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Apple's iPhone SDK is finally released - but frustrates many developers

on 11-03-2008

After a slight delay, Apple released the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone, in response to the huge number of developers wanting to build their own apps for the iPhone. As expected by many however, the SDK falls short on a few fronts and confirms Apple's desire to maintain tight control over all iPhone apps.

The SDK was welcomed by developers as the next step in the evolution of the iPhone. Although the iPhone SDK is free to download, you need to donate $99 to Apple to get the full benefits of the package (sample code, developers videos, full documentation). This isn't an issue for most developers. Instead, what some of them have been complaining about, according to Information Week's Alexander Wolfe, is Apple's tight control over the development of new apps for the iPhone.

The sore point is this: according to Mr Wolfe, "all iPhone apps have to be approved by Apple, will be sold by Apple, and Apple will get a 30% cut of all sales". Although many developers are hoping to earn good revenues from selling iPhone apps, this seems pretty constraining to some. In addition, according to Adam Houghton, developers are contrained in terms of their ability to access certain key multimedia features, such as calendar appointments, music and videos from the iPhone's iPod app.

On top of this, it appears, according to Phonemag, that the iPhone won't run more than one application at the same time. That means if you're running one app and happen to switch to a new one, the background one will cease working. Although it appears Apple did this to make sure the iPhone runs smoothly, it presents an additional challenge for developers.

Let's face it, Apple has literally just released the iPhone's SDK so there are bound to be issues to be addressed and it can't please everyone. We're sure that the next few generations of iPhones and SDKs will iron these issues out and in the meantime, that developers will be able to take advantage of a great new platform for their apps.

What do you think? Should Apple have opened up the SDK a bit more to allow developers to roam more freely amongst its apps? Thoughts, comments welcome as always.

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