Gruber nails it: Using the iPhone web browser to run web apps is not a valid way to claim there are actual third party apps.
Using the same logic, why not claim iPhone ships with oodles of third-party apps, including Gmail? Why not claim you can effectively turn a Windows machine into something running Mac OS X simply by changing the skin? (This belief may be widespread, but it’s not true – it’s just lipstick on a pig.)
Apple can trot up Scott Forstall, its VP of iPhone Software, Platform Experience and Zach Braff lookalikes any day of the year to tell us how you can use multi-touch on images you link to (oh, gee, thanks), how you can link to phone calls and new emails, but the simple fact remains that it’s just not a substitute.
Joe Hewitt – the creator of Firebug and the first page I ever saw using XMLHTTPRequest, the X and in fact covertly also the J and both As in AJAX, and therefore one of my personal heroes – is right in that being able to get access to the full universe of modern web apps on a mobile phone is huge. The point is: we all got that memo five months ago. He’s spectacularly wrong in believing that it’s a valid substitute for a reasonable third-party SDK. You can’t get direct access to any iPhone differentiator – no multi-touch, no tilted view, no standard interface widgets like those alphabetized or grouped lists and no Core Animation. You certainly can’t get your own app icon or even reasonably disguise the fact that it’s a web app.
Imagine, if you will, 1984. Imagine Steve Jobs telling you how easy it is to create your own Mac application – you just have to write out the appropriate ASCII art to a MacWrite document that’s continuously updated. This scenario, with regards to using the full capacity, is just as crappy.
I am sure that I could keep track of the window width to tell if the iPhone is tilted or not.
But yeah: it’s not a substitute, but it’s ok for now.
By nathan · 2007.06.13 14:07
Gruber’s most important point is to not treat the developers like idiots, which they’re clearly doing. I imagine Apple has at least two challenges – 1) prevent Skype from being ported to iPhone, at AT&T’s behest, and 2) figure out if they’re going to monetize iPhone app sales, the way they do iPod games. I do think they’re making a big Cocoa push and will eventually get developers a Cocoa framework to do what they want to do. But guys like me are just going to go over to the new Palm phone instead, as they have a historically open platform and we’ll have a real Linux machine to hack on. Yeah, no CoreAnimation – we’ll live.
By Bill · 2007.06.13 23:02
Palm is great, and I wish it’ll stay along. The original Palm Pilot was without a doubt the first PDA that really got it, and I’ve been a fan of the platform ever since, to the point of cringing when they dabble in Windows Mobile because they’ve been stupid enough to drive an axe through their holistic and well supported solution.
Palm needs to get their shit together, realize that having two financially separate blobs with an umbilical cord connecting them doesn’t work, finalize on a good OS and start pumping out fast and light products. That’s the only way they’ll survive. They’ve stayed afloat since Windows Mobile phones and PDA have heretofore sucked reasonably hard and been saved by their Outlook and Exchange integration, but that’s changing.
The point has been made that the Newton-and-Palm branch of PDAs consists of the good bits of the desktop GUI transported to a small screen. I’m giddy about what will happen to the multi-touch way of doing things – where the interface starts from a reasonably clean slate. For that reason I’d love to be able to develop an iPhone application. If I just wanted to write an app for a cell phone or a PDA, I could have done so ages ago. For me, the new interface (and of course the slick device itself) is a big part of my enthusiasm.
By Jesper · 2007.06.14 18:26