iPhone's Development Limitations Could Hurt It In the Long Run 452
ZDOne writes "Apple might have finally come around to allowing third party developers to create applications for the iPhone, but only up to a point. ZDNet UK claims Apple is leaving itself vulnerable to the competition and to a loss of lustre
by blocking background tasks on the device. The author notes, 'Perhaps it doesn't trust application designers or users very much. Perhaps it wants the best software for itself, where it can limit what it can do in order not to upset its telco friends. Whatever the reason, it reflects badly on Apple. The iPhone is not an iPod; it's a smartphone connecting to a universe of fast-changing data on behalf of innovation-hungry users. The sooner it stops pretending to be a 1981 IBM PC, the better it will be for everyone.'"
Re:Where is the competition? (Score:5, Informative)
developer.sonyericsson.com would be a good start, which is linked directly on the front page of www.sonyericsson.com, so you can't have looked very hard in your rush to defend the iPhone.
Re:Where is the competition? (Score:2, Informative)
http://developer.sonyericsson.com/site/global/products/phonegallery/w910/p_w910.jsp [sonyericsson.com]
Re:Where is the competition? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Symbian 3rd signed is the same (Score:5, Informative)
Unsigned apps can access the network (see for example putty), play run stuff on the screen (see for example quake, dooom), run in the background, read & write files and so on.
I can't seem to find this famous list of things an unsigned app can't do.
Re:Um... phone network != internet (Score:5, Informative)
The way J2ME operates is far more sensible than a total ban. Every time an unsigned program wants to make use of a 'restricted' API, the user is prompted. This stops anything malicious from happening.
If you're doing the above, then this additional step is completely pointless and only serves to limit the usefulness of your platform. It's not like the backgrounding abilities of Symbian phones have brought down the phone networks yet.
Re:ZDNet Writers Lack Technical Expertise (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where is the competition? (Score:5, Informative)
Almost every manufacturer, actually: there are SDKs for Symbian (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung), Windows Mobile (Motorola, Samsung, HTC,
I wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to develop an application for my Sony Ericsson W910,
The W910 runs J2ME and MIPD, just like most phones these days. There are thousands of applications for that and it's easy to develop for.
call me clueless but I don't see anything comparable to the iPhone SDK for any other phone.
Yup, you're clueless. In terms of SDK, the iPhone is about the worst there is among modern phone platforms.
not true (Score:5, Informative)
That's pure fiction. I have half a dozen unsigned apps on my phone, several of them free and open source.
stupidity (Score:4, Informative)
Smart phones have had background processes and uncertified code for many years, and there have been almost no problems with it in practice. Half of Nokia's phone lineup are fully programmable, multi-tasking machines, capable of running ssh, BitTorrent, Python, VNC client and server, Apache web server, and anything else you can think of. There's even software for turning Symbian phones into WiFi access points for sharing the 3G connection.
Anybody who claims that one needs to ban uncertified code and background processes to avert disaster simply doesn't know the mobile phone business... or is lying through their teeth.
Re:not true (Score:5, Informative)
In their case it's more to control the riskier functions, so you can make a free unsigned game which only really needs graphics and the keypad without signing the code but anything that runs a risk of doing something like making a call, eavesdropping or deleting your data needs to be signed.
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/downloads/api.jsp [blackberry.com]
The fee's tiny ($20) for access, but that's tiny really so it's more about being able to control the programs using those API calls.
Symbian might be similar since the GP said for "certain type of capabilities". The fee's huge by comparison though, so perhaps they want the revenue more than the security benefits.
bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Some application, restricted in functionality could be signed by developer without developer certificate(LocalServices, UserEnvironment, NetworkServices,ReadUserData
The situation is quite heated right now, after Symbian introduced some more restrictions recently (removed free developer certificates, which allow sign application for single phone - IMEI numebr). Symbian signed forum turning to flamefeast between moderator interventions. http://developer.symbian.com/forum/forum.jspa?forumID=2&start=0 [symbian.com]
Of cause all this only from legal point of view. Many devices (all FP1 and Nokia N95-1, not 8GB) have their platform security hacked already.
Re:Symbian 3rd signed is the same (Score:4, Informative)
Not without their reasons (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, making the rule hard and fast is a bit tough. And Apple could provide some means of minimizing drain (waking every task up every few hours for example), but don't damn Apple totally on this one.
Re:Bad analogy (Score:4, Informative)
Who modded this insightful?
Re:Even funnier (Score:5, Informative)
2)- the official iphone os may ban uncertified code, but people have been running uncertified code on iphones for months. since the number of "hacked" iphones is almost as great as the number of "boring" iphones, this is rather significant.
i'm not a fanboy- personally, i don't like iphones, or people who like iphones. i just don't like misinformation.
Re:Where is the competition? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Even funnier (Score:5, Informative)
It's a sane request, and not a requirement. (Score:5, Informative)
It should also be noted that while the HIG asks you not to make your app run in the background, neither the phone nor the SDK enforce it. You can, in fact, do it.
If you want to sell your app through Apple's service, you probably need to communicate to them that there's a good reason for it (for example, implementing hands-free voice-dialing might require it). Apple reserves the right to not carry applications that don't meet the HIG, but there's no reason to think that they won't make exceptions when a reasonable request is made to do so. Certainly, a good hands-free voice-dialing app would be a good candidate for such a thing.
Re:bad comparison? (Score:2, Informative)
allow a few systems^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h grains of sand
You do know ^w deletes a word, don't you? Might save you some typing.
The old term was "road apple". (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let the market decide (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bad apple tag? (Score:4, Informative)
These restrictions are here to artificially limit competition between advanced communication applications and the telcos. It keeps you dependent on the old phone voice communications and the old SMS system which are obsolete and extremely expensive comparing to any IM and SIP solution.
This way you are banned from using any innovative communication technology while paying for the (artificially) crippled internet connection plus the expensive call rates.
Re:Not without their reasons (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Umm...Mod parent down? (Score:5, Informative)
Battery life sucks for any smartphone, not just WinMo though. I charge my phone every night, otherwise it lasts maybe 36 hours through regular use. A bit more if I turn off data to disable the 3 email accounts, weather info, web browsing, etc, that I do normally.
Re:Bad analogy (Score:1, Informative)
The reason the PC ended up being a relatively open platform was that the simplicity of the BIOS, motherboard design, and expansion bus lent itself to backwards engineering. This allowed the creation of functionally equivalent hardware and software -- clones.
IBM viewed this as a defect, not a feature, hence their legal challenges of clones and, later, attempts to close up the platform. Remember PS/2 and the MCA expansion bus? But IBM was trying to shut the barn door after the cattle were gone -- by the time MCA debuted, a proprietary and unlikely-to-be-cloned expansion bus was a huge negative selling point in the PC market, no matter how many technical problems it solved (and there was no doubt that MCA was technically superior).
So, there were never any real specifications, just what was learned by reverse engineering of the IBM PC, PC XT, and PC AT. Post-AT, the industry had much less centralizing influence, and extensions to the PC architecture were extremely ad hoc. Witness, for example, the long extended industry catfight about sound card hardware and APIs during the 90s. (This kind of chaos was both a strength and a weakness.)
Re:Um... phone network != internet (Score:3, Informative)
No, it doesn't. Most users will click "yes" to everything.
Re:Not without their reasons (Score:2, Informative)
There's a reason besides money. No, seriously. (Score:3, Informative)
These things aren't artificial and they aren't done (just) to get fractionally more money out of you. The fact of the matter is telcos don't want you running VoIP etc. on the packet network because the mobile packet networks are not built to handle it. This is their own fault(s) for not having more capacity, but they built their networks with X amount of channelized voice capacity and Y amount of packetized IP capacity based on customer usage. If everyone used VoIP, it would saturate the mobile data networks (at both the BTS and backhaul link levels) and reduce performance to unacceptable levels. Costs would go up to add more capacity on the packet side and you guessed it, that cost would be passed on to you - making voice not such a great deal compared to circuit-switched voice! I believe the long-term path for most carriers (at least in the US) is to make their 4G networks all IP-based with packetized voice, but until that's here (a few years yet at least), circuit switched voice is still the preference for a variety of reasons.
Also, just curious - in what way are circuit-switched voice and SMS on the Public Switched Telephone Network "obsolete?" My understanding is that word means something that cannot perform essential functions due to lack of essential functionality or interoperability, and literally hundreds of millions of people use these technologies daily just fine. Maybe you meant "more expensive than alternatives" rather than "obsolete?"