The Apple thread

[Kemper_Boyd]

Simulator, remote debug and Xcode integration are fairly run of the mill.
The interface designer should be good and Instruments sounds great.

[Kemper_Boyd]

Apple need a decent touch controlled shoot-em-up.

[Deckard]

Looks like they did one in 2 weeks..

[Kemper_Boyd]

iPhone Spore!

[Deckard]

Like this ""This is what we could do in two weeks and 10,000 lines of code. But I don't want to give you my word. So a few weeks ago, we called up a handful of companies, and asked them to send out a couple of engineers each, to see what they could accomplish in two weeks on an SDK they'd never seen before. In fact, most of them had never touched a Mac for development before."

For all you doubters out there...

[Muphex]

Apple need a decent touch controlled shoot-em-up.

What sort of a vertically orientated shoot em up on a palm sized device with mouse inspired touch control? Where would we find such a thing?

[Kemper_Boyd]

Apple need a decent touch controlled shoot-em-up.

What sort of a vertically orientated shoot em up on a palm sized device with mouse inspired touch control? Where would we find such a thing?

I think Gravy is too engrossed to post.

[Misfit]

Like this ""This is what we could do in two weeks and 10,000 lines of code. But I don't want to give you my word. So a few weeks ago, we called up a handful of companies, and asked them to send out a couple of engineers each, to see what they could accomplish in two weeks on an SDK they'd never seen before. In fact, most of them had never touched a Mac for development before."

For all you doubters out there...

No one writes 10,000 lines of useful code in two weeks.

[Kemper_Boyd]

Developer picks the price, 70% of revenue, no fees, paid monthly.

Actually The Steve just said there's one $99 fee to register as
a developer in order to publish apps.

[Deckard]

They had to go with iTunes - malacious apps on the iPhone would be a publicity disaster even though it wouldnt have been Apple's fault. All available in June

[WiteWulf]

I can't remember who it was who needed it but from the ongoing SDK talk...

802.1x support

/me is, indeed, very happy

[teamonkey]

Cisco VPN support and Exchange compatability?
Man, they are really going to sell a ton of these now.

...and the real killer app: ActiveSync!

Developer picks the price, 70% of revenue, no fees, paid monthly.

Actually The Steve just said there's one $99 fee to register as
a developer in order to publish apps.

Does there have to be a price? Can there be free downloads?

They had to go with iTunes - malacious apps on the iPhone would be a publicity disaster even though it wouldnt have been Apple's fault.

I don't think it would be a huge problem unless it's worse than Linux, Symbian or Windows Mobile. They've just realised they could make more money with a captive audience.

Still, despite those misgivings it does look quite a powerful suite of tools. Are you able to dev for it on non-Macs?

[Kemper_Boyd]

Apps can be free but a developer needs to pay $99 to get a signing key.
They'll probably do some basic checking to make sure you are who you
claim you are. Apparently there will also be a $299 enterprise key for
companies who want to use the iPhone for vertical applications, with
internal distribution (a private push method I would guess).

The $99 is no big deal I think, I suspect they are charging mainly to stop
ten bazillion 'developers' signing up. Even open source groups should
easily find the money, many projects I use get thousands and thousands
in donations. Anyone with a good open source idea should have no trouble
getting enough money to pay for the key. The $100 million fund may even
support useful open source and free projects.

[Jimaroid]

They had to go with iTunes - malacious apps on the iPhone would be a publicity disaster even though it wouldnt have been Apple's fault.

I don't think it would be a huge problem unless it's worse than Linux, Symbian or Windows Mobile.

It's a non-issue. Application distribution for mobile devices has never been done well and as a proven, working, means for content distribution for portable devices we're unlikely to see any better than iTunes.

As a one time mobile phone software developer I can happily say that nothing created by mankind will ever be worse than having to develop with ActiveSync. I think I'm looking forward to getting my mitts on this one. First time I've been interested in mobile development again for years.

[teamonkey]

Nothing is persuading me to get an iPhone more than the fact that I currently have to use ActiveSync to sync my phone.