The monkeys guarding the iPhone are about as reliable as kids on the back of the school bus when it comes to "inside information" of any kind.

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Calm down for Pete's sake. It hasn't even been released yet and when it is it will iPhone v.1.0.

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Let's wait and see. I'm sure were going to see the iPhone and the iPod open up to developers once the interface and hardware becomes more standardized. Apple will be to the pocket what Microsoft will be to the desktop. They're very long term thinkers.

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Remember that Widgets can include any amount of native (Carbon/Cocoa) code in bundles that it calls out to (and they can call back into the Javascript). So, in theory, anything's possible, though clearly it's not as easy as making a normal OS X app.

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If you can save-as in safari then you can run Javascript crap.

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If you thought it would allow you to install ANY application, then you were dreaming, but I think it's pretty likely that it will be possible for developers to make things specifically for the iPhone. I certainly hope so -- it'll make it essentially a PDA.

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I actually have a hard time believing it runs a full version of OS X. Does it have the core technologies of OS X? Yes, but this is a very good question. If I can't run VLC, I may not be interested. Plus, I want to see a demo of iCal support. Remember, this is all 1st gen, pretty good still, eh?

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Yea, i'd have to agree with the poster above. Anyone who expected to be able to run normal OSX apps on the iPhone just because it has OSX under the hood is smoking something.

Yes the iPhone runs OSX, but do not be fooled into thinking its the same OSX found in Apple's computer lineup. It is obviously stripped down to make it lightweight enough to use as the basis for a phone.

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Crud. My only caveat with the iPhone is that it needs to run eReader to be worth my money. Right now I have a Palm and a Sidekick and won't give up either until I can find one device that's better than the two of them. I thought this was it, now I see I was probably wrong. Boooo!

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As a matter of fact it should NOT run just any application, from a user experience perspective. Do you see the same version of Mail.app running on it? Obviously the form factor of the device limits what can be displayed/interacted with, which would dictate a completely different approach to UI design. Notice how most applications on the phone have zero ui clutter and the interaction is constrained to what is "intuitive" (or the most common desired task, really).

What does it mean to minimize, or hide an application? Where would a dock sit? Placing mac os x application complexity would make the phone unusable.

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vlc? but the iphone plays its audio and video using like an ipod system, ie, syncing with itunes. itunes plays .mov & .mp4 video formats. its a video ipod (plays photos, videos & music) and a phone with internet, not a pda or pocket computer.
would be cool if you could though. maybe down the line youll be able to watch your other media files on it.

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The name widget is just that, a name, under that name and screen can be cocoa apps and what we currently think of widgets, all made for the iPhone.
Just called widgets for simplicity, since the are light (after all it's a phone) and aren't part of the system software from witch it has to be clearly separated. You can install apps to simple (not the smart variaty) phones, I'm sure we'll be able.

When jobs said it runs OS X it means it does, it has the XNU kernel, it has a Darwin base and the common frameworks like cocoa, quicktime, WebKit, etc. You can't seriously expect it to be the same version of OS X that is run on a C2D or G5 on an iPhone.

It's like Linux smart phones or PDAs, you aren't running the same Fedora, Gentoo or Debian distro, you are running a special distro, but it's linux non the less

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Yes special iPhone versions of apps will have to be developed for the form factor. The tools will be part of the next XCode that comes out with 10.5. The demoed apps included both carbon and cocoa versions.

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Thing is though, not everyone has just .mov videos or .mp4 videos. I have a Treo 750wx and I can play .avi and .mp4 and .mpg and all the other video formats, including .ogg and .mp3 and streaming internet radio (which is a big for me). VLC does all that for me on my laptop.

I'm just saying that if the iPhone does run other apps, it will be much more expandable. Here's to hoping that it does run user-installable apps. I'm just looking to convergence. I'm tired of caring my 60GB iPod, PDA/Phone. That's why the iPhone is so appealing to me right now.

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Steve never said anything about it running a full version of OS X, just that it was made possible by many of the frameworks that are used in OS X. I definitely wouldn't want to run OS X on a small device with a mobile processor and only 8 GB. That would be abysmally slow.

I'm sure that Apple intends to provide some form of development framework for iPhone widgets. Perhaps this is the motivation behind Dashcode?

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Don't be cheap you know you getting it even if it does not allow user installable apps.

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"The inability for users to install additional applications of their choosing certainly makes me think again about my intentions to purchase the device."

This has to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard a human being say ever. No exaggertation.

"No thanks, I don't want to own the most amazing mobile device ever if I can't run my "bartender" widget on it."

Get real. You will buy it.

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I don't expect to install OS X apps, but I would like to see the ability for developers to have a SDK and make applications available to users (for free or $$) that the user could install ... VoIP clients and other things...

developers would have a lot of fun with this and make the platform more important

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This thing is 95% there for being the prefect device for me. All I need now is to determine the ability to install drug/disease databases that I have now on my palm device (I'm a d octor who loves mobile medical software) . Then I'd be in heaven!

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I highly doubt this is correct.

First of all, I'd bet nearly anything that this phone is NOT running a "full" version of "Mac OS X", which is one of the first things this post claims the attendant said, so that already casts doubt in my mind on anything else he says, especially since every other smart phone/device lets you install apps.

First, Apple refers to the OS as "OS X". Apple NEVER refers to Mac OS X as "OS X" in printed marketing materials; always as "Mac OS X". This is the only place an OS is carefully referred to in printed specifications as "OS X". I think "OS X" is shorthand for the stripped down/embedded/whatever you want to call it version of Mac OS X that may indeed share much of the same features and functionality as the full Mac OS X, and more of a marketing term to get people to understand, "Hey, this is 'OS X', and features the look and feel you've come to expect from Mac OS X."

Second, I know people were imagining just dragging Terminal, Photoshop, Office, and all manner of crap to this phone. Um, no. That's not the way it would be able to work. This is not a full Macintosh computer in the sense that people who are assuming that are thinking of. Now, could nearly any application be written for this, and might it be very similar to writing conventional Mac OS X applications? Sure. Might there even be some crossover? Sure. Hell, maybe widgets will work nearly as-is. But I simply cannot imagine a device in the smartphone/PDA/"next generation communicator" class not letting the user install apps. It defies logic.

We should probably wait and see what the truth is instead of starting off a firestorm of speculation.

Regards,

Dave Schroeder
University of Wisconsin - Madison
das@doit.wisc.edu
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/

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