On Nov 13, 2007, at 11:09 AM, Gus Wirth wrote:
But there is no way to write your applications in the meantime.
Which means there will be months of delay from the time the
development kit is released until the applications start to roll out.
True, but if you're really antsy (and have an iPhone) you can set up
an ad-hoc SDK by following one of several guides online and get a
head start. Expect APIs to change, though. Aside from the UI and
any possible APIs which might interact directly with the phone
portion of the iPhone, though, all the rest is the same Cocoa
goodness that OS X developers already use. So, while there's a
learning curve, it shouldn't be too steep.
I don't see this as any different than how hardware manufactures
build simulators for their products for test and development before
the real thing is built. Allowing you to write code ahead of time,
test and debug in the simulator before loading it into an actual
device seems like a good thing to me.
I can't argue against that, but right now it's still a waiting game.
I've been thinking about this a bit, and I think I have to say that
Google and Apple may have started on their phone projects at about
the same time. Apple, though, being a hardware vendor, had the added
difficulty of designing the whole widget, from the physical casing
all the way down into the software that it runs. I think this left
them releasing a device with software that wasn't quite fully-baked,
especially when it came to developing apps for it. The fact that
Apple was also cranking out a new version of Mac OS X, and the iPhone
people decided to tap into that effort, probably introduced
additional delays (in both projects). All that adds up to no SDK at
iPhone launch.
Google, on the other hand, has enough of a brain trust (and fewer
distractions, given that they're not developing the hardware, just
the software) that they could seriously buckle down and focus on the
task of getting Android out the door as a solid system. I haven't
had a chance to look at the SDK myself yet, but I'm betting there
aren't many, if any, clipped corners.
All in all, I'm actually happy that Google dropped Android on the
industry. Most phones these days, even the ones with terrific
hardware, are hampered by shoddy software. I have yet to hear someone
actually happy with Windows Mobile (aside from "at least it syncs
with my work mail..."), and there are so many variations of Symbian's
system, which the manufacturers apparently mangle to their own
desires, that it's horridly inconsistent even across models from the
same vendor.
The more sanity we can inject into the US mobile phone industry, the
better off we all are.
I'm also interested to see what the (possible) competition will do
the the iPhone. :)
Gregory
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Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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