On the iPhone SDK we know Apple has and won’t give us
I sent the following through Apple’s feedback form and by email to Steve. Maybe they’ll finally get the picture. Maybe I’m just dreaming.
I bought an iPhone when they first came out. I have to say, I love it. The design is great, it runs smoothly, and is very intuitive. I have also lately been experimenting with some Cocoa development. I love programming, and Cocoa is a great library. I’m wondering why, since it has been shown that developers can create great applications for the iPhone, you have not released an official SDK. I think this is a lose-lose(-lose) decision on your part. First off, developers (including myself, though I’m not a fully-fledged developer) lose the opportunity to learn about UIKit and develop for devices like the iPhone (and the iPod touch, which can, at the moment, run iPhone binaries). That would be a great learning experience and yeild some fun applications. Second, the end users lose. They get only the applications you decide they should get — that is, ones with basic functionality that are not very customizeable. If you released an SDK, the users could pick and choose their applications, customizing the iPhone to their heart’s content. And, for the less technologically-inclined customers, they could simply leave it at the default configuration. Users would love this. Finally, Apple, you lose with this decision. Think about if other companies and independent developers were able to make iPhone software. What would happen? iPhone sales would skyrocket. You’d get a lot more business, as would those developers and companies. I understand the risk of third-party software causing what has been lovingly called the iBrick, but come on, we can already restore iPhone software through iTunes. What’s the trouble? Just make a clear statement to users that Apple neither supports nor takes liability for what may be caused with third-party software, and inform them that if something goes wrong, either contact the developer of the software and/or restore the operating system. I don’t see your reluctance. We know you already have an internal SDK, you could easily add a bit of polish to it if necessary, and provide it as a free download to ADC online members with a bit of UIKit documentation, along with the other developer tools. I think you’re missing a great opportunity to make quite a bit more money and satisfy end users and developers alike.