Apple &Rants 11 Jan 2007 02:26 pm
iPhone: no 3rd party app development
Well, this plain sucks, and is really stupid. Best part about smart phones and PDAs, is the ability to develop applications to run on them.
If Apple is worried about crappy performance due to a 3rd party application, they should just create an [optional] Apple certification process that applications can go thru. Then if someone bitches about their iPhone’s performance, they simply can ask: Do you currently have non-certified programs installed? If the answer is yes, they simply instruct them to remove it and try it again, then if the performance is still lacking, then they can take it up.
Though, I do think that after the exclusivity agreement between Apple and Cingular runs out, this will business model will vaporize. Although I wouldn’t be surprized if the iPhone SDK isn’t included in the freebie development kit. Sure, they’ll include basic app support (like widgets, as it’s one of the biggest 3rd party efforts for normal OS X) for the freebie and student ($99/yr.) ADC tier, but a full blown iPhone SDK will probably only be included in the select ($500/yr.) or premium ($3,500/yr.) ADC tiers.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) article: Apple VPs confirm no 3rd party iPhone apps