Zac Bowling you tool.

http://www.openmoko.com

Daniel
http://www.palluxo.com

However, as a SW professional who is earning his money by listening to his customers and not just the geeks in his team, I would recommend that you think about functional _and_ non-functional requirements of a portable device like the iPhone. Perhaps you’ll get the clue that security, privacy and stability concerns outweigh flashy API functionality. Apple provides a compromise, no more, no less. Perhaps the future will provide you more 3rd party power, but I think starting out moderately is better than taking a huge risk - for the company and (surprise!) its customers.

Only one problem: it doesn’t seem to be backed up by actual figures. AdMob’s Mobile Metrics Report, which measures the market share of smartphones by browser-type requests on its ad network, shows the iPhone with 2.8% of the market, well behind Motorola (24%), RIM (16%), Nokia (14%) and Samsung (12%). In terms of model, the iPhone is a creditable seventh. Even allowing for a decent margin of error, that’s a long way off 28%.

You can download AdMob Metrics reports here - http://www.admob.com/s/solutions/metrics. It includes sections on the methodology, if you want to dig deeper.

Earlier today I posted an article that talked about why the iPhone, with its new enterprise features and development kit, was not a threat to Research In Motion and their BlackBerry devices.  You can read the article entitled, iPhone NOT a Threat to R…

Fundamentally, RIM and Windows Mobile have basically taken the desktop model and used it in a mobile device. There’s menus, you use a stylus to get the accuracy of a mouse, there’s scrollbars. And you know, it’s worked great for them so far, so why stop?

But on the flip-side, why do we need another RIM or Windows Mobile? There’s already plenty of companies emulating them, the marketplace for a mobile device masquerading as a desktop computer is saturated. Apple is going a different way. Minimalism, no menus, no scrollbar, multi-touch.

And you know, coming from 0 to 28% marketshare in the US in 8 months, Apple is doing just dandy if you ask me.

Talk of a “public outcry” is empty. All I see is a vocal minority of “jailbreak” hackers who predict a triumphant surge in the unofficial jailbreak method.

Personally, my money is on Apple. I didn’t see EA, Sega and AOL lined up to write unofficial applications.

The hardware is a blend of compromises based on build cost(s), in such a way as to currently limit what can be done in order to ensure a baseline performance level.

The point is that the limitations, many of them, are TEMPORARY. Get on board now because Apple will enhance developers’ options as the phone is similarly enhanced. Walk away now if you wish, but my money’s on the iPhone.

The point is that Jobs was doing one of his standard pieces of flummery when he talked about the power drain being the biggest reason for not having 3G on the phone. Simply turning off WiFi polling will save you far more battery power than you’d lose by having 3G rather than EDGE.

What it comes down to is cost: EDGE radios are much, much cheaper than a good quality 3G equivalent. And that’s a perfectly reasonable choice for Apple to make. But Jobs’ spin cycle doesn’t allow him to say “we did it so you can actually afford this puppy” - instead he has to pull the wool over people’s eyes and claim it’s a usability issue.

B) this is also release one of the SDK and License. Things may open up in the next year (or not). But revision one is already a big step. The tools that are provided (the SDK) is pretty robust. The license has some oddities to be sure, but some of those do make sense from a toe in the water point of view. Heck, I think the executable code issue doesn’t make any sense from a technical standpoint, but it does from a stability standpoint.

C) this is version one of the phone. Its quite likely that the next edition may have more RAM, or possibly some other tools to better enable multitasking-Apple surely wouldn’t want AppA’s background process taking up resources needed by AppB. This current restriction means that everyone can be pretty sure that there app will run exactly as tested.

I wonder why the other vendors of telephones don’t have this problem???

And I sincerely hope that the next radio that will be in the iPhone will be at least a 3G radio (3.5 is preferred)

I for one think that the biggest drawback is that it’s not possible to have programs running in the background. Not only for IM etc. but also for location based services etc. I don’t expect to be able to run a webserver of the phone, or use the phone as an accesspoint, but I expect to be able to push stuff to the background when i want to/need to.

The only tools they are good at creating are the consumers.

To you it may be completely OK to drain your iPhone battery in 3 hours to have your IM or IRC client running in the background checking every 5 minutes for a new message. It might be completely OK that other applications would want the exact same privilege. And that’s because you’re application developers and you only see it from your point of view.

But what about Johnny Knowsnothing that installs the app from The App Store and finds that his iPhone battery suddenly sucks? Do they understand the state of application development enough to blame you, the application designer? I don’t think so. They blame Apple. They cry out that their battery life sucks and demand Apple fixes the issue. Apple starts replacing batteries that don’t need replacing and that increases cost. All because you didn’t understand that the iPhone isn’t a desktop and requires a different approach to your application design.

I believe that eventually some of these issues may be cleared up with better radio technologies for EDGE and WiFi but right now I’d much rather have an 8-hour battery life than IM running in the background.

BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and S60 are both still outselling Apple. Your point is?

I, for one, don’t care about the SDK restrictions, and I also like the business model (the iTunes app store, the 70-30 revenue split etc..). For me, as a game developer, it’s just great.

Heck, I don’t even know why you care about the iPhone SDK, as it’s coming from the “evil” maker of expensive entertainment gear Apple. You already have the FOSS-friendly but-still-not-a-phone Nokia N800.

Lets see all of these restrictions you speak of. Specifically how they are worse then the iPhone ones. I’ll be here.

Of course they exist. Not only that. Most are hiding away from you until is too late. Microsoft made a business out of this. You can’t possibly be this naive.

You, mono guys, don’t waste any opportunity to take a shot at Apple. Why is that? Why is Apple so different from Microsoft?

iPhone’s SDK is no more a joke than your “mono is free and open source and free from patents, all hail Microsoft” crap.

Those that have glass houses don’t trow stones.

Apple is mass rejecting developers

It is impossible for anybody outside Apple to cause the iPhone API to fall under FOSS licensing terms, no matter what they do or what open source software they use in the construction of an iPhone application.

What I can’t figure out is whether Apple’s lawyers really are this stupid, or whether they are simply trying to spread FUD about FOSS as part of their own license.

Either way, the iPhone SDK is useless. If Apple had opened things up, I might have broken down and bought an iPhone, but not with this kind of idiotic policy.