Welcome to the world of iPhone development limits

Stan Beer
Monday, 09 July 2007 11:32

Business IT - Technology

While hundreds of would be Apple iPhone developers gathered together in San Francisco at the offices of Adobe last weekend to determine just what exactly they can do given Apple's particularly tight constraints over access to its precious OS X, the list of things they can't do continues to grow.

There have already been reports of hackers doing their best to break down the walls of Apple's newest walled garden. Some, such as famed hacker Jon Lech Johansen (DVD John), have already claimed major breakthroughs. Johansen has published a "fix" on the web that purportedly enables iPhone owners to decouple the iPod and Wi-Fi features of their device from the necessity of activating an AT&T phone contract.

However, the weekend gathering, called iPhoneDevCamp, were largely trying to do things the Apple way, that is develop applications for iPhone on top of the Safari web browser. The problem is that even the limitations of developing Web 2.0 applications on Safari are constrained. The version of Safari that sits on iPhone doesn't support Java or Flash, two of the most important platforms for current web development.

So what we are left with is a gathering of developers in a brotherhood of friendly competition and cooperation to see who can develop the best Mickey Mouse application for iPhone. Meanwhile, all the real development efforts are sadly left to the underworld of hackers trying to beat a path into OS X, plus the privileged few sanctioned by Apple.

Not many could realistically expect to have the right to put an application icon on the opening screen of iPhone. However, one would think that being able to create applications with the ability to be able to input data and save them either to local or web storage might be handy. Sorry, an article over on Builder AU tells us you can't do that because you can't even use the iPhone keyboard to create Web 2.0 documents.

So when will we see Skype for iPhone? Maybe never - unless eBay and Apple do a deal to enable Skype to gain access to the OS X on iPhone. What about other widely used IM applications? What about business applications that can edit Microsoft Office documents? How about games that can take full advantage of the iPhone's power?

Sorry that's all locked up for now but you will be able to develop some neat little widgets and a way to flip through your Flickr pics. The iPhone is such a great device with so many possibilities. What a pity Apple wants to keep all the good stuff to itself while throwing a few crumbs to the seagulls.