NYTimes: iPhone SDK at WWDC?

Uncle Steve hinted last week that 3rd party software development would be coming on the iPhone sometime in the future. Gruber wondered aloud over at Daring Fireball just where the iPhone SDK might be that would make this possible. Well according to the New York Times, something is coming at WWDC. An anonymous source "briefed on Apple's plans" said that at WWDC, "Apple intends to announce that it will make it possible for developers of small programs written for the Macintosh to easily convert them to run on the iPhone."

Hmm... "small programs"? That sounds a lot like widgets to me. The obvious question is just how limiting that will be. After all some dashboard widgets out now already tie into the Mac pretty deeply. So even if 3rd party devs are limited to widgets it's still likely that quite a lot will be possible. If we're lucky "small" may just refer to the binary size, and full cocoa apps will be allowed as well.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/technology/04iphone.html?e…

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Uncle Steve hinted last week that 3rd party software development would be coming on the iPhone sometime in the future. Gruber wondered...

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Scott Thompson

Just from what little information is there, it sounds to me like Apple might make the widget environment on the iPhone available to third party developers. Perhaps "Dashcode" will have a "conversion" mechanism.

June 04 2007 at 1:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

andynahman

Similar to utilizing the underpinnings of OS X, I'm sure we will see apps like Adium, using its own underpinnings to provide a new touch oriented experience using Apple's provided iPhone SDK. They want 3rd party apps, and I'm sure they will have some type of 'Apple Certified' program, where we will find open-source and for sale applications, uplodaded through iTunes. Yeah?

June 04 2007 at 1:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

matt

"full OSX" doesn't necessarily mean your standard familiar OS X ui. "full OSX" means all the underpinnings like Cocoa and Core * that make OS X cool are available. Mac apps on the iPhone just doesn't make sense. mouse != fingers. things like standard scrollbars and windows just don't make sense on such a tiny screen. just try using your standard windows mobile pda, or any app on one that doesn't try to break away from the desktop model. they suck. further proof that the whole standard Mac OS X apps on iPhone is rediculous: Just try imagining using iMovie, Photoshop, Adium, Office, or Final Cut on the iPhone. it's just stupid.

June 04 2007 at 10:44 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eric Litman

There are tons of apps that would be nice to have on the iPhone, but by far the most significant omission is an IM app. Let's hope there's enough to the SDK to get Adium ported in some form.

June 04 2007 at 10:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply