News No third party apps on iPhone

[Da Dego]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/01...pps_on_iPhone/

[Techno-Dann]

*handraise*

I'm not paying $600 for some crippled piece of iJunk.

[antiHero]

OK now i am pissed off! I liked it until now but if i cant put any voip program on it i am not buying. Thats the only reason i want a Smartphone

[careyd]

Read the article people!!! Bit tech is spinning this in the wrong direction....here is a quote from Steve Jobs in the article:

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

That means there WILL be 3rd party apps, but Apple will control the API and try to do some sort of 'approval' process for apps. I'm sure it won't be unlike other things they've (and Microsoft for that matter) done in the past.

Carey

[Da Dego]

Right, perhaps you're reading too literally into my words.

Originally Posted by Steve Jobs

"We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

That's the paragraph directly above your quote. Third party apps means that they don't have to be approved by the device manufacturer, to me. EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING written for the iPhone must be approved by Apple.

I appreciate the comment, and perhaps I could have chosen better wording, but I don't mean to spin it - I don't really like sensational journalism, so I certainly don't want to exhibit that myself.. Sometimes, it just IS that bad.

And as for the skype (and other VOIP):

Originally Posted by Linked article

During an interview on Tuesday, he said that Apple had not decided whether to enable a voice-over-Internet service like Skype

[DarkLord7854]

The forum link on the page is wrong methinks btw (it sent me to the main forums)


I had decided to buy one of these nifty (and expensive) devices, starting to imagine all the kind of games and the likes that could be made to work with the awesome touchscreen. However, this news bit is like, a turn off. I won't buy one until I know I can do what i want with my iPhone, I paid for it, 600$, I pay the monthly cell bill, I don't want to be told what I can and cannot put on my phone.

Feels kinda like as if you buy a computer for cheap, and a very good one, but you can't put anything else on it except what it comes with which is MSN, Internet Explorer, and a calendar.

Not really worth it if you can't actually "own" the phone since you can't do what you want with it even though you did dish out 500$ or 600$ for it...
Starting to sound more like a rip-off


Edit:

The article also mentions you can't put your ringtones and stuff on it... Hrm.


Edit2:

There's some unlocked iPhones soon to be ready for pre-order for 900$ (4gbs) and 1,000$ (8gbs) on some sites... scary.

[Ramble]

Why would anyone pay £300-£900 (That much with 2 year contract) for a phone that you can't do anything with.
Both the iPhone and Apple TV are looking like two very weak products now.

[DXR_13KE]

a good name of for the iphone: iRuseless.
wasn't going to buy one.....now.... wont buy one for sure.

[Abom]

I really want one but wont buy it if I cant watch slingbox on it, its a step backwards for me. I just hope they allow 3rd party apps preaproved by apple and slingmedia jumps on board

[eddtox]

How about this nifty little gadget I stumbled across in my travels through the tubes? It looks much more appealing than anything apple has to offer. I know it's not a phone, but in this case I'd rather have that and a really cheap phone than the iPhone. Or maybe they will make one with a phone .

-ed out

[cyrilthefish]

Originally Posted by careyd

That means there WILL be 3rd party apps, but Apple will control the API and try to do some sort of 'approval' process for apps. I'm sure it won't be unlike other things they've (and Microsoft for that matter) done in the past.

Carey

The first few generations of the Windows smartphones worked in a similar way (i started with the First HTC smartphones)
A good proportion of posts on messageboards about the phones was about hacks to disable the program signing so user-made apps could run*.

It took them a while, but Microsoft eventually gave in, replacing it with a system that still initially blocked unsigned aps, but gave you a 'do you want to run this, as it may be dangerous? yes/no' box instead, and everyone was happy.

In short i think this is an extremley bad descision by apple, i see no point to pointless restrictions like these :/


*=was fiddly to do, involved plugging in the data cable while the phone was booting up, had to time it so you connected after the USB driver had loaded, but before windows loaded the security settings had so you could overwrite them...

[malcolm]

I have a HTC harrier, been using it for nearly 2 years now. I've all sorts of dodgy applications on it... being a mobile developer, even a few I've written myself, some doing weird stuff like talking to SQL Servers via web services. I have never missed a call due to it crashing. Never. Steve Jobs is a moron. Who makes a phone with a battery you can't replace? What good is this going to be to the traveling executive compared to his Pocket PC phone with as many batteries as he can afford/needs? Good one Apple. Not the target market? Ok, fine, why put all that other useless crap on it then?

[Duste]

Seriously though, what else would you want to put on? It has everything on it already, lol.

[Stoin]

Battery life will decide the fate of the "iPhone," I use a Nokia N80 and it is great, except that every second day it needs recharged (this is with using a Creative Zen for playing music) and is a major problem, you can't even go somewhere for the weakend without taking the charger with you just incase a long phone call is required. Apple do not lead the world in battery technology (iPods get under 4 hours after a few years use), and while I dislike Sony they aren't bad at batteries (laptop manufacture excluded).

The introduction of a touch screen is not revolutionary because most keypads have shrunk to the point where they are unusable for many, so a touch screen was a necessary and predictable development.

[DarkLord7854]

Originally Posted by Duste

Seriously though, what else would you want to put on? It has everything on it already, lol.

Games, word processor, photoshop,... Lots of stuff

[David_Fitzy]

Why bring an entirely new smartphone OS to the arena Why can't they use tried and tested symbian (or WM5 maybe *hides* )

[DXR_13KE]

they are apple.... and hey does anyone have any info if it has a removable battery?

[Phil Rhodes]

So I can buy iMusic from the iTunes iMusic iStore, and it'll play only on my iPod.

And I can buy an iPhone but it'll only run iPrograms iSteve iLikes.

Yay. Me. Me. Me.

Groan.

Phil

[bubsterboo]

3rd pty software is what makes smart phones and pdas great! You get bored of using the same old boaring crappy program, you go find a new one. You can add countless features with 3rd pty software, i can use my palm as a tv remote now because of that great piece of software called noviiremote. I personally would never want one of these just because of that (not to mention how expensive they are).

The only thing that could persuade me to one is if they managed to get linux going on it.

[shomann]

When I heard (read) the news of the iPhone (and yeah, I was geek enough to read a live blog of the keynote) I was happy until I heard that it was running OS X - then I was on the moon. An Apple PDA/Phone that had decent storage? Score!

Then I heard the initial price tag which put me off some and now the rumors of no third-party apps. I have to wonder which company is at the forefront of this decision, Apple or AT&T Wireless (they are dropping the Cingular name, or so I hear). Cingular/AT&T has been notorious for stripping the base software from their phones in the past and this sounds an awful lot like something they would want to do here in not letting other apps run (VOIP would be a big one, considering the built-in WiFi).

Apple has always had a love/hate thing going with their developers (or so it seems to me, a non-developer). They tend to alienate the best of them by integrating/stealing their ideas and putting them in the OS. Not sure why they would change that philosophy here and not want to take the good ideas from other developers to improve their product for versions 2, 3 and 4. In other words, why lock others out?

I think its still a long time until this product hits the streets and anything can happen. Until then, I am intent to sit back, wait and see just what gets released.

P.S. There has got to be a way around the ringtones thing, assuming it supports MP3s etc as tones...