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Apple Welcomes iPhone Developers with Open Arms with App Store

Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 2:15 PM - by

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled App Store, the company's system for distributing third-party iPhone and iPod touch applications, on Thursday. App Store will let users find and install applications directly from their iPhone or iPod touch over Wi-Fi, according to CEO Steve Jobs.

App Store will let users browse categories that include business, games, finance, lifestyle, health, and more. Once an application is installed, App Store will alert users when updates are available, too.

Developers interested in distributing their iPhone and iPod touch applications will have to join the developer program for US$99, and will have access to the software developer kit later today.

Distributing an application through App Store doesn't require any extra fees, although Apple will take a 30 percent cut from each app sold. Developers can set their own app prices, and free programs will be distributed without any costs, hosting fees, or bandwidth charges.

Companies hoping to distribute porn apps, malicious apps, or programs that invade user privacy, however, will have to look elsewhere. Mr. Jobs said those programs are off limits and won't make it to the App Store.

Users looking to get their hands on applications through App Store will have to wait until June. Apple said that's when iPhone and iPod software update 2.0 will be coming out, and that the update will be free for iPhone users. iPod touch users will pay a "nominal fee" because of the way Apple accounts for iPod touch sales.

Apple's iPhone SDK and App Store are good news for developers. Prior to the SDK release, developers had to create hacks to build and install apps on Apple's handheld devices, but now they will be able to create their products with the company's blessing.

While there will still be a market for unauthorized apps and hacks, the demand for those will likely dwindle as more Apple-blessed apps come to the App Store.

[Thanks to ars technica for information about App Store.]

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Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:02 pm

"iPod touch users will pay a "nominal fee" because of the way Apple accounts for iPod touch sales."

When have they ever said it was because of accounting?

Apple charges because they are greedy, not because of accounting issues.

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Intruder said:

member since 07 Jul 2004 with 3149 posts, TMO Mac Specialist, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:25 pm

Anonymous wrote:
"iPod touch users will pay a "nominal fee" because of the way Apple accounts for iPod touch sales."

When have they ever said it was because of accounting?

Apple charges because they are greedy, not because of accounting issues.

And you would be wrong.

Watch the video. Jobs makes the statement explicitly.

Just because you wish it to be because of greed does not make it true.

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BurmaYank said:

member since 22 Oct 2003 with 27 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:58 pm

Will the iPhone SDK prohibit all application multi-tasking?

This news looks pretty bad to me! (I wish I understood it better) Is this guy wrong in his conclusions?:

Quote:
"Apple restricts 3rd party developers with lack of multi-tasking on the iPhone"

(by Matthew Miller March 9th on ZDNet)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=934&tag=nl.e622

... However, after reading more about the iPhone SDK ... the news of lack of multi-tasking took me back to 2002 (launch of Palm OS 5 and hopes of multi-tasking).

We know that the iPhone can obviously multi-task now with the Apple applications, and even with jailbreaked apps, since you can perform tasks such as initiating an email download and then bounce over and surf the web and then bounce over and check stocks. Buried in the 100-page iPhone Human Interface Guidelines of the SDK documentation is the following statement:

Quote:
Only one iPhone application can run at a time, and third-party applications never run in the background. This means that when users switch to another application, answer the phone, or check their email, the application they were using quits. (p. 16) ( http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/07/iphone-sdk-some-of-the-details-arent-great/ )

Wow, there goes all the plans for those great Instant Messaging applications that would provide you with notification and keep you logged in while you use your device with other applications. Something like an IM application would work if you only used Apple’s applications in conjunction with it, but with what I imagine will be a large selection of 3rd party applications there would be no way to manage how people use their devices.

One of the main reasons I rarely use Palm OS devices is their lack of true multi-tasking. There are some Palm applications that developers wrote to multi-task as best as they can, but you can’t surf the web, leave the browser and go do something else and then come back and expect to be just where you were in the browser again. Windows Mobile and S60 have multi-tasking support on their devices and these operating systems manage running applications pretty well. Based on how the iPhone has performed for me over the last year, I think Apple does an even better job at managing their multi-tasking in iPhone native applications and it is a shame that 3rd party developers will be limited with their applications.

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