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3rd Party Apps for iPhone?
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 13:53

I'm surprised nobody pounced on this already...

If I'm understanding the MacRumor's livefeed correctly, they came up with a solution to allow for 3rd party app development without needing a SDK, and as iPhone uses a complete Safari copy, everything you can do with web, you can do with iPhone.

They then claim that it gives good security...

Is this accurate?
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bassplayinMacFiend
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Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2007-06-11, 13:57

The keynote said Web 2.0 + AJAX. There was no mention on the keynote feed whether any development tools would be forthcoming. Probably have to use whatever you currently use to develop Web 2.0 + AJAX apps today.
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 14:00

Yeah, that's right. But in MacRumor, the feed indicated that they demo'ed a app using those technology to show what 3rd party can do.. right?
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bassplayinMacFiend
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2007-06-11, 14:30

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
Yeah, that's right. But in MacRumor, the feed indicated that they demo'ed a app using those technology to show what 3rd party can do.. right?
Yea, they demoed doing a name search on an LDAP server, IIRC.

Even with this, you don't get to access Cocoa, Core*, and the like, which all live on the iPhone. Jobs didn't say but it sounds like you need to have a server somewhere on the internet in order to run third party apps. Jobs didn't mention anything about installing these into the iPhone's built in RAM.
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BuonRotto
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2007-06-11, 14:38

Yup, that's pretty much it as I understand it: web apps are OK on the iPhone, but no local third party apps, no Cocoa/Core* APIs, etc. They have WebKit and whatever else goes into Safari. That also appears to mean that no third party apps can reside at the top level of the iPhone; you have to go into Safari and either find the bookmark or look up the webpage.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
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2007-06-11, 14:43

So...no PDF reader for the iPhone, then?
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BuonRotto
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2007-06-11, 14:45

Safari will probably be the PDF reader.
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 14:58

and would we be missing anything out? It sounded like they can do anything with web technology, and can interface with anything on the iPhone, so I'm not really seeing why it should be a concern that we don't get any native apps to reside on the iPhone itself?
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infinitespecter
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2007-06-11, 15:12

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
and would we be missing anything out? It sounded like they can do anything with web technology, and can interface with anything on the iPhone, so I'm not really seeing why it should be a concern that we don't get any native apps to reside on the iPhone itself?

Think about it this way. You won't be able to access any 3rd party apps anyplace that you don't have a connection to the internet. Which means that you can't rely on having access to functionality. It also means that developers now have to setup dedicated web servers just so that their apps will work, which could get cost prohibitive if their apps are popular. Oh, and having the EDGE connection active all the time will lower battery life. Essentially, imagine your Mac not being able to run Office natively, and you having to use Google's online Office alternatives on a slow (ISDN speed at best), unreliable internet connection. Plus, because they can't write software natively, a lot of apps that need direct access to the hardware won't work. You can count out any sort of third party GPS solution, for example.
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 15:18

Hmmm, that's plausible but frankly I'm not really convinced. Seems to me that if you're in area where there's no or weak signal, iPhone is basically just useless, and so are Blackberrys, Treos, and all other smartphones.

As for working offline, I'd think that this would be better done on a laptop, really. Seems to me that it's reasonable compromise, since I'd wage that more than 70% of any given smartphone are being used for something needing an internet/phone service.

So I guess I won't really miss that much...
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Mugge
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2007-06-11, 15:20

Quote:
Originally Posted by infinitespecter View Post
Think about it this way. You won't be able to access any 3rd party apps anyplace that you don't have a connection to the internet. Which means that you can't rely on having access to functionality. It also means that developers now have to setup dedicated web servers just so that their apps will work, which could get cost prohibitive if their apps are popular. Oh, and having the EDGE connection active all the time will lower battery life. Essentially, imagine your Mac not being able to run Office natively, and you having to use Google's online Office alternatives on a slow (ISDN speed at best), unreliable internet connection. Plus, because they can't write software natively, a lot of apps that need direct access to the hardware won't work. You can count out any sort of third party GPS solution, for example.
Are you sure about that?

If I can store a .html file on my HD and read it in Safari, why couldn't I then do the same with an application for the iPhone?
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 15:23

If Mugge's right, then Apple really did come up with a elegant solution of essentially sandboxing every apps and making it much harder to proliferate malicious apps...
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evan
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2007-06-11, 15:48

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
If Mugge's right, then Apple really did come up with a elegant solution of essentially sandboxing every apps and making it much harder to proliferate malicious apps...
that would certainly seem to make sense. If this were any other company I would say it makes TOO MUCH sense... but this is apple, so i could definitely see that being the solution.
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infinitespecter
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2007-06-11, 15:50

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mugge View Post
Are you sure about that?

If I can store a .html file on my HD and read it in Safari, why couldn't I then do the same with an application for the iPhone?
First, something like Google Spreadsheets is a LOT more involved than a simple HTML file. There's a lot going on behind the scenes on Google's servers that you never see. Second, you are assuming that you will be able to store data on the iPhone in such a way that Safari will be able to see it at all. As there are no 3rd party apps (web apps don't count) available, there's little impetus for Apple to make the file system easily accessible. iPhoto, Mail, and iTunes will (and already do) have their own file systems. I still contend that what you are looking at is the equivalent of Google's office applications and nothing more.
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 16:01

But still, the point is that you don't have to use iPhone to write up a report or a spreadsheet. This is better done on a laptop.
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bassplayinMacFiend
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2007-06-11, 16:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
But still, the point is that you don't have to use iPhone to write up a report or a spreadsheet. This is better done on a laptop.
Well, you can't save / run any cool timewasting programs (like games) because you'd need a 'net connection.
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Banana
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2007-06-11, 16:22

Now, that's something more substantial. Yes, that'd be a downer.
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evan
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2007-06-11, 16:24

Quote:
Web 2.0-based applications are being embraced by leading developers because they are far more interactive and responsive than traditional web applications, and can be easily distributed over the Internet and painlessly updated by simply changing the code on the developers’ own servers. The modern web standards also provide secure data access and transactions, like those used with Amazon.com or online banking.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/11iphone.html

contrary to what I said earlier, it would appear that the applications are NOT on the iphone itself.
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kscherer
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2007-06-11, 17:09

It would appear that this is Apple's way of saying, "we sorta kinda maybe gave you developers what you wanted, but not really, so whatever happens from here is not exactly going to please not all of the users of some of our not too distant software developers that can or cannot create neat or not-so-neat kinda apps on their really groovy, mostly useful, but not always, cell phone that could be the all-in-wonder portable computer (not) that maybe isn't kind of going to be."

Uhhh…

So does this really help developers? or not? I am very curious.

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bassplayinMacFiend
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2007-06-11, 20:21

It'll help anyone willing to set up their own personal or commercial app server in order to run whatever software they develop. The apps don't seem to be locally stored so you have to have some kind of 'net connection on both ends in order to be in business. The server would also need some kind of store if you want any kind of data persistence.
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tirminyl
 
 
2007-06-11, 21:36

Google Gears. If Google is developing apps for the iPhone, like has been discussed/rumored. I do not doubt this is something to looked into. This will allow your offline saving and access. It will work great with their Spreadsheets, etc. Or even Adobe's AIR!
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infinitespecter
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2007-06-11, 22:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
But still, the point is that you don't have to use iPhone to write up a report or a spreadsheet. This is better done on a laptop.
Obviously. I was using that as an example. Remember that every other "smartphone" can edit and prepare Office documents and PDF files. Gizmodo put it best... you are talking about the difference between Excel and Google Spreadsheets, A native game versus a flash game, and Mail/Entourage versus GMail. The apps won't have access to any of the iPhones core libraries, so they won't be able to take advantage of things like Core Image or the iPhone interface.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend View Post
It'll help anyone willing to set up their own personal or commercial app server in order to run whatever software they develop. The apps don't seem to be locally stored so you have to have some kind of 'net connection on both ends in order to be in business. The server would also need some kind of store if you want any kind of data persistence.
I'm sorry... how is this a help at all? They could have done this with or without Apple's sanction because the apps exist entirely within a browser. And like someone on Digg said, god forbid a small, one man operation makes a great app that everyone wants to use. He'd go bankrupt trying to pay the bandwidth bills. And hope you need something stored on a server that isn't accessible because you can't access the internet.
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Kickaha
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2007-06-11, 22:10

Quote:
Originally Posted by infinitespecter View Post
First, something like Google Spreadsheets is a LOT more involved than a simple HTML file. There's a lot going on behind the scenes on Google's servers that you never see.
Yup, and that's what Google Gears is for. I wouldn't be surprised if we see GG appear on the iPhone in short order. (Meaning in the next six months or so...)

Edit: tirminyl beat me to it.
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Electric Monk
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Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2007-06-12, 01:14

Look guys, it's really not the same.

Can web apps do plenty of neat things? Sure. Are they anywhere close to desktop apps? Well, no. Local storage (is important), speed (is important and web apps rely on either EDGE, which is slow, or WiFi which you can't expect), multitouch (is awesome, but all you get is what you can use in Safari on the iPhone and I personally can imagine some great cool ways to use multitouch) and so forth.

As it is I'm certainly unhappy, and I can totally feel the developer pain.

Think of it this way—You know what a widget can do in OS X? Web apps on the iPhone, much much less. Sure widgets don't do much, certainly less then plenty of web apps, but widgets have the potential to all kinds of stuff using OS X—web apps are hugely limited.

I'll quote Daring Fireball:

Quote:
If web apps – which are only accessible over a network; which don’t get app icons in the iPhone home screen; which don’t have any local data storage – are such a great way to write software for iPhone, then why isn’t Apple using this technique for any of their own iPhone apps?
I expect Apple will put out an actual SDK at some point, but telling developers "your app will crash AT&Ts network" and "you can make apps for the iPhone, they're called websites" is insulting. Just tell them straight up that a) SDK ain't ready and b) you will get an SDK eventually or 1) no SDK, full stop.
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bassplayinMacFiend
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2007-06-12, 08:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by infinitespecter View Post
I'm sorry... how is this a help at all? They could have done this with or without Apple's sanction because the apps exist entirely within a browser. And like someone on Digg said, god forbid a small, one man operation makes a great app that everyone wants to use. He'd go bankrupt trying to pay the bandwidth bills. And hope you need something stored on a server that isn't accessible because you can't access the internet.
That was my point.
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Doxxic
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2007-06-12, 08:47

But Google Apps at least are getting off line versions.

I can't imagine that Apple even suggests they're opening up the iPhone for 3rd party apps, if you just can't run them when offline.

What exactly makes all of you so convinced of that? Isn't this just people repeating eachother? It seems so stupid...
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BuonRotto
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2007-06-12, 08:52

I guess the question should be" how would an internet-based app work if run offline? Part of it is asking what those apps might be, what they would need -- if it's input from the 'net in any case, who cares, but if it's saving data somewhere, uh oh. Also, how complex can a web-based app be to be used offline. Gosh, I have never run a web-based app offline, and haven't thought to try or why I would need to!
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AsLan^
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2007-06-12, 09:30

For an app to run offline it still needs a web server backend. Unless Apple enables Apache (or other web server) on the iphone it's impossible to run any kind of offline web application.
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joveblue
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2007-06-12, 09:43

I think they're banking on the fact that most iPhone users will have access to EDGE most of the time, if not Wifi.
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dfiler
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2007-06-12, 15:03

My take is that Apple had two reasons for not announcing a public API yesterday.

1) Web apps are nicely sand-boxed. Apple is just getting used to making phone software so perhaps they're still pondering what sorts of freedom to give apps. It is better to delay 3rd party developers for 6 months than to poorly architect a new device/platform.

2) A public API takes much longer to do properly than does an initial release of a private API. When a stable and full featured API is ready, they'll polish off the documentation and bundle it with their other development tools. The reasoning for this is that the inital release APIs are likely still in flux. As Apple gets more used to their own toolkit, it will rapidly mature, becoming both more stable and more full featured. The same thing was done with many of the now public APIs in OS X. They were private until stabilized and debugged. If these API were released earlier, they would piss off developers and users as each update broke 3rd party apps.
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