may run on 2 billion handheld phones, but not on Apple's trendy new iPhone. Apple's stance was called a mistake by a Sun Microsystems executive Wednesday at the AJAXWorld conference in Santa Clara. "I think it's a mistake. I think it would provide a lot more flexibility in applications being developed," for the iPhone, said Bob Brewin, Sun Distingushied Engineer and vice president for software. JavaScript runs on the phone and someone will put Java on the iPhone, Brewin said. But by not having it on there now, iPhone users and Java developers are being shortchanged, according to Brewin. Current Java applications, such as the LimeWire media-sharing application, could be easily ported and developers could choose the Java language for building new programs for the iPhone, he said. There also could be a lot of Java-based games made to work on the device, Brewin said. He attributed Apple's stance to the company wanting developers to develop for only a small set of APIs. "Fundamentally, they don't like open systems," Brewin said. Apple representatives could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday afternoon, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been dismissive of having Java run on the iPhone. Brewin also noted the status of Sun's JavaFX multimedia display technology. JavaFX could give the benefit of rich applications to the iPhone, Brewin said. The JavaFX compiler is available in an early-access release right now. Sun expects to release components of the JavaFX runtime next year, Brewin said. Binaries for the JavaFX Mobile component of the platform will be showcased next year as well. While JavaFX will compete with highly touted technologies such as Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe Systems's Flash and Flex, Brewin believes JavaFX offers advantages. "I think the biggest strength to JavaFX, sort of from a core principal, is because it is built on Java, you know it is ubiquitous," Brewin said. "You're not ... beholden to a proprietary implementation of another vendor," Brewin said. JavaFX also offers a simpler programming model than AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), he added. Also, Brewin said the Java Community Process, a multi-vendor effort on making changes to the Java platform, is going through a transition because of the recent open-sourcing of Java. "When we open-sourced Java, it just changed the dynamic a bit," he said. One example of how it has changed is contributors have to think about whether they want to contribute their intellectual property to what is now an open source platform. But Brewin anticipates the continuance of the JCP. "I think the JCP will thrive," he said. During a morning presentation, Brewin spoke of a "blue shift" and "red shift" phenomenon in computing, comparing IT to the physics concepts of blue and red shifts,Â  in which light turns red as it becomes more distant and blue as it gets closer. The red shift represents applications on the Web, which go out worldwide and scale to millions of persons. The blue shift represents computing in the enterprise, Brewin said. Building red shift applications requires thinking about a different application space, one in which there will not just be 10,000 people using the application behind the firewall but one that could serve 10 million customers, Brewin said.
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Not everyone agrees Apple's plan to let developers build Web-based apps for the iPhone is 'a pretty sweet solution.'
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More jailbreaks than a spaghetti western The latest version of the firmware for Apple's iPhone has fallen to hackers less than a week after its release.â¦
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Blog: AT&T's iPhone activation numbers disappointed many--especially Apple investors--but it's not a perfect measure of iPhone demand.
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Apple made a big splash when it announced the iPhone last month. But with its hefty price tag, restriction to a single carrier and departure from many traditional smart-phone features, buying the iPhone requires careful forethought.
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With the iPhone, Apple offers a glimpse of what's to come.
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Responding to frustration from customers and software makers, Apple has changed its policies to encourage independent developers to build programs for the iPhone.
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The music industry has long hoped  mobile phones will help turn around weak music sales, but music  executives privately fear the most obvious contender, the  iPhone, may give too much clout to Apple Inc., in shaping the  future of the fledgling mobile music market.
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Unlocked and loaded Efforts to open up the functionality of Apple's iPhone to users disinclined to sign up to expensive two year contracts with AT&amp;T are growing.â¦
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June 29 is the day that Apple becomes the sort of oppressive, inflexible company that it has long accused Microsoft of being, an iPhone skeptic claims.  Read his top 13 reasons why iPhone will disappoint you.
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The Apple iPhone can reduce the total number of devices used by employees and thus increase productivity.
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As with everything, the novelty of the iPhone fades. Its calendar can track how soon.
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As the engine of iPhone hype gears up for its final power thrust, discussions about the new device range from how many units it will sell to how developers can cash in with widgets to how its iPod-like features might cannibalize iPod sales.