iPhone SDK and Restrictions: Some of the Details Aren’t Great

Obviously Steve Jobs and team didn’t go through all the details today when they announced the availability of the iPhone SDK. It was more of a high level pass. But details are what third party developers need to think about before jumping into the iPhone with both feet.

Last year when Facebook announced Facebook Platform, developers had to decide to ignore it, build for it along with a standard web site, or build exclusively for Facebook. Venture capitalist Josh Kopelman layed out an argument that some developers should immediately build on Facebook v. developing for MySpace, despite the fact that it was (and is) proprietary.

Facebook Platform has its own venture funds to support new startups. As of today, so does the iPhone.

The decision to build an iPhone application is very similar. Some developers will add one to their existing products. Others will go iPhone only.

Should we expect Kopelman to write a new post, urging developers to build an iPhone application as soon as possible? Maybe. But a number of bloggers and developers did some digging today into the fine print, and there are some troubling details.

Some of the limitations were announced at the event today. VOIP services, for example, are basically out of luck. They can access the Internet only via wifi, not the cell networks. That’s a signal of a larger issue, though - that Apple isn’t going to allow applications to threaten any of their revenue streams from the iPhone. Likewise, SIM unlocking is forbidden. But what about other, less black and white applications? John Gruber asks if Amazon would be able to launch an iPhone application that allowed users to buy songs from the Amazon MP3 store. That’s a great question, currently without an answer.

Other limitations can be found in the developer agreement. Developers can only use the published APIs and only in the way Apple says they can use them. Ok, that helps with stability. Applications also cannot write data anywhere except in their designated area, meaning developers can’t modify data from any other applications.

But the single biggest issue we’ve found is in the 100 page iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. It’s a public document, but you must be a registered iPhone developer to see it. We’ve embedded it below via docstoc.

Users can only run one application at a time, and if they leave an application it quits. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it means that you can’t switch away from an application and have it continue to do things. That’s a big issue with the current support for websites on the iPhone - as soon as you leave the browser the connection is broken. With the iPhone, the hope was that an installed application could continue to run in the background and, most usefully, gather and send information from and to the web.

Only one iPhone application can run at a time, and third-party applications never run in the background. This means that when users switch to another application, answer the phone, or check their email, the application they were using quits. (p. 16)

This will be a serious problem for some developers. For example, say a developer wanted to take location information from the iPhone (created via the iPhones cellular triangulation feature) and dump it into FireEagle to keep track of where you’ve been. Well, that won’t work unless you keep the application open at all times, and don’t use the iPhone for anything other than that. Another example: instant messaging applications (we saw a demo of an AIM version at the event today), can’t run in the background and collect messages while you are doing something else. Leave the application to take a phone call, and it shows you offline. The bottom line is - any application that wants to periodically interact with the web to do stuff, won’t be able to on a continual basis.

Perhaps future versions of the iPhone, with additional CPU and memory resources, won’t have this limitation. But for now, whole classes of applications are useless, or are significantly less useful than they otherwise would be.

iPhones Human Interface Guidelines - Get more free documents

Comments

[JIM:]

What a bitter little pill you are.

Apple just laid one of the best SDK's ever at developers' feet.

And 100 million in seed money to boot.

This is unprecedented and will have developers tripping over themselves to publish their apps, despite the imaginary impediments you are placing at their feet in this writeup.

2008 Mar 07 08:42 AM

[Math 101:]

Well said Jim. Obviously Arrington is so busy obsessing over nit picky details that he can't see the forest for the trees.

With this latest news the iPhone is about to blow up, making the iPod fenom look like a hobby.

2008 Mar 07 09:01 AM

[JIM:]

Just what what happens to RIMM...I sold my shares last week, well before yesterday's meeting.

I was planning on watching the two companies battle it out, but it's looking more like 'game over man'...

2008 Mar 07 09:11 AM

[wall street...:]

Another absurd post. I'm a developer and when i compare what i can do with the SDK Apple just released vs what i can do on winmobile, Rim, or palm there is just no comparison. This is a full development environment !

And isn't that what the 4 companies said (and demo'd) after using the beta for 2 weeks ?

So I wish these financial guys (like this bozo) would stick to talking about cash flows and P/E ratios....and stop trying to talk about technology development platforms.

And why no mention that this will be a fantastic game platform with hardware optimized graphics, full access to the 360* motion sensor and over the air game download ?

I could continue but this guy just probably wants hits and not details anyway. I don't know what seekingalpha is....just an opinion blog ?

2008 Mar 07 09:18 AM

[JIM:]

It's simply amazing how prejudiced thinking breeds tunnel vision and a false sense of authority.

And then to go and blog it to the world...

Where, oh where, do these people come from?

2008 Mar 07 09:32 AM

[digivision:]

>And why no mention that this will be a fantastic game platform with >hardware optimized graphics, full access to the 360* motion sensor and >over the air game download ?

BINGO WSG ........ to start ..porting Mac games should be very easy
i wonder if we'll ever get to play guitar hero on an iphone

2008 Mar 07 09:50 AM

[digivision:]

downloading the SDK is a challenge .. I can't even login to the dev site tath's how busy it is

2008 Mar 07 09:51 AM

[FreeRange:]

What a bozo - of course they are going to limit having multiple apps running in the background - he said it himself - limited memory and cpu size - it would be irresponsible for Apple to allow any more than one app run at this time - it would degrade the performance of the entire phone and experience and then this numbnuts would be bitching about how slow and underperforming the iphone is... as we see shrinking of components with more memory and speed, the iPhone will continue to evolve and rock the world... controlling the experience and environment on the iPhone is critical to the successful evolution of such a great product, and prevents it from turning into a dog like MS products. Why don't they just put Vista on it and make this guy happy!

2008 Mar 07 10:17 AM

[JIM:]

I want to be able to multi-task and have 63 windows open in the background and not be able to make phone calls until I close them.

Now, wouldn't that be a phun user experience?

2008 Mar 07 10:23 AM

[Jon T:]

What a bullshit article.

Things are looking seriously bad for anyone not in favour of Apple winning the new global platform...

2008 Mar 07 10:50 AM

[Azazello:]

We are hiring you Michael, starting Monday March 10, to lead our reshuffled iPhone software development team -- courier with your contract to arrive later today, and please, please take a moment to phone me to arrange for Learjet pickup! Thank God somebody is watching our back! Thank God!

2008 Mar 07 11:11 AM

[TA:]

How dare you criticize AAPL! Don't you know there are thousands of readers here you bought AAPL higher and don't want to read anything negative or anything remotely resembling reality?

You deserve to be called idiot, ass, loser, etc for your opinion

All AAPL fans: Support Steve and buy as many iPhones and Macs as possible. He needs your money more than you do.

2008 Mar 07 11:30 AM

[JIM:]

Blah, Blah. Provide some facts to back up your ass-ertion.

2008 Mar 07 11:59 AM

[Zobby:]

I just an article where a reviewer had a high end Nokia smartphone, he complained that the battery quits after an hour of use. But people complain that Apple won't let multiple apps run on the iPhone. I bought more Apple stock today. I KNOW that 3G will happen, that CPU's and memory will increase to allow multi tasking, that prices would go down, that Apple will have more innovative mobile products (all things which seem to be bothering analysts) - whether it's a bit sooner or a bit later they'll get it done and since I've a long time frame I'm not worried about them -- what is important is like Doerr (the guy who financed Google and Amazon) said "the platform" , Apple's mobile Vision, the iPhone (and future Apple mobile products) is the most exciting mobile platform around and the skies the limit. Rarely can you get into a game changing development when a company's stock is so discounted, it's like an IPO.

2008 Mar 07 01:01 PM

[drierp:]

being someone who has 2 applications I'd like to write for the iPhone, these points make one of them impossible without breaking the rules..

And while I wouldn't want 60 background apps killing my phone abilities either, I'd have to say that things like AIM would not work without having some facility for a SMALL background application keeping the connection alive. Nor will their Exchange connector with push e-mail, but being from Apple it won't have to follow the same rules.

I'd submit to further application scrutiny to gain additional privileges, if that were an option.

Anyone notice there's no API to initiate a phone call, text message, or e-mail? or not one I could find as of yet..

2008 Mar 07 02:45 PM

[TA:]

Jim: What facts do you want?

Take a look at the comments on this and other stories, plenty of names being used to describe the authors.

2008 Mar 07 03:19 PM

[peter02l:]

Do you write spyware on you spare time?

What is it with the "hope was that an installed application could continue to run in the background and, most usefully, gather and send information from and to the web."

Here's another gem, "VOIP services, for example, are basically out of luck. They can access the Internet only via wifi, not the cell networks."

Isn't that good enough? You expect AT&T to let you make unlimited phone calls with your data plan? Can you even afford an iPhone, or are you interested in selling hacks to swindle AT&T out of its revenue?

Here's another one: "SIM unlocking is forbidden." Did you serious? You expect Apple to sell hacks and give 70% to guys who will cut out the revenue it may receive from its carrier partners? How is that going to affect the negotiations in China, India, Canada, Russia, and 100 other countries where Apple is hoping to sign deals?

"Developers can only use the published APIs and only in the way Apple says they can use them." This is not an open platform. How do you suppose all these API will be updated and incorporated into every iPhone? Who will be responsible to support the device in case of problems or conflicts? You want to write your own API, go make your own phone platform. or develop for Linux or Android.

As for applications running in the background, no, thank you very much. I can imagine people lining up at the genius bar with "my iPhone seems to be frozen, or my battery lasts only 30 minutes" because there are 15 applications running in the background.

And finally ... "this will be a serious problem for some developers. For example, say a developer wanted to take location information from the iPhone (created via the iPhones cellular triangulation feature) and dump it into FireEagle to keep track of where you’ve been."

I don't know anyone who would want such a feature, or a developer stupid enough to contemplate it for the mass market. I can think of a parol officer of a rich youngster who might require the fellow to buy this app, but he would have to make sure the phone is always on and always charged.

Michael Arrington - one must remember that name. With ideas like that you must be sure to toss any resumé on which it appears.

2008 Mar 07 03:40 PM

[peter02l:]

Sorry about,

"Did you serious?" It should read "Are you serious?"

and

"parol", should be " parole"

and whatever else I mistyped.

2008 Mar 07 03:47 PM

[Jahangir Naina:]

My guess is that Michael didn't get invited to TED and Mehan Asha recently dumped his ass, and so he is vocalizing his hurt by dissing on the iPhone SDK.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much ValleyWag...

2008 Mar 07 10:46 PM

[mjn185:]

Hello to all of my faithful bloggers out there. To answer a question posed by another blog I do believe that Seeking alpha is becoming nothing more than an opinion blog and stops looking at actual investment fundamentals. There are however a couple of good articles that lay out the fundamentals and math used to derive the information. As far as this article goes however I chalk it up to the rest of the bashers of Apple. Full disclosure: While I am long Apple I would sell it the minute that the fundamentals did not support ownership. What these type articles tell you is a bunch of opinions not supported by numbers or important factual data. Most of these writers were silent when Apple was moving up because to come out against it at the time would have looked foolish. Now that a great company has suffered a setback they come in after the fact with their "sage wisdom". They are not financial prophets but merely write stories to suit the current conditions of the stock. True economists would see that the ROE is approx 30% and the PEG ratio is almost 1. The forward PE on this stock is about 19. Who would not be willing to buy this stock at the discounted rate of today. It is and has been a stellar perfomer and growth company. There is no factual reason to believe that they will not hit the mark on their Iphone sales not to mention the ever increasing market expansion of the MAC computer. I am and always will be an owner of Microsoft computers but the new generations are drawn to Apple because lets face it its a better more stable product. This company has found a way to tap into the younger generations desire to have "sexy tech products". As the older generations move out and are replaced with an army of new college graduates dedicated to Apple products we will see a continued increase in their market dominance. This is an investment to own for the long term and it is selling at a large discount. Apple is on sale. To all of those that thought it was a buy at $180 nothing has changed fundamentally. If you dont like Apple there are 1999 other stocks to choose from but before you bash any stock please do some true fundamental analysis.
Thank you to all that contribute their thoughts and God bless our troops.

2008 Mar 08 09:51 AM

[ChristianR:]

"I don't know anyone who would want such a feature, or a developer stupid enough to contemplate it for the mass market."

Lots of people. Disney Mobile has such a feature on their phones that allows tracking and they seem to have a mass market for kids phones and parents who want it. There are a lot of other opportunities here too.

A small background application (you are talking less than 1k of code) would handle a lot of the hard work and use very little battery life.

2008 Mar 08 06:59 PM

[Kiterunner:]

Guys, I would say history is coming back to Steve Jobes again ...and he is making the same mistake as when fighting Microsoft ...only this time, the kid around the block is not Microsoft it is Google.
Guys, the SDK sucks, it is nicely packaged but will allow only mild applications to run on the iPhone, it is more closed SDK then an opened SDK. Google, on the other hand, has a completely open SDK, very easy to work with and having 26 cellular manufacturers behind them...they are going to have 10x of the iPhones in no time with much more exciting applications. I have an iPhone, it is the best cellular phone in the world by far ...but i have a feeling that Mr. Jobes, being vain again ... is going to miss the real big opportunity that Apple has ... Unfortunately for Apple i think Arington is right ..

2008 Mar 11 02:56 AM