iPhone to Support Third-Party Web 2.0 Apps - Ha Ha Ha - or is it really CLOSED?
Many of you might have heard about the WWDC 2007 (World Wide Developer Conference) and might have followed the announcements from Apple. If not here is a full story from engadget.com. One of the major announcement today was that developers could write amazing Web 2.0 and AJAX apps for iPhone. Here are the exact words from Steve Jobs
“We have been trying to come up with a solution to expand the capabilities of the iPhone so developers can write great apps for it, but keep the iPhone secure. And we’ve come up with a very. Sweet. Solution. Let me tell you about it. An innovative new way to create applications for mobile devices… it’s all based on the fact that we have the full Safari engine in the iPhone
And so you can write amazing Web 2.0 and AJAX apps that look and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone, and these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, check email, look up a location on Gmaps… don’t worry about distribution, just put ‘em on an internet server. They’re easy to update, just update it on your server. They’re secure, and they run securely sandboxed on the iPhone. And guess what, there’s no SDK you need! You’ve got everything you need if you can write modern web apps…”
I have seen many articles and blog posts talking big time about this announcement. But this is what I think, Apple is just saying that iPhone has a full version of safari web browser so if one writes a Web Application it will be accessed through Safari web browser inside the iPhone. Did anyone seriously think that the web browser inside the iPhone would not be able to browse the web? Mr. Jobs you are really sleek.
And Jobs went on to say “…And guess what, there’s no SDK you need!…” alright this is not a major thing, you write web apps and access through safari. Oh Man, but many think this as a major announcement.
And did anyone think of the availability of the network. The web apps won’t work if there is no network. And moreover they really eat up your pocket. I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here and say for the sake of argument that iPhone supports WiFi (which I believe it does) and if that’s the case it won’t be much expensive.
To me, Job’s says that iPhone is closed and the only way to write apps is to use the web browser functionality. This is very similar to saying that you cannot write third party applications / programs in Windows and the only way to do that is to write web applications. And yes web applications do not need SDK (so no Windows SDK). How ridiculous is that. Overall to me iPhone is a closed device. What do you guys think?
slarrg said,
June 12, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
Whoopie, I can access a web app. Duh! Sadly, I can think of many cases where an actual phone app would be useful. For example, many contractors bill their hours to different accounts and keep track of the hours as they happen with a computer program and would love to have an application on the phone to enter hours when they travel instead of booting a computer for a quick data-entry. Building a web server with a secure SSL connection, finding a location with a wireless signal, having the user navigate to a bookmark, select the page, enter a username and password, then enter their data while paying AT&T for data transmission each way is not a viable solution. It would be much better to have a program on the phone that logs the data then syncs with the computer when connected via a cable.
N. Venkatraman said,
June 13, 2007 @ 10:37 am
I think it is more closed than open. Safari 3 is just a way to selectively sync bookmarks and invite developers to write for the Mac OS and be part of the Mac ecosystem that will increasingly include iPhone, For now, he has clearly continued with the strategy that has worked in the past with Macintosh OS and iTunes.. iPod is hardly open. Is it? Plus, we need to see how iPhone evolves beyond AT&T in the global market and how users react to the different functions. Apple’s strategy is more of selective opening of the architecture than fully open for anyone to develop apps. Worth watching to see how this gets played out.