I don't even understand how this is an announcement. Especially a "One more thing" type announcement.

You can make web based applications, and since Safarie has a browser, well, it can browse them.

No Sh*t Sherlock...erm I mean Watson.

if the developers STILL aren't satisfied with the option that steve gave them then they need to shut their whiney mouths. if they don't like it, why don't go and try developing for the effing PALM TREO. try that glove on for size, huh?

web 2.0? yea right, not on any phone that isnt an iphone.

i feel that people are already getting too fussy and pushy about the iphone. why did we forget how revolutionary this product is!?!?! this is THE first new age electronic device! the iphone is the future! developers should feel BLESSED that they can use safari to not only test new ajax apps on their mac or pc but then run them when the iphone comes out... thats just incredible in itself.

at first, steve wasn't even sure if he wanted third party development for the iphone to be possible.

considering that, its a MIRACLE that we get to see developers making web apps for iphone. steve is doing you sorry, selfish developers a HUGE favor.

steve has granted the wish of millions of pushy geeks who were complaining about not being able to clutter the iphone with their niche apps and cracks that threaten to diminish the perfection that is the iphone.

and dan, why are you insisting that this solution steve announced is just, "alright"? what exactly makes it not "awesome?"

steve said earlier they were looking into ways to let 3rd party get on the iphone.

he did exactly what he said he was going to do. but since it wasn't a full blown source code listing with wide open cocoa capabilities like the developers were stupidly expecting, does that mean steve deserves more scolding? no.

he did something very nice and thoughtful. you asked for a pony, he bought you a dog with an invisible fence collar.

because god knows you would have massacred that poor little miniature horse if you had the chance.

look, they already showed how the apps you can develop for iphone can be integrated into the iphones built in features. what more do you want dude?

non-plussed? would you stop with that already? how are we not "plussed?"

yesterday we had no iphone 3rd party development.

today, we do, in the form of web 2.0.

and you should be damn proud.

i wanna hear what you ACTUALLY think about this dan, because i really hope your not just regurgitating the opinion of the pissed off pimple busters who want more than they deserve.

remember, iphone os x is not quite the same as mac os x visually and architecturally, they just use the same technologies.

therefore being a developer for mac os x should not give you a free ticket to run your mouth about the grief youve been through trying to reconcile your feelings about not being able to get one of your apps to show up as an icon on the coveted iphone home screen.

I agree this is a non-announcement. He's telling people what they already know. Obviously, if the iPhone has a browser then you'll be able to write Web sites tailored to it.

However, needing to use JavaScript is hardly a serious impediment to Mac developers. These are the same skills which are required to code Dashboard widgets.

Business users are still going to need to read and interact with Word, Excel, and PDF attachments to email. I don't see that being added via Web 2.0.

I think this would have been much better received if they had been widgets instead of web pages. Even though it'd be almost the exact same announcement, I think being able to actually install a piece of software on the iPhone would have felt better.

yesterday we had no iphone 3rd party development.

today, we do, in the form of web 2.0.

and you should be damn proud.

But presenting that to a room full of developers as the way to write apps for the iPhone runs close to disingenuousness. They wouldn't go out and tell OS X developers that if they want to write apps for the Mac, they should do so on the Web, would they?

Giving developers access to the iPhone functionality is good, but it's also kind of the bare minimum. It's kind of like saying that you can develop for the iPhone—but you're not allowed to use your hands, just your feet.

Maybe this comes down to a difference of opinion. The iPhone straddles the line between the iPod, which is pretty much totally controlled by Apple, and the Mac, which has almost infinite freedom for developers. I think the scale should be tipped more to the Mac side, and you think it should be more on the iPod side. That's fair: we're both entitled to our opinions.

But you're not going to convince me that pawning off Web 2.0 as the solution for 3rd party development on the iPhone is anything other than an attempt to convince developers that a handful of rocks are actually valuable diamonds.

I find this very interesting in light of the New York Times piece on Bertrand Serlet and Steven Sinofsky. If you recall, that piece posited the theory that the OS is becoming irrelevant as all apps would be Web 2.0 apps in the future. Now Apple is saying that is the only way to write apps for the iPhone.

Of course, no one is really fooled. You can send email, make calls, and lookup Google maps. Without direct access to the network though, can you create a VPN client much less a VOIP client? I can't access my work email without VPN software so I hope some more complete solution is coming.

I'm willing to bet that most of the existing widgets we've seen, like Weather, Stocks, Notes, and so on are coded using this interface.

And that pretty much any Dashboard widget we've seen to date (including the 298 games on Apple's site) can be produced using it as well.

Don't cry in your milk too soon...

What thay ahould ha ve done is added a sub-menu for just "apps" that was basically a safari window with links to the apps you have "installed" (liked?) to make it feel more of an application than a web service. Feel free to yell at me, that's my humble opinion...

wait...

do i hear someone complaining that they won't ever see a VoIP client on iphone?

ur joking right?

its a cell phone.... you make calls on it, and then you PAY FOR THEM.

see this is exactly why apple doesnt want people blowing it wide open and using it to make free phone calls using the internet. thats total bullsh*t and they know it.

this is the bottom line people!!!:

-the iPhone is WAY too powerful to be let loose unto the dark underworld of software development. what do you think the ratio will be of legitimate software compared to software with illegal or otherwise ill purpose?

ya you can say "computers have the same problem dumbass" but they are COMPUTERS! not concealed weapons of mass electronic destruction. by nature they are supposed to be able to be manipulated and contributed to by their users. the tech gods have handed over the computers soul to the homebrewers. and look where that has gotten us? (spyware, malware, viruses, not to mention an OS's security and corruption issues.)

the iphone is apples product, just like the ipod, and they want to control the experience because guess what, THEY know how to keep it clean and functional without all the roll on glitter and high heels that come along with badly written 3rd party software. not everyone is an expert in developing for os x. that is, except for the software folks at Infinite Loop.

this is about security!!!!!! do you want your iphone to crash while your using it? no?

okay then leave it to apple to write the apps. anything that NORMAL consumers really need has already been or will be taken care of by apple.

look, just because something is run by UNIX, does not mean that you can treat it like LINUX.

by the way did anyone notice how daniel eran at roughlydrafted.com was SPOT on about this subject before the keynote?

he has an article on it. check it out.

Wes, I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not.

Believe it or not i was being completely serious. i really want all of the open source dorks to STFU. they are the only people who think that this "problem" is holding back the iphone from being revolutionary device, but unfortunately:

they bitch about it the loudest.

digg is flooded with sad soppy stories about "waaaaaaaaah no iphone SDK the iphone is RUINED!!"

doesnt anyone else just wanna explode over this bs? i CAN"T WAIT to have an iphone, plain as can be, 3rd party apps or not. its still THE COOLEST tech product ever made. period.

Wes, this has nothing to do with Open Source. Nobody's demanding that Apple release the source code for the iPhone, or that you need to run Linux on.

Developers are bummed—and rightly so, I maintain—that they won't be able to contribute to this platform. Imagine if when Apple had released the Macintosh in 1984, they'd not even let Adobe develop for it.

Apple's a pretty good company, but come on: they're not going to think of or develop everything that you could do with the iPhone. What's wrong with developers wanting to get a chance to do what they love on the iPhone? It'd be like telling me all I could do was write about the iPhone by regurgitating exactly what Apple says on its website (we're awfully close to that as it is, unfortunately).

That said, I think people are still excited about the prospect of the iPhone. But it doesn't mean they wouldn't or shouldn't have been more excited about it had it been opened to third-party development.

Web and AJAX applications are absolutely a legitimate way for developers to write a killer app for the iPhone.

First of all, as a web developer, it's kind of offensive that folks don't think web apps can be real apps. I guess flickr, picasa, and Google's app suite can stick a fork in it, 'cause they don't count as useful applications.

Second, I don't really believe there's anything a Real User(tm) would want from an application that couldn't be done as a web app. Word? Fine, ever used FCK? Plenty of web-based text formatters out there. Spreadsheet? C'mon, get a MacBook if you need to crunch numbers. Don't tell me you can't read Word and Excel attachments--I can do this in Yahoo! mail.

Third, being an Internet communication device, aren't remotely hosted web apps better suited to retrieving from the net, processing, and serving a finished result than a local app? I'd rather use my bandwidth to get the finished product than waste it gathering all the raw materials, then have my phone do the processing.

Finally, while you can read any website with Safari on the iPhone, a web app specifically tuned to the iPhone display could really be hot stuff, with the added ease that it could also be a widget on your desktop.

I would like to hear specific examples of applications that would be suited to the iPhone and can't be done as web apps.

P.S. As a side note, I think SJ's defense of refusing third-party "installed" apps for stability purposes is legitimate. They're trying to go for a complex phone that actually freaking works. My phone works, but it don't do sh*t. My friends' Treos barf all the time, and let's not talk about Windows Mobile.