No SDK?

[Ashley Aitken]

On 13/06/2007, at 6:50 AM, Steven Hatfield wrote:

> I am disappointed as well... I thought that Apple would take a 3  
> step approach:
>
> Step 1: Jobs would have announced that in order to develop iPhone  
> apps, you'd need to use Xcode on a Mac with an iPhone SDK...
>
> Step 2: Then Apple would create an "iPhone Certified" certification  
> for apps that could be put on the iPhone.  ...
>
> Step 3: The last step would be to place the app on the iTunes  
> store, where it could be purchased.  At the point of purchase,  
> iTunes would handle the download/install of the iPhone app.

That sounds reasonable to me, but I think you have to give them  
time.  As I mentioned in a previous post Apple likes to wait until  
APIs have "matured" (e.g. been used in a number of Apple apps and,  
perhaps, select third-party developer apps) until they release them  
to all developers (Bertrand Serlet has said it a couple of times -  
compared it to allowing wine to age ;-).

I think there is a good chance they will do what you suggest.  I  
think this is just something for developers to play with whilst we  
wait, and for some kinds of apps it will be all that is needed  
(access to a remote LDAP server, for example ;-).  Apple is surely  
developing a SDK, you don't plan on developing a number of  
applications for a new platform without building an SDK.

Apple (Steve) doesn't like to rush things, especially since they want  
the iPhone to be around for a long time and make them a heap of  
money.  Releasing something quick and dirty just to meet an initial  
wave of enthusiasm could have disastrous results.

Cheers,
Ashley.