What iPhone apps do developers want to write?
The app store is filling up with apps, with more being added every day. Meanwhile, more and more developers are getting interested in developing business apps for the iPhone platform.
There are more restrictions around writing apps for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) than most people appreciate. Apple has some interesting rules about what apps make it into the store, especially worrying about duplicating functionality that is already there. Phone manufacturers and service providers worry that you are going to flood their infrastructures with packet traffic, or maybe figure out some way to divert some of their SMS dollars.
There are not a lot of technical limitations to writing for the iPhone, although the main language (Objective C) and the main framework (Cocoa) have some quirks, as all languages and platforms do. It is an extension of the NeXT platform and still retains elements from the late 1980s, according to an InfoWorld story. All of this is wrapped up inside Xcode, the suite of tools for developing software on Mac OS X, developed by Apple and also used for iPhone programming.
Any old C programmer can tell you that a lot of C coding is detail work. Samuel Kass, a programmer who created a Chess Clock for the iPhone, says, “There are lots of little gotchas, and as someone who’s used to Java, it’s frustrating to have to go back to worrying about explicit memory allocation.” That just makes programming a little more difficult in some ways.
Programmers also feel bound by a number of Apple decisions about software on the iPhone. For instance, they feel that running just one app at a time is very confining, since most platforms allow multiple process threading. This decision requires more coding in more detail in order to play nicely with other apps. There are even legal problems with understanding Apple’s nondisclosure agreement.
Independent app programmers also need to code to the same quality as do internal Apple coders, who will be looking at their work before it can be approved. The framework is rich and the APIs are abundant, though coded at a very low level, close to the hardware. Some younger programmers have never coded at this level before, so it takes some getting used to.
Nonetheless, a lot of developers see the iPhone as a business device at least equal to the Blackberry and yearn to write business apps for it. However, the Apple sales chain seems to have been developed with clever little apps in mind rather than more robust and meaningful business applications, which Apple may prefer to write and sell themselves. It seems to waste a lot of the potential of the iPhone to spend so much effort on relatively frivolous apps.
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January 23rd, 2009
The whole explosion of app development for iPhone is intriguing – especially the guys who are making big dollars. It’s a little bit like the back-room guys who used to write software for Apple IIs and Commodore 64s back in the day. I suspect that it will get harder to create those massive hits as competition increases.
January 29th, 2009
I suspect you are correct, but (like you) am greatly enjoying the present iPhone app moment in the sun.