I suspect that one reason for the absence of an iPhone SDK and Apple’s absolute reluctance to embrace one for now has more to do with the transitory nature of the current iPhone’s OS (including the latest 1.1.1 update) as much as anything else.

With the delay of Leopard, I am certain that many key iPhone features were cut, including to-dos, sync’d notes, RSS feeds, and much much more that were reliant on unfinished Leopard frameworks. I suspect that with the roll-out of Leopard, the following iPhone update will deliver the full iPhone feature-set Apple originally intended for the device at launch in June, but was forced to slash significantly.

Once Leopard is launched, and the iPhone again updated with its new features, it will be more feasible for Apple to lock down an SDK that won’t require programers to re-write their applications mere months after the June launch. I suspect we’ll see Apple embracing the concept of iphone application development (albeit in a very controlled fashion) very shortly after Leopard’s release.

There’s a possibility it might take a little longer, since not Leopard, but a Mobile Leopard will have to be finalized.I think it shouldn’t take much time however, since Apple’s software engineers now have experience scaling down the OS for the Phone/Touch. But a lot of Leopard is graphics card/chip intensive, so don’t expect an instant update for the phone. Give them a month at least to come up with it.

[quote author=“willrob”]There’s a possibility it might take a little longer, since not Leopard, but a Mobile Leopard will have to be finalized.I think it shouldn’t take much time however, since Apple’s software engineers now have experience scaling down the OS for the Phone/Touch. But a lot of Leopard is graphics card/chip intensive, so don’t expect an instant update for the phone. Give them a month at least to come up with it.

“Mobile” Leopard if you want to call it that was done a long time ago, IMO. Its all done. They’re just holding off until the Mac version is bug busted and out of the door so they can tweak it, and then the iPhone will get a huge update in time for its European launch in a tactically-excellent PR move designed to grab the media’s attention running into the holiday buying season.

iPhone 2.0 is going to be the existing iPhone with a vastly-extended feature set in time for Christmas. Watch the media fawn all over it, hailing Jobs for addressing all of the “shortcomings” of the initial release (except for 3G of course ). The media still hasn’t really managed to get its head around the idea that the current device will be significantly improved very rapidly. They’re still stuck in a rut in thinking of the iPhone as a phone, not a computer. Nobody else extends the functionality of their handsets after the initial release, most don’t even get bug fixes. Apple is going to blow away all the critics with the next OS update and attract superb coverage, I guarantee you.

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”][quote author=“willrob”]There’s a possibility it might take a little longer, since not Leopard, but a Mobile Leopard will have to be finalized.I think it shouldn’t take much time however, since Apple’s software engineers now have experience scaling down the OS for the Phone/Touch. But a lot of Leopard is graphics card/chip intensive, so don’t expect an instant update for the phone. Give them a month at least to come up with it.

“Mobile” Leopard if you want to call it that was done a long time ago, IMO. Its all done. They’re just holding off until the Mac version is bug busted and out of the door so they can tweak it, and then the iPhone will get a huge update in time for its European launch in a tactically-excellent PR move designed to grab the media’s attention running into the holiday buying season.

iPhone 2.0 is going to be the existing iPhone with a vastly-extended feature set in time for Christmas. Watch the media fawn all over it, hailing Jobs for addressing all of the “shortcomings” of the initial release (except for 3G of course ). The media still hasn’t really managed to get its head around the idea that the current device will be significantly improved very rapidly. They’re still stuck in a rut in thinking of the iPhone as a phone, not a computer. Nobody else extends the functionality of their handsets after the initial release, most don’t even get bug fixes. Apple is going to blow away all the critics with the next OS update and attract superb coverage, I guarantee you.

I tend to agree with you.  How long has the iPhone been on the market?  Hardly any time at all (three full months?).  I’m certain it will grab market share faster than any other handset in history.  Yet everyone is still in a rush to have all problems solved in a matter of months.  This from a company that never built a handset before.  I think that Apple is still just testing the waters and still in a transition state between Tiger and Leopard.

Yet, I’d still like to know how the iPhone will steal thunder from the BlackBerry crowd without push e-mail or hooks into MS Exchange Server (I think that’s the corporate standard).  My main worry is that the Apple won’t be able to touch RIM and I think it’s very important that they break RIM’s corporate stranglehold.  Do you honestly see this happening in six months or so from now?  I feel if Apple doesn’t bust up the BlackBerry regime, the iPhone will be just considered a fancy toy and not a businessman’s tool.

One more question.  Do you think that even when the big update hits, it will allow things like video recording or macro mode for the iPhone.

I’d like to believe that everything is going according to plan with the iPhone, but I just don’t have that overwhelming confidence you have to prevent me from getting a bit apprehensive.

Will, the iPhone isn’t (yet) going after the Blackberry market IMO. Its creating its own market amongst people who never would have bothered with the idea of mobile email before. The obsession with Exchange compatibility will certainly keep the iphone out of some enterprise environments, but who cares? The rest of the world doesn’t. Anyway, outside of the US, RIMM’s market share is pathetically small. Its a mainly-US phenomenon as far as widespread adoption goes. Elsewhere, its got a tiny footprint outside of key niches and ÑŒber-mobile professionals.

There’s no question in my mind that at the moment, as a dedicated emailing device, the Blackberry is better than the iPhone. But that’s like saying a tractor is better at ploughing fields than a BMW: I know which I’d rather drive in every-day use, and which is more versatile.

Apple’s real competition isn’t RIMM. Its Nokia.

This update was about bug fixes, closing the unlock/activate hole, features needed for Europe, getting Europe & USA in step, making sure a firmware update works smoothly for normal users.

Next update: video: quite possibly; MMS maybe; macro mode: don’t think so (fixed focus camera).

Push email already works, I think. The complaint with Yahoo push is that they don’t always actually push it as soon as it arrives, unlike Blackberry. And there’s no little LED that blinks for new email.

Apple don’t need to break anyone’s market stranglehold yet - there are plenty of customers. Better to see how much of the corporate market they get in a year without doing anything special.

[quote author=“Constable Odo”]

Yet, I’d still like to know how the iPhone will steal thunder from the BlackBerry crowd without push e-mail or hooks into MS Exchange Server (I think that’s the corporate standard).  My main worry is that the Apple won’t be able to touch RIM and I think it’s very important that they break RIM’s corporate stranglehold.  Do you honestly see this happening in six months or so from now?  I feel if Apple doesn’t bust up the BlackBerry regime, the iPhone will be just considered a fancy toy and not a businessman’s tool.

Personally I feel that widespread corporate adoption may never happen, due to the many issues (Exchange, remote deletion of user data, monitoring inappropriate usage etc.).  But I don’t think it matters.  I think there is a fundamental difference between a “smartphone” (Blackberry et al) which serves little function other than business use, and a “smart” phone like the iPhone which is vastly more useful to the average consumer.

If you look at the growth prospects for these two segments, the “smartphone” is likely to appeal to mobile workers, say 50-75 million?  By comparison the “smart” phone will appeal to any consumer who is able to invest a reasonable sum into arguably their most indispensable gadget.  This market is potential measured in the hundreds of millions.  I know which market I would aim at!

Undoubtedly some more imaginative organisations will adapt to utilise the power of the device, but it will probably never be the device of the corporate drones.  The iPhone is not serving an existing market, it is creating one.

But they do have a stranglehold

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]Apple don’t need to break anyone’s market stranglehold yet ...

Apple has the stranglehold on the faux outrage market by non-iPhone owners who have heard that “lots” of people had their phones bricked. Okay I have vented that and now I feel better and can get on topic.

The next month or so may prove to be very exciting in the iPhone and Leopard pairing.

The wife and I were in the Apple Store last evening and we ran into a friend who is in the medical field. He was looking to see if he could get his PDR type of files that he use on his PDA onto the iPhone. I don’t know if he got the answer or not, we had to leave for home, but the point is that people are looking to do serious work with the iPhone. By the way, he is a recent switcher and has no interest in going back to Windows.

As you may have read in some of my posts that my wife wears a hearing aid type of device. The iPhone does not work well for her, even with the yesterday’s update that increased the volume, we were in the Apple Store last evening to check out the update. Most cell phones, and better landline handsets, have a T-coil feature. When my wife wants to use the cell phone she flips a switch on the hearing aid processor that turns off the microphone and enables a coil that picks up a transmission from a coil in the phone so that ambient noise is not a problem. The iPhone currently does not have a T-coil feature. Until there is a solution an iPhone is not a good decision for her, she is currently using a TREO.

Back in the January to April time frame I was critical of Apple for the choice of the name iPhone.  I felt that this made it difficult for the media to grasp that this was a revolutionary new product, a computer in your shirt pocket.  It is time for me to acknowledge that I was wrong and SJ was right.

Calling it a phone laid the foundation for two important marketing objectives.  The first was the incredible publicity surrounding the launch; the second, only now becoming visible to me, is that the media will now think it is their idea.  By that I mean they will feel so smart when they figure out the iPhone is a computer, they will go on and on and on about it.

My apology, Steve.  I am glad you are running the company instead of me.

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”].

Apple’s real competition isn’t RIMM. Its Nokia.

Well, it seems a waste not to use such a powerful handset to invade the corporate workspace, but I see your point.

But Nokia seems too high a target.  How can one model iPhone compete with all the various models of Nokia phones?  That’s absurd in my mind.  Nokia has a 40% or so market share.  Apple might get 1% sometime in the near future.  Nokia can churn out dozens of new phones to suit every man, woman and child in every country except possibly the US.

I understand you’re saying that the iPhone is in it’s own class, but one iPhone model is a niche product.  I don’t see a “one phone fits all” solution working all that well enough to steal Nokia’s thunder.  I’ll admit I might be missing the whole point by thinking small, but that’s why I keep asking questions.

And this whole outrage that Apple doesn’t have the right to upgrade it’s own iPhone firmware as it sees fit is scary.  All this stuff is very new to me so I might be overreacting.

Anyway, I know it’s too soon in the iPhone’s life to get a decent perspective of it’s potential, so I’ll just continue to watch and wait and not get too excited over every little so-called setback.

3rd Party Apps

I’ve not updated my iPhone to 1.1.1, because 3rd party apps are more important to me than the meager functionality offered by the update, although I am curious as to whether the update would address mail and safari instability/speed issues I’ve seen.

The discussion re: Leopard tie-in is interesting, and I buy into the viewpoint expressed. I just can’t see Jobs being so unutterably stupid as to launch a portable computer with a phone included (which is what the iPhone really is) and think that not having any 3rd-party apps would fly. Jobs is not a stupid person - he’s almost always one of the smartest people in the room, even if he’s not always the absolute smartest by far as he seems to think.

So here’s my scenario - you tell me if it makes sense:

I think Apple always intended to allow 3rd-party development, but the development tools are dependent on Leopard. Leopard was scheduled to be released *before* the iPhone, but then fell behind. Apple realized it would get killed in the media if it also held back the iPhone. Recognizing that releasing a modern phone without 3rd-party app support is - as we said before - unutterably stupid, Jobs does his little song-and-dance number about how Ajax Web Apps are the greatest thing since sliced bread. He knows, he’s bsing, and most everyone else knows he’s bsing, and he probably rips off a few heads back at Cupertino once he suffers through the developer & media backlash, but he sells it well enough that some people *actually fall for it*.

At this point the situation is manageable: the phone’s software is completely plastic, the phone’s interface is also completely plastic, and there’s already a solid software update push system in place. All Apple has to do is keep iPhones selling until the Leopard release, and selling the iPhones to early adopters is almost a given, so no worries there. Once Leopard is released, the true iPhone SDK can be released with (hopefully) one of the best development ecosystems on any phone. And I’m pretty certain that Jobs was at his cajoling, threatening, sarcasting best with the Leopard management team to make it clear that any further Leopard delays were simply. Not. An. Option. I shudder to think of things he might have said and done to make this clear to Apple employees.

Then, a wrench in the works. The iPhone gets jailbroken, someone hacks together a dev environment, and third-party apps show up. Some of ‘em are pretty cool, but they’re based on the already-out-of-date transitional OS released with the iPhone. Apple *knows* these apps will get totally hosed when the “real” OS and dev environment get released, and they’re not about to change their long-standing plans to provide backward compatibility. Apple now needs to “clear the decks” before they release the OS and feature set they had always planned for the iPhone, but which was waiting for Leopard.

Hence firmware 1.1.1. I believe that the true reason for this update is to actually *remove* functionality from the iPhone: namely, to clear out all those third-party apps and effectively reset all iPhones to a known state, so that the eventual release of the final Leopard iPhone OS and it’s attendant development tools doesn’t generate a million tech support calls and ever-more-irate consumers whose homebrew apps dependent on outdated libraries. Once this OS version gets on the iPhone, Apple can comfortably support backwards compatibility for Apps developed with the “real” tools.

Of course, there is always the possibility that Apple won’t take that next step and release an SDK for the iPhone. While possible, I cannot see this as realistic. Apple would simply be giving up too huge a potential revenue stream. The IPhone is potentially a huge bridge for a lot of 3rd-party apps from real, hardcore developers in niche markets (medical imaging has already been mentioned - how many others can you come up with in the next 2 minutes?). If the SDK is Mac-only (which I fully expect it to be), then all those developers are now forced to buy Macs if they want to support the hottest handset in recent memory, and in some cases, the only handset that could even run their envisioned app.

So that’s what *I* think is behind 1.1.1 - it’s just a tool to reset phones in preparation of the release of a true SDK.

[quote author=“Constable Odo”]How can one model iPhone compete with all the various models of Nokia phones?

The same way it competes with the many styles of bricks you can buy; only when Nokia actually produce an iPhone-killer does Apple need to populate the market with multiple products. I think the number of products required to optimise market share was all worked out with washing powder many years ago.

Apple’s current market position (for me) is best described as: Apple has a monopoly in the iPhone market.

I like your thinking Montresor.  Sounds plausible.  Hope you’re right.

Re: 3rd Party Apps

[quote author=“Montresor”]I think Apple always intended to allow 3rd-party development, but the development tools are dependent on Leopard.

I think you’re both right and wrong.

I agree that Apple intended to allow 3rd-party development at some point, but that they wanted the phone out for a period of time where they controlled the entire thing.

The last thing Apple needed was to launch the iPhone and have it crashing all the time because of 3rd-party apps. Now that everyone accepts the iPhone as a product that works, it is time to move on adding applications.

Simply put, the threat of perception that the iPhone “doesn’t work” is now gone.

Where Leopard ties in, IMO, is in terms of features. We know that to-dos are part of Mail in Leopard. Well, to-dos can’t by sync’d when the app they’re supposed to sync with isn’t ready. Yes, they could have iCal sync’d the to-dos, but that would have required writing that code for such a brief period of time that it didn’t make sense.

I think notes are in the same boat here as well.

The one feature that is really missing, IMO, is cut, copy and paste.

IMO, the 1.1.1 update offers an interesting hint. By adding the home-button double tap, Apple has indicated a willingness to add new “gesture” features to iPhone.

I honestly believe that cut, copy and paste were left out because of the complexity of the gesture that people would have to learn. Many people would have said, “yeah, you can do it, but it’s a pain in the rear.”

If they add it now, people will have had time to meet the learning curve and so 1) it will seem like less of a pain in the tail and 2) it will be so appreciated (“Apple is responding to consumer feedback”) that people will not be as likely to point to it as being flawed.

I think Apple may restrict 3rd party native Apps to an Intel platform, if they can. Leaving current iPhone functionality to migrate down the price range, with complete freedom to re-engineer (because the API’s aren’t public) for lower costs etc. There is no need to provide user programmability until growth in market share is unsatisfactory. I think that comes some months after launch in Asia. By holding to Web 2.0 only, Apple ensures a very wide range of functionality from third parties which will be applicable to lower cost iPhones, a year or two hence.

I think Montresor’s outcome is a possibility, but Apple would prefer a year’s growth into the cellphone market without offering and SDK. I think the third party tool chain, jailbreak and unlock were not planned by Apple, but have worked out beautifully, getting seed iPhones into markets all round the world; training programmers round the world in the iPhone architecture at no cost, making it plain that iPhone is in reality a general purpose handheld computer/communicator, and boosting iPhone first quarter sales significantly. These are all positive outcomes that Apple couldn’t have expected 3 months ago.

I don’t think 1.1.1 is to enable an SDK. I think it’s for the reasons I mentioned in my previous-but-one post.

I am finding myself persuaded by all sides in this discussion, because the posts here are well-reasoned.

My own sense of it is that it is critical for Apple to have an OSX shirt-pocket device that supports a rich developer environment.  It will be multi-touch; it will have wi-fi; it will be a music player.  And it will probably be a phone, for as someone pointed out recently, a lot of people will resist carrying two devices. 

But it may or may not be the current iPhone.  Battery life is an issue.  No Intel chip is an issue.

Speculation only:  Could it be that the rumored 21st century Newton is actually an Intel phone with Leopard and an SDK?  iPhone II.