After much hand-wringing and whinging about Apple’s apparent stance of “no third party apps on the iPhone”, news is coming out today based on a New York Times article that Apple may release a SDK for the iPhone at this month’s World Wide Developer Conference. Rumors around the iPhone have reached a fever pitch the past few weeks, and even the Times has been known to get things like this wrong before, but this is one rumor I’m really hoping pans out. Say it’s so, Steve!
I have this lingering feeling that the "iPhone SDK" is also called "Dashcode"
From the conference last week with the WSJ I think, Steve said that later in the year, they would have their act together with how they are going to enable developers develop with the iPhone. He said their primary concern was with security and stability, but it sounded like they were pretty open to the matter. He also said that porting existing apps was more than just a recompile or a quick move because of the interface differences - no keyboard or mouse and the touch interface and screen size along with the other unique features. I wonder if they'll do a certified app program for business apps, such as a Microsoft Office connectivity app including Exchange connectivity.
It's a tough problem though because a lot of companies will want to put their own in-house applications on the phone somehow. Maybe those could come in the form of mini-apps within a larger system or something that already has hooks in the system. Maybe that's something more powerful than Dashcode, a pretty slick sdk that includes interface widgets and ways to take advantage of the unique interface elements and transitions like changing the phone from landscape to portrait.
It all just makes sense along with the timing - this is a 1.0 product and this is Apple we're talking about. I'm glad they're open at this point and that they're making noises about an sdk at this point in the game.
Maybe I'm just optimistic - I was pretty let down about the "drm-free" clear text name/email tags and the 160 GB apple tv (after *just* buying a 40 GB one) last week so who knows.