Just four days after Apple announced that the beta version of the
iPhone SDK would be available to developers, some 100,000 downloads have taken place. 'Course, it's not like we're shocked by Cupertino's latest horn tooting, but we've all ideas that number pales in comparison to the amount of
requests for unlocks. Nevertheless, the real news from the Apple camp is that companies such as Namco and PopCap are apparently on board to bring titles such as Pac-man, Galaga, Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle to the iPod touch / iPhone via
App Store. Furthermore, Six Apart's CEO admitted that it's already developing a "native iPhone application for TypePad," and the VP of THQ Wireless implied that we'd be seeing some of its wares surface here as well. As for release dates? Your guess is as good as ours.
posted Mar 12th 2008 9:28AM
I can't write anything in Objective-C... but I downloaded it anyway...
That iPhone Simulator sure is freaky...
I find objective-c to be a little too objective for my tastes. I think I'll wait for a more subjective one.
In other news, Google's Android SDK has reached over 700,000 downloads, without advertising or even a real device out.
-D
http://androidboards.com
and it's been out... how much longer?
i bet only 10,00 of them 100 thousand can write in xcode
the point is, can they write objective-C in xcode? :D
if u can write in objective c $$$$
They gave several developers the SDK early to see what they could develop in 2 weeks. Some of the developers have no experience in xcode, objective-c, or even development on a mac prior. Electronic Arts developers said they have never developed on it, but were able to get the SDK, and within 2 weeks develop Spore. The guy that did the CRM (salesforce?) said he had never developed in those languages and was able to play around and get an app working in less than 2 weeks.
The SDK is supposed to be top notch. I don't think it will take people (the smarter ones) very long to get used to it.
Write in XCode? The iPhone SDK requires you to write applications compiled in Objective-C against Apple's frameworks, but XCode itself will let you use quite a few languages, such as C, C++, Java, Ruby and Python, so take your pick. Objective-C itself is just C but extended to incorporate object-oriented principles (any valid C is OK in an Objective-C application and Objective-C compiles down to structs and procedures). If you already know C then you're away and running. C++ is probably helpful to know but Objective-C is a bit more Java-like in its object-oriented design rules (e.g. no inheritance from multiple parent classes) so you might have to unlearn some stuff.
I downloaded it. I'm going to try to learn xcode and make some simple applications. Its gonna be fun.
me too! the transition from c++ or java to objective-c cant be that bad can it?
and 100,000 * 2gb. ouch. i feel sorry for apple and their servers.
dude, that is less than an hour of traffic at most video sites. YAWN.
But it isn't a video site...
If you already know C then that's a good start. I'm a very novice developer with prior experience of Java only so Objective-C is definitely strange in comparison but also more readable at times. While he's taken his time about getting another edition out, I'd recommend picking up a copy of Aaron Hillegass's "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cocoa-Programming-Mac-OS-X/dp/0321503619/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205359553&sr=1-2), which is finally being updated for OS X 10.5. It's not quite going to be the same as developing for the iPhone (it uses Cocoa Touch rather than Cocoa as its framework for the interface) but it'll teach you the basics of Objective-C, XCode, and get you writing applications. Best of luck.
I wonder how limited the games are going to be in terms of control since the iPhone lacks physical buttons. On my HTC Touch, I can't play Worms World Tour simply because there aren't enough keys to map for movement, jumping, shooting, etc. I realize the iPhone has accelerometers, but those can only be used for so much.
Still excited to see what comes out though!
I imagine that it's going to be hard to shoehorn existing games onto the iPhone because of the control scheme. The interesting thing will be to see what comes along when developers start developing original and deep games from the ground up for the iPhone.
Most games will be reworked. I hacked my iPhone a while ago and played the NES emulator. It had the nintendo controller buttons on the screen to press. It worked VERY well because the iPhone screen is a lot more sensitive and can recognize multiple touches. Something like that would not work very well or even be really possible on a Windows Mobile phone because compared to the iPhone. I imagine on-screen controls would be used. The screen is big enough, and the device is sensitive enough and recognizes multiple touches that it will work and work very well.
The sensors on iPhone are sensitive enough that playing games like Monkey Ball actually feels like you are controlling a wooden table with a ball on top of it. And first person shooter games would be natural because of how it will work. Accellerometer for aiming, a button on lower left to hold down for straffing, buttons on the right for weapon switching/grenades/etc, and touch everywhere else for shooting ... and that would work. iPhone screen is good enough to make it work ... not possible on WM phones like the HTC touch.
It's going to be like the Wii - it'll likely take some time before developers figure out how to make games for a totally different control scheme. It's highly unlikely that the iPhone will be suitable for most games made today due to the reasons that you already stated. However, if it's done right then it could be pretty cool. Driving games where you can use the iPhone as a steering wheel are going to be a blast. Here's hoping that a version of WipeOut appears...
Objective-C + Xcode = hmmm
C++ under Eclipse wasnt good enough?
Sheez, off to the bookstore, oh and I need a mac too. :P
Positive iPhone news -> Engadget main page
Negative iPhone news -> Dumped on Engadget Mobile, two days after everyone else reports it (see: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/03/11/iphone-sdks-seedy-underbelly-reveals-painful-limitations/ )
BURN!
But honestly that is VERY SKETCHY of this website...
Why didn't you have that news on your MAIN website Engadget?
So first you guys complain because Engadget has Apple stories, but now you're saying you don't have a problem with Apple stories, just as long as they make Apple look bad. Make up your mind, haters.
@clak
Nope, you made that up. That guy is complaining about the fact that if Engadget publishes Apple news, at least they should do it coherently, and not screen bad news.
Spot on Rich, not only was it posted on there secondary website, it was posted afterhours.
Engadget, can you make your Apple bais a little less obvious please.
"Positive iPhone news -> Engadget main page
Negative iPhone news -> Dumped on Engadget Mobile, two days after everyone else reports it (see: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/03/11/iphone-sdks-seedy-underbelly-reveals-painful-limitations/ )"
He raises a legit point. Virtually all iPhone news gets rushed to the main page of Engadget, but yet they decided that they were going to sweep this to another site days after it was seen elsewhere?
Aren't Apple fans at least a bit puzzled at this? Or is it as long as they tow the party line, they wont question it.
You guys have short term memory lost, I guess. This Engadget that seems to be so biased for Apple, seems to be releasing a lot of negative stories about Apple and that's just in the last few days. Like this one where Japan orders an investigation after the iPod Nano exploded:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/12/japan-orders-apple-to-investigate-exploding-ipod-nanos/
Or this article on March 11th where Engadget suggests that Apple let people "do what they want with your devices, since they're clearly going to do it anyway. That way, instead of making enemies, you're making lifelong buddies."
Oh, Engadget, will you stop with the sucking up!
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/11/iphone-dev-team-jailbreaks-firmware-2-0-before-its-out/
Another story about exploding iPod Nanos! Oh, Engadget, when will you stop fellating Steve Jobs! Honestly!
March 8th: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/08/ipod-nano-sparks-bedroom-fire-no-humans-harmed/
#1 the story about the exploding batteries has to do with company that made the battery than Apple as many companies have had the same issues with the same manufacture. So how is this negative about Apple?
"Or this article on March 11th where Engadget suggests that Apple let people "do what they want with your devices, since they're clearly going to do it anyway. That way, instead of making enemies, you're making lifelong buddies.""
This isn't negative. This is Engadget writing their supposed "buddy" "Steve-O", begging him to see how much they love him and to acknowledge that love by just giving them what they want so their love for Apple can grow that much more. I've seen the rants on this site against products from companies like Microsoft. If you think that story was against Apple, then your bar is pretty darn low.
Call me when they allow developers to multitask on the device. Its 2008 people! Even my 200MHz Windows Mobile Dash with less RAM allows me to multitask my applications I make for it.
JAmerican
Well, that's sorta why Windows Mobile runs like constipated shit, but whatever.
@ Clak
Oh its that the comparatively better OS is forced to run on shitty hardware.
Windows Mobile seems so outdated when you look at the 3rd party app examples that will be coming out for iPhone and compare it to the same WM apps. And to realize they were only done in 2 weeks? AIM looks 10x better and has a few more features developed in less than 2 weeks than its WM counterparts. WM is also not very efficient. SEGA has said they underestimated the iPhone when developing Super Monkey Ball. They had to treat the phone like a console rather than a mobile phone and had to fly in more people to UPSCALE everything to look good on it. I had a Tilt for a while and I would not consider that thing a very good 3D gaming platform. iPhone on the other hand has an OS very well capable of handling 3D graphics will OpenGL and 3D Sound. So you tell me which OS is comparatively better. Give it time, the gaming scene for iPhone will engulf WM just because it is a whole lot more capable. And i'm willing to bet that the 3rd party app scene will be better as well with much higher quality software. We have already seen that in simple 2 week sample development apps. Those apps are 10x more impressive than the WM counterparts, even after being developed for a very short amount of time.
It's not that it can't do it - the existing applications show that it is quite capable of multi-tasking but I think the issue is how to allow this without causing the core applications to suffer from other applications running in the background from consuming the resources. Ultimately, it has to be able to do the core functions, particularly taking or making phone calls, without impact from other applications. I'm waiting to see how this pans out before making a judgement. With the exception of applications like instant messengers when you want to know that you've received a new message in the background, applications that save state when quitted and restore that state instantly are probably much better than ones running in the background.
LOL. I heard a Microsoft fanboy blogger saying that no one was downloading the SDK because you had to have a Mac to run it. Do these idiots not know that thousands of people develop for the Mac platform?
I wonder if developers who usually don't develop for Mac will use it to work on the iPhone and then say "hey, this Mac ain't so bad" and make games for them too. I highly doubt it, but it would be a hell of an interesting side effect.
I downloaded it and only have windows. Out of my excitement I didn't notice it was Mac only.
Not to be rude, but anyone with experience would have noticed the file extention of the file being downloaded and instantly would have known it was not an app for Windows. You can just give me a link with absolutely nothing else and I will instantly cancel the download knowing it was not for my Windows PC just by looking at the filename and extention.
Call me when iPhone Version 2.0 is announced and is capable of this "multitasking" that seems to be very commonplace among smartphones.
Sorry Jobs but still no sell wiht me. I've got an iPod and I'd love to get a freaking iPhone but so far all the complaints about the iPhones features (or lack thereof) have severly turned me off.
That and the fact that you're so controlling you won't even give people a discount who work for certain companies like other phone companies allow.
You see, that's exactly why some people will never understand why Apple is successful. Your definition of innovation is to copy what all the other smartphone makers are doing. If Apple had followed that line of thinking, they would have had a zillion buttons on the iPhone. Apple succeeds because they tailor the user experience to the platform.
You're like all those people that complained about the original iMac not having a floppy drive, who went on to complain about the iPods not having a removable battery or radio, who went on to complain that the iPhone didn't have a removable battery, who hated the MacBook Air because it didn't have a removable battery.
Now you same people are complaining because Apple doesn't multi-task like all the other crappy smart phones. That tells me that Apple is doing something right.
multitasking is considered copying?
And please spare us the "the iPhone is 100% original" speech, because only a Kool-aid drinker still believes that.
@ clak
So your saying that users do not like or benefit from multitasking OS? Enjoy your DOS.
Let's see, iPhones run OS X, which is very good at multi-tasking. I know because I have a Mac. I have seven apps open right now, and I'm shuttling back and forth using Spaces. So if Apple is limiting that function on the iPhone, it must have something to do with user experience, right?
So yes, including multi-task would have been copying what bad platforms do. Apple probably looked at the user experience on Windows Mobile and wondered why it was so slow as a software platform. Hmmmm, I wonder what conclusions they came up with? Maybe, just maybe, call me crazy, it had something to do with Microsoft trying to port their desktop operating experience to cell phones with a fraction of the hardware power of desktops. Nah, it couldn't be that. Forget everything I just said. That's just too crazy.
@fred
Let's see, iPhones run OS X, which is very good at multi-tasking. I know because I have a Mac. I have seven apps open right now, and I'm shuttling back and forth using Spaces. So if Apple is limiting that function on the iPhone, it must have something to do with user experience, right?
So yes, including multi-tasks on the iPhone would be copying, because that's exactly what all the crappy smart phones do. Apple probably looked at the user experience on Windows Mobile and wondered why it was so slow as a software platform. Hmmmm, I wonder what conclusions they came up with? Maybe, just maybe, call me crazy, it had something to do with Microsoft trying to port their desktop operating experience to cell phones with a fraction of the hardware power of desktops. Nah, it couldn't be that. Forget everything I just said. That's just too crazy.
Just one of many reasons I so love my Sidekick LX and would never trade it in for an iPhone, despite using Macs since '84. The Sidekick has AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Mail, Browser, unlimited SMS, a real PIM, SSH, and a real keyboard, which the iPhone will never have. (The iPhone does have a better screen -- I do have an iPod touch, so I'm pretty aware of the platform's few advantages and many limitations. I'm amused that the "best iPod ever made" can't even be controlled without looking at it, and lacks many features of the real iPods, such as album shuffle.)
"So if Apple is limiting that function on the iPhone, it must have something to do with user experience, right?"
Riiiiight.
Tow the line if you must. Just when Apple does put multitasking on this thing, Im sure you will be the first to say "No, it's not copying", and then to tell us how glad you are to have it.
No. Clak is saying that if/when Apple decides to have m-t on the iPhone, it is because the hardware is actually capable of supporting it in a manner that will not put off users.
uggghhh so much fanboy BS. can't read anymore.
I swear if Popcap gets Bejeweled working on the iPhone BEFORE it works on Leopard my wife is going to have a conniption fit!
Go to www.popcap.com on your iPhone right now. There you go, Bejeweled.
I'm still waiting to hear back from them about my application to 'join' the iPhone dev program for $99. I registered my corp on Thursday, but haven't gotten a single email about it. Other places I have read indicate no one has heard anything yet from them.
Yup, in the same boat here. Given there is 100k developers with the SDK I wonder how many will pony up the $99? 20%? Perhaps Apple is screening the developers and is just overwhelmed. Annoying either way.
ZOMG PEGGLE WOOT.
Gesundheit
Over nine-thousand iphone sdk downloads!
I've got some experience programming for Windows, but have been thinking about trying some Mac programming. This looks like the perfect opportunity.
The fact of this story is, that the iPhone is a viable, legitimate platform. Both for business, consumers and games. If you've watched the SDK video at all, you can see the high resolution capabilities of the iPhone/Touch, and console level games playing right now. The developers wrote them within weeks. Crawl under a rock if you will, but Apple has their competition running around like chickens with their heads cut off in panic at this moment. Summer 08, or for that matter, the rest of the year moving forward is going to be quite exciting for iPhone/Touch users.
Yeah, Apple is getting a lot of developers (finally) to see how good Objective C is, and once that happens, there will be a ton of new Mac software as well. As if the Mac didn't already run everything in existence (even runs Windoze better than a PC, if for some reason you actually wanted to run Windoze software... for the viruses I guess...)
"console level games"
I had to LOL a little on that one. Well... maybe consoles from several generations ago, but anything can do that.
NIck, have you not seen Sega's demo on the iPhone? Super Monkey Ball? They flat out said that was not a cell phone game, that was a console game running on the iPhone. Since that's better than what's on any other phone in existence, I don't really understand how you could downplay it.
" Apple is getting a lot of developers (finally) to see how good Objective C is "
In reality Objective C is not much different from C/C++. It only has very little syntactical and practical differences. What programmers have to learn is not the new language but rather the new framework (available classes/functions).
@Nick
Your joking right? SEGA has stated that they underestimated the iPhone and had to treat it like a console rather than a mobile phone. Their demo of Super Monkey Ball for iPhone looks exactly like something I played on my PS2 ... exactly. And it was just as fluid. Only difference is controls are better because of the tilt sensors. Even a generic game Touch Figher which showed 3D space ship shoting at oncoming ships looked like it was done on a console ... very fluid.
So, if it can do PSP style graphics, I would say it is capable of "console" style gaming. At the very least, you can say it is not on the same scale as any other mobile phone including Windows Mobile. As a gaming platform iPhone seems to perform better than everything else that is a phone when it comes to 3D gaming.
Yes, I've seen the Sega demo and honestly, those graphics and game physics are not all that complicated or impressive. We saw the same type of gameplay and graphics out of 15 year old consoles (Sonic The Hedgehog anyone?). Mind you the iPhone only has a 320x480 resolution, not 640x480 that a standard definition console has, and much less than this generation of consoles are pumping out. And they are likely even rendering the game at even a lower resolution than the screen has.. my guess is that it's rendered at 160x240, then scaled up. That said, even the several year old PS2 version had, to quote gamespot, "aged graphics".
Not to take away that it might be a fun game and kudo's to Sega for making it mobile, but don't get tricked into thinking the iPhone has PS2/Gamecube/XBOX/Wii/PS3/360 capabilities just because they took a "console" game and re-wrote it to work on a phone. Remember, even Pong was a "console" game.
Nick, you clearly don't get it. Your comparisons with 15-20 year old systems are completely worthless (really, Sonic was in 3D? Really? And so was Pong?), and the point is that Sega was able to port a console game to the iPhone in 2 weeks - at least in a form that was playable. Not only that but they had to res up their artwork to match the iPhone's output.
We are talking about console games from the last generation here, i.e PS2/Gamecube. Not the Genesis. Name any other phone that you can say that about. Name ONE. Obviously the biggest problem is going to be lack of a standard controller interface, but it should be pretty clear at this point that the iPhone is powerful enough to outclass every other phone on the market in terms of game quality.
Look at the demo again. It's running a game from the last gen of consoles, at what looks like at least 30 FPS while looking just as good as it did on consoles. Downplaying that kind of capability is inane, and it makes you look like a troll. I mean come on, are you blind? The fact that they could do that at all is impressive enough, never mind that they did it in 2 weeks. It bodes very well for developing games for the iPhone. VERY well.
It's obvious that Nick is a TROLL. Clearly in denial of the iPhone/Touch real world demonstrations of its capabilities. If he does reply, be ready to see a list of typical TROLL phrases. These replies have quite a bit of commonality among TROLLS.
Not to get too far off topic here, but it's interesting how Apple touts Xcode as a rapid app development toolset. It's really not. If you want to see RAD in action, MS Visual Studio is a good example. How easy is it to make a simple app that lets you click a button to display a message? Just drop a button in the window, double click the button, and the "onClick" stub code is generated for you. Then you just plug in MessageBox.Show("Blah blah"); and you're done.
With Xcode.. it's a little more complicated, from what I've seen. If Apple made it so you could select an object like an NSButton and flip through a list of events like onClick, onDblClick, etc, and have it auto generate the stub function for each of those, it would be a huge time saver.
Note: I'm not an MS fanboy, I actually dislike Windows quite a bit. But I do miss RAD in C#, and find myself wishing Xcode allowed for such speedy development. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about any of the above, though.
Have you seen the podcast on the SDK demo?? That is more rapid development for mobile than anything MS can dish out. He wrote code, clicked one button and you know what happened? It compiled, transfered to iPhone, added a launcher icon, and ran it all in one button click! How much more RAD can you get? Show me where you can develop a WM application on a PC, click one button and have it do all that including send, install, and automagically run my new program on my Windows Mobile device.
In his demo, "HELLO WORLD", he changed the text color from white to yellow and clicked the button. It compiled, replaced the version on the iPhone, and automatically ran it, showing the new yellow version on the device instantly.
I think that Visual Studio may be quicker in this respect. In the video all they did was show some text on-screen so there was no GUI wired up there. I'm a bit rusty at the moment but I think that in XCode you would create a method in your application controller class, open the applications main NIB file in Interface Builder, drop in an NSButton, and then connect it to the method you defined. If I recall correctly you define the methods that you want your interface to interact with and then wire the elements to them. However, in different to what I think you describe for VisualStudio, you wire the elements directly to the methods they should call rather than an onClick method. It should, however, be noted that hooking up your interface to your data model is bonkers easy with Cocoa Bindings and Core Data - I believe that Objective-C 2.0 also makes this process much faster with auto-generation of getter/setter methods for instance variables.
I really need to get back into this and stop playing bloody World of Warcraft since then I might be able to give better answers...
@fred
Let's see, iPhones run OS X, which is very good at multi-tasking. I know because I have a Mac. I have seven apps open right now, and I'm shuttling back and forth using Spaces. So if Apple is limiting that function on the iPhone, it must have something to do with user experience, right?
So yes, including multi-tasks on the iPhone would be copying, because that's exactly what all the crappy smart phones do. Apple probably looked at the user experience on Windows Mobile and wondered why it was so slow as a software platform. Hmmmm, I wonder what conclusions they came up with? Maybe, just maybe, call me crazy, it had something to do with Microsoft trying to port their desktop operating experience to cell phones with a fraction of the hardware power of desktops. Nah, it couldn't be that. Forget everything I just said. That's just too crazy.
Bravo clak!. Absolutely brilliant!!!
whas this triple posted?
Steve Ballmer's reaction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4
best video ever
Skype, please, please Skype!!!!!
Capcom really should port Phoenix Wright to the iPhone not for PC.
HELLO CAPCOM!
Also is xcode hard to learn? It looks like C, but that went over my head. Can somebody suggest a good website or book for xcode?
Already posted in reply to another comment, but "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" is considered the best book on the subject and the 3rd edition (which covers OS X 10.5, whereas the current 2nd edition is for 10.3) is due for publication in the next couple of months (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cocoa-Programming-Mac-OS-X/dp/0321503619/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205359553&sr=1-2). In the meantime, I'd start here for a few tutorials to get you going: http://cocoadevcentral.com/
soo much fuss being kicked up for a stoopid sdk for a stoopid phone by the stoopid people who own the stoopid phone...
At least, those stupid people know how to spell. You, on the other hand.....
You left out the brilliant iPod Touches . . . *cough* . . . it's an SDK for the brilliant iPod Touches also.
I'm imagining an iTrip-sized add-on device that provided some game controller buttons . . .
Of course, Apple would have to allow apps to access the dock connector. And it would be helpful if Apple, through into the SDK, provided a standard way games could access buttons through the connector. Eventually leading to 3rd-party device manufacturers to all come up with all varieties of game button add-ons.
Million-dollar-idea . . . ;)
It just sucks that we need to wait until June to get any apps.
Where is my MOBILE WORLD OF WARCRAFT?
In other news, Google's Android SDK has reached over 700,000 downloads, without advertising or even a real device out.
-D
http://androidboards.com
Google's Android has also been available to developers for a longer period of time....Captain Numbnuts
No. Fucking. Shit.
I love it when people pretend like no one understands dynamics like that, which is precisely why I said "without advertising or even a real device out" to validate my statement. I think everyone on this site knows that the SDK for Android was released in November of 2007. I was pointing out that Android is not a mainstream, highly-advertised platform yet still managed to garner a massive amount of downloads in about 3 months.
Uh... and your point is? 100,000 SDKs downloaded in one week is WAY more than 700,000 over 4 months. I'm sure you can do the math there. If there was a point you were trying to make beyond that, you didn't make it.
I think I clearly made the point that Google has done a phenomenal job to create that kind of market penetration without even releasing a SINGLE device. And Apple does a phenomenal job, too. Especially marketing.
i still cant believe they released it before i died of old age.
From the look of it though, the SDK might make it super easy to develop for, so its possible that we might get some stuff sooner that we think! I want an iPhone now!
This is great news for iphone users. I can't wait to see the resulting apps.
Sean
http://DailyMobileDeals.com
so if u cannot multitask on iPhone, what happens if u are playing a game and somedody calls you?
This has been discussed in other stories before. In a well designed app the user should not notice that the game closed. When something else happens the program would be designed to save buffer or current state and pick up where it left off. So when you run the program again you will be taken to where you were before. This of course, would hamper your multiplayer network games. But we have airplane mode for that. LOL.