When reverse engineering, it's sometimes hard to figure out exactly what you're looking at, and what it all means. For example, the iPhone's supported platforms include the following.
Platforms = (M68, N82, simulator);We know what the M68 platform is. It's the iPhone. And we know what N45 is, the iPod touch. So what's the N82? Could it be another member of the iPhone family? Perhaps. It's hard to make that call without any more data -- so rather than worry about N82, let's consider the next entry: "simulator."
Platforms = (N45);
Does this indicate that the upcoming SDK may offer a Mac-based developer simulator, an "iPhone in a box?" One would certainly hope so, and it would allow iPhoneless programmers to begin work immediately without buying devices -- but with Apple it's sometimes hard to tell where things are going. With this SDK everyone is playing their cards especially close to the vest. There's been a lockdown on the rumor channels, and the small trickle of iPhone inside intelligence has been squeezed dry. A simulator would certainly help developers begin their iPhone projects even before any iTunes app-shipping solution had been ironed out.
We know a rather full suite of iPhone development support was in place long before the first unit shipped. There have always been fleeting references to the Shark performance monitoring system that's a Mac OS X standby. Perhaps a full debugging suite (a lot better than printf statements) will accompany the SDK as well.
Speaking of the rumor trickle, the big one that I'm hearing right now is about big SDK delays -- perhaps all the way to WWDC (which makes us think that the big Apple show coming up may not be for the iPhone). It sounds like putting together a public SDK, documented and tested for third-party use, is a huge, huge project, and that Apple is busy hiring people to make this happen. On the other hand, Apple rumors are...unreliable. Could be that Apple is right and ready to ship end of February, exactly as promised at MacWorld.
Something that may slow down the release--if these rumors are credible--is Apple's desire to exercise the greatest amount of security-based control over exactly what the developers will and will not be able to do with that SDK. Although many have assumed that 3rd party developers will be able to build applications similar to the ones currently shipping for jailbroken iPhones, Apple has never announced what form the SDK will take.
Expect an iPhone developer revolution if Apple ships a sandbox, but don't be shocked. And don't be surprised if a simulator allows Apple to delay the release of third-party apps via iTunes for months to come.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-07-2008 @ 10:37PM
Arron McNeile said...
a Mac-based developer simulator, an "iPhone in a box?
oh helll yah.
i hope this is true
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2-07-2008 @ 10:41PM
Kevin Duvall said...
N82 = iPhone 2.0?
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2-07-2008 @ 11:06PM
Kevin Duvall said...
I did not realize that was said in the article. Oops...
2-08-2008 @ 11:01AM
morcheeba said...
... or an iPhone 0.5 software development mockup.
2-08-2008 @ 12:00AM
jeremy m said...
Have there been any information on how these apps plan to be distributed through iTunes? In other words, are we looking at a podcast-like distribution method, or a pay per app method? This is one of the largest questions I have been speculating over about this whole SDK thing. Ideas?
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2-08-2008 @ 12:15AM
David said...
didn't iPod game developers have a simulator?
then again, that wasn't Objective-C
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2-08-2008 @ 12:15AM
vittori said...
M68 = iphone
N45 = iPod Touch
N82 - ????
Since N = iPod Touch , N must be related to an iPod Touch type device. Maybe a larger wifi enabled multi touch tablet is in the works for the end of the month.
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2-08-2008 @ 12:20AM
Alex Klingensmith said...
N82s probably the codename for the larger iPods and the Larger iPhones.... ORRR it could mean the sdk works with iClassics?
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2-08-2008 @ 12:47AM
Mark said...
Of course there is a simulator. Even Palm 1.0 had a PC simulator back in 1999. These days, printf is not a serious debugger, and if you starting to do performance tuning, regression testing, etc. a simulator is basically mandatory.
For the iPhone, the 98% simulator can be written in existing MacOS X code now -- the only tricky thing used to be multi-touch, but that's shipping on the MBA now.
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2-08-2008 @ 12:50AM
Bryan Law said...
Might N82 be the 16GB Model? Maybe there's more changes under the hood. Just a thought...
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2-08-2008 @ 1:06AM
ezequiel said...
http://www.urbanpuddle.com/articles/2006/11/14/new-nokia-n73-firmware
its NOKIA
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2-08-2008 @ 1:28AM
paul turner said...
It's the satellite version of the iPhone from Lost!
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2-08-2008 @ 7:36AM
ianlive said...
Ha! Nice... Fellow Lostie :)
2-08-2008 @ 10:48AM
StrangeBum said...
I totally caught that last night! Every time they showed that damn phone I thought to myself, 'Wow, that is one big effing iPhone!'
But I'm hoping that the SDK is, in fact, delayed. And that the announcement at the end of the month is....new MacBook Pros!! I will not purchase one until they release the latest update to it. And I want to get one ASAP.
2-08-2008 @ 2:03AM
Cintra said...
My eyes must be acting up, I could have sworn it read stimulator :)
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2-08-2008 @ 2:48AM
Achal Aggarwal said...
Bigger news is out...
software unlock for 1.1.2 OTB By geohot.
http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/
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2-08-2008 @ 3:03AM
Fernando Castro said...
nice! thanks for passing the news!
2-08-2008 @ 3:02AM
Fernando Castro said...
I don't know why but I have the feeling that, that N82 may has to something with a project in development, it can the "new Newton" or more possibly, the "iPhone nano"...it makes sense, and I'm sure of one thing, this number has nothing to do with the rest of the line of iPods...nice find Erica!
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2-08-2008 @ 3:27AM
aj_robins said...
My wild-*** guess is that any simulator will only be partial, if one is released at all. The reason isn't technical -- it's political. With a full-blown simulator, you can break the iPhone's security, and there's no way Apple is going to let you do that.
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2-08-2008 @ 6:46AM
Mike said...
Now...why are you people only thinking *software*?
All manufacturers of processors and components for mobile phones develop a huge circuit board with all the components that can go in the final product, so that their costumers can evaluate and develop the firmware on a reliable platform with plenty of test points and bigger connectors, rather than use test run circuit boards for the final product which can have hardware bugs on their own, making debugging a nightmare.
For example, CSR (#1 maker of Bluetooth chipsets) provides development boards which are 10 times the size of the PCB that goes into a normal Bluetooth headset, with plenty of breakouts and test points to aid debugging.
Search "arm development board" on Google images to see what I mean.
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