Christopher Herot's Weblog

iPhone SDK

When Apple launched the iPhone last year, it made me mad for two reasons:

1. By demonstrating what could be done on a mobile platform it made me aware of what mediocrity had passed for progress in the mobile phone industry for the past several years, and
2. It was a closed platform that only provided those applications that Apple, in its infinite wisdom, chose to include.

Now it appears that substantial progress has been made on both fronts.  I'll save #1 for another post and concentrate here on the opening up of the platform.

Steve Jobs tried to downplay the closed nature of the iPhone by pointing out what could be done with Web-based applications, but there are a lot of things that can not be done in a browser, especially on a mobile platform which by its nature is not always connected to the network.  Indeed, Apple admitted as much when it built Google maps into the device rather than running it as a Web application.

Now Apple has announced a developer program which includes the same SDK used by Apple's internal developers.  The SDK is available today as a free download, although actually loading the application into an iPhone requires paying $99 and is only available "to a limited number of developers" for now.  Apps can only be offered through Apple's App Store for which Apple will take a 30% cut of the sale price and will only sell apps that make it through an approval process.  (There is a separate $299 program for in-house enterprise developers.)  There are some restrictions on the apps that can be built, most notably a ban on "objectionable" content (e.g. porn) or doing VoIP over the cellular network.  These and other policies are significantly more restrictive than those on other mobile platforms, and it remains to be seen how cumbersome is the approval process, but otherwise the SDK is full-featured and should enable a wide range of interesting applications.

The iPhone SDK provides access to most the facilities of the phone, including the multi-touch interface, a built-in 3-D accelerometer, and cell-tower-based location.  Applications run in a "sandbox" with restricted access to memory and low-numbered network ports.  There is no direct access to the phone features themselves.  To dial a number the application must create a URI link for the user to click.  The programming environment is based on OS X but with the optimizations you would expect in a mobile device, such as no windowing, simplified memory management (no swapping or garbage collection) and no apps running in the background.  The OS provides built-in support for the animation that is one of the iPhone's signature features.

The SDK includes the Xcode IDE, Objective-C, Interface Builder (coming soon), and an iPhone simulator and debugger.  This being Apple, it also includes a comprehensive set of human interface guidelines and an extensive set of sample applications.

Apple has gone to considerable effort to offer developers a way to build applications that are compatible with its conception of the iPhone experience and don't offend Apple's carrier partners.  This will allow creating apps that integrate seamlessly with the existing functionality provided by Apple, but will not include some of the more wild-and-wooly programs such as Fring's voice over IP or Twitter running continuously in the background.  It's more than I expected but doesn't leave Apple as the only game in town.

iPhone Keyboard Results in More Errors - But Do Users Care?

User Centric published the results of a study that compared the iPhone keyboard with the hard-key QWERTY design.  They found that experienced users typed at the same rate on both, but the iPhone users made twice as many errors.  Interestingly, the iPhone users were less likely to correct their mistakes, with the result that messages sent from an iPhone contain three times as many errors.

Of course any device that's small enough to fit in one's pocket is the result of many compromises.   By dispensing with a hard keyboard, the iPhone gets a larger screen, so while it may not be the best device for serious text users, it is great for watching videos and surfing the Web.

Open Platform Manifesto

Thanks to Ian Davis I came across this list  from Marc Hedlund of criteria for calling a platform open.  While it was written in the context of comparing the iPhone with the Treo, it is equally applicable to the current discussion about the openness of Facebook.

Extracted from four paragraphs of Marc's original post:

An open platform

1. allows developers to implement functionality the platform provider hasn't gotten around to yet
2. allows developers to reimplement and replace functionality the platform provider has gotten around to, but has failed to do well.
3. allows developers to meet needs that scare the platform provider, and allows consumers to have those needs met where otherwise the platform provider would block a capability
4. allows its users to get far more done, and latches them to that platform far more tightly as a result.

Point #3 is often the hardest lesson for platform providers to learn, but if they do so they can reap the benefits of point #4.

They got the iPhone Apart

 

The iFix folks got the iPhone apart.  Turns out the secret was removing the black antenna cover which revealed the first of many #00 Phillips screws.

Inside the iPhone

There has been endless coverage of the iPhone, but one of the most interesting sites is iFixit's coverage of disassembling the iPhone.   They got to the store early, bought two of the 8 GB models and brought them back to the studio to dissect them before an online audience.  However, it's now 7:10 pm and they still haven't figured out how to get it open.

The iPhone Just May Succeed

When Apple announced the iPhone the world instantly divided into two camps: those who thought the iPhone would redefine the mobile phone and be an immediate success, and those who thought there would be a limited number of people who would shell out $500 for a phone that didn't even use the fastest 3G data, was only available from AT&T, and was hermetically sealed against any applications not personally approved by Steve.  I was leaning towards the latter camp, but after hearing Jobs at D, I have new reasons to think the iPhone may just live up to expectations.  Among them:

• In addition to the three previously announced functions of phone, music player, and web browser, the phone will include Google Maps.  I've been trying out Palm's GPS Navigator recently and am convinced it's the fourth "killer app" and the one that might justify the steep price.
• Jobs stated that the iPhone implementation of maps was not just the usual web browser version but had been reworked to be a true client server app.  Apple's willingness to exploit the power of the platform and, significantly, to say Apple would open up that platform later this year, would make the iPhone an attractive alternative to other high-priced phones.
• Jobs admitted that it might take a new user up to a week to adjust to the touch-screen virtual keyboard.  While that sounds like a lot, Apple has sufficient brand equity to cause its fans to stick with it through this adjustment period, similar to what happened with the IBM Thinkpad's Trackpoint pointing device.
• Never underestimate the power of Apple's industrial design.  See the latest Technology Review for an interesting account of how Apple will often work with manufacturers to push the state of the art of its packaging.

Let's hope Apple lives up to Job's promise to open up the platform for independent software developers.

WSJ on Apple iPhone

The Wall Street Journal ran a front page article today on the negotiations that led up to the iPhone deal between Cingular and Apple.  While this story has been reported extensively elsewhere, the Journal's reporters uncovered a few new facts:

• Apple's pitch to Cingular was that Apple understood the Internet and Cingular did not.
• Apple did not go the MVNO route since Jobs "viewed the cellphone business as an unforgiving one, where carriers are blamed for network problems and overwhelmed by customer complaints."
• The iPhone team at Apple grew to hundreds of people.
• The design was the responsibility of Jonathan Ive, who also designed th iPod.
• Apple approached Verizon Wireless, but Verizon wouldn't give up on its demand to provide music for the device through its V CAST service and balked at cutting resellers out of the distribution channel.
• The two executives who did the deal were Glenn Lurie, Cingular's president of national distribution, and Eddy Cue, Apple's VP of Applications and Internet Services.

iPhone will not be an open platform

In an interview Steven Levy reported in Newsweek, Steve Jobs said:

You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network. You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.

Either he's never heard of the Palm Treo which has supported independently-developed software applications for years without gumming up anyone's network, or the iPhone is peculiarly vulnerable to malware.

John Markoff in the New York Times observed that Jobs may have forgotten that a similar attitude about keeping the Macintosh closed led to his ouster from Apple in 1985:

Indeed, when the Macintosh Computer — which, like the iPhone, was designed by a small group shrouded in secrecy — was introduced in January 1984, it was received with the same kind of wild hyperbole that greeted the iPhone this week. But a year later, the shortcomings of the first-generation Macintosh cost Mr. Jobs his job at the company he had founded with his high school friend Stephen Wozniak nine years earlier.

In light of the iPhone’s closed, appliance-style design, it is worth recounting the Mac’s early history because of the potential parallel pitfalls that Mr. Jobs and his company may face.

Despite its high price of $2,495, the Macintosh initially sold briskly. But Mr. Jobs’s early predictions of huge sales (on Tuesday, in a similar fashion, he set a goal for the iPhone 1 percent of the world’s cellular phone market, or 10 million phones a year, by the end of 2008) failed to materialize.

The Mac’s stumble was in part because of pricing and in part because Mr. Jobs had intentionally restricted its expandability. Despite his assertion that a slow data connection would be sufficient, the gamble failed when Apple’s business stalled and Mr. Jobs was forced out of the company by the chief executive he had brought in, John Sculley.

Of course, Apple did open up the Mac.  With the addition of a hard-drive (something Jobs had fought against) and software from Microsoft (notably Excel) the Mac became a huge success.

One can hope that a similarly enlightened approach will obtain with the iPhone.

It's up to Mr. Digate now

Sometimes what goes on in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas.  My Convoq co-founder Chuck Digate went to CES and got quoted in the Wall Street Journal:

IPhone Hinges On the Likes of Mr. Digate

In High-End Realm,
Handset Must Court
The Affluent Tech-Set

By LI YUAN and CASSELL BRYAN-LOW
January 11, 2007; Page B4

With a price tag starting at $499, the sleek new Apple Inc. iPhone may seem prohibitively expensive to some, but Apple is counting on demand from consumers like Chuck Digate.

"Do the math," says the Boston-based software entrepreneur. Mr. Digate says he paid $350 for a video iPod last month and $300 for a smartphone from T-Mobile with a two-year contract. The iPhone "has all the things I'm using, and I can consolidate two devices into one."

Apple iPhone

The top tech news story of the week is, of course, the long-awaited Apple iPhone.   The headline that summed it up for me was Good Morning Silicon Valley's Keyboards across country shorted out by "iPhone drool."  The device will have the innovative user interface we have come to expect from Apple, but several open issues remain before it can be considered a breakthrough.  Tom Evslin and his readers cover a lot of them.  My main concerns:

• How open is the platform?  It is based on OS X, but Apple has been silent on whether it will allow independent software developers to provide applications.  Will it be open like the Palm and Windows Mobile or a walled garden like Verizon's Get It Now?  This will be especially important to people wanting connectiviy to Microsoft applications such as Exchange.
• When will Apple provide provide 21st century data service via HSDPA rather than the pokey EDGE technology they announced this week?
• How usable is the touch screen?  It looks great in the videos, but as David Pogue has pointed out “Typing is difficult. The letter keys are just pictures on the glass screen, so of course there’s no tactile feedback.”  How easy will it be to make a call while driving a car?
• How long will the exclusive arrangement with Cingular be in place and/or when will an unlocked version be available?

In my opinion that the success of the iPod was due to three factors:

• innovative UI and excellent industrial design
• a powerful brand which enabled a higher price point and thus a new threshold of functionality
• market momentum which motivated hitherto intransigent partners to cooperate

My hope is that Apple will take advantage of being one of the few players who can step out of the traditional role of providing a restricted set of features via a restricted set of carriers and turn loose a new wave of creativity for mobile applications.