iPhone Roadmap Event Metaliveblog
We've all been waiting. Since Apple announced the iPhone SDK in October, every developer and iPhone enthusiast has been waiting to find out exactly what Apple has been promising. Are we going to see iTunes distribution for hobbyists or is it going to be an invitation-only system? What limits is Apple going to put on the SDK? Where is the iPhone and third party development going? Today we find out as Apple unveils its iPhone strategy at its special event and TUAW metaliveblogs it. Join me, Scott, Mat, Brett, various Mikes (Schramm and Rose) as we bring you nearly live commentary on second-hand reports!
Sources include:
The MetaLiveBlog
11:20. Q&A to follow. Event is over, refreshments are being served, Jobs asked the press to stay a few more minutes.
11:15. Doerr introduces Steve Jobs as "supreme commander of the rebels". iFund for the iPhone platform: $100 Million Dollars". (Rose: "Steve Jobs is Adm. Ackbar? That's just weird." Kleiner Perkins is seeding the iPhone with cash like Google is seeding Android. This will encourage people to make apps for the iPhone and the iPhone only. Matt Murphy will lead the fund. Never a better time to create a new company for a revolutionary new platform like the iPhone. VC fund to start companies for the iPhone I guess.
11:15. One more thing: John Doerr, a venture capitalist.
11:15. $99 gets you test your code on iPod touch and iPhone, tech support and distribution.
11:15. The 2.0 Update will not ship until June. That's when the software update allowing applications will ship.
11:10. Nominal charge for the iPod touch firmware upgrade. Download the SDK for free in about an hour. To publish programs, pay $99 developer fee.
11:10. Not an open beta--available to thousands of ADC developers. It's still unclear if this includes free online memberships or not.
11:10. BETA FREAKING TODAY. TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY
11:10. Limitations: No porn (all the guys just groaned out loud on our side chat), no privacy invasion, no malicious stuff. Firmware 2.0.
11:10. For all that we were predicting a lame SDK, this is turning out great! We're kookoo for Cocoa Touch!
11:05. No charge to developers for free apps!! Suh-weet!
11:05. Can purchase and download directly from the iPhone. Devs pick the price, keep 70% of the revenue. No credit card, no marketing fees, paid monthly. I think I'm going to faint!
11:05. AppStore will support both paid and free software. Featured apps, just added, staff favorites.
11:05. Microsoft calls Scott to chat about Office 2008. "Did we catch you at a bad time?" Yes. Yes, you did.
11:05. ITUNES APP STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *pant* *pant* Looks like a cross between the iTunes store and application folder--you use it right from the phone. It's going to be on every iPhone with the NEXT RELASE OF THE FREAKING SOFTWARE.
11:05. Caolo: "Geez, so it's a Wii controller that happens to make phone calls."
11:00. Think about it. iPhone + Gaming == the *real* Pippin. "We had to fly in a developer to upscale the art for iPhone. It's a full console game--we underestimated the power of the device" -- Sega Dude
11:00. SEGA! (They still exist? Who knew?) Super Monkey Ball--"natural choice for iPhone". Two weeks. Done because iPhone is the Dreamcast you've always dreamed about. Or not. Either way.
10:55. PDA medical software. Epocrates. That's something you catch when you don't wear a scarf in cold weather. Lots of doctors are apparently sick of Palm but didn't have anywhere to migrate to. Now there's iPhone.
10:55. Almost an hour in--and still, no iTunes distribution discussion. Blah blah doctors blah.
10:55. Rose: "So these guys got the SDK like on Friday?" Man, Apple must REALLY be pushing things to the line. But it also goes to show what I've been saying: programming the iPhone is a developer's dream come true!
10:55. Buddy icons, status, name. Uses address book. 5 days to build. (Are you getting a sense that Apple is like really into measuring how short the development is?) Multiple conversations--iSchitzophrenia--and switch between chats by swiping.
10:55. AIM. "You've got AIM". Good thing that Arminius, developer of Apollo IM has moved on to other things.
10:55. Salesforce: Proving even an iPhone can be boring.
10:50. Salesforce.com demo. What's Salesforce? Something like Tamagotchi? Mat must still be talking about that Spore thing. Salesforce. Yawn. World leader of "CRM Services". What's a CRM service? And do we care? It features bar charts--so it MUST be good. Customer relationship management. An address book on steroids. Should we be giving steroids to poor defenseless address books? Think of the stationary supplies!
10:45. Mike Schramm: "They need to make all of these demos downloadable. Righ now." iPhone. Best gaming handheld platform. Schram was right. Again. Scott: "iPhone: It's like a Wii in your hand. Wait. That didn't come out right." Character customizer, primordial pond movement via the accelerator.
10:45. The debugger can record the iPhone output and all the debug details. More demos: SPORE! They invited in engineers to spend two weeks developing software. Scott: "Wow! A game that isn't out yet running on an SDK that isn't out yet."
10:40. Mat Lu: "Wow. People are going to look like idiots playing that..."
10:40. Medic! Mike Schramm is suffering from salivary overload!
10:40. Game: Touch fighter--looks like starfox. RIMM down more than $3. Point to shoot, tilt to steer. Demo took two weeks to write. Open GL and open AL for apps.
10:40. Within two days, they wrote an application called touch FX. Kind of like PhotoBooth for the iPhone. Scott: "Next up: Cocoa Lick. Simply lick your iPhone to check your email". Mike Rose: "What is it with these names? Don't they realize they're dealing with a family friendly audience?" Mike Schramm: "How much would you pay for an SDK like this? But wait! There's more!"
10:40. We are still waiting to hear how this will be distributed, how much, and when. Let alone how the iTunes distribution will be handled. Chris U. is betting on $499. Scott adds "All in time for Macworld 2011"
10:40. And we still cannot escape the Curse of Marker Felt. Evillllllll!
10:40. Ars notes that simulator clicks & drags are touch/swipe events.
10:35. With the demo being shown, it is very unlikely that this will be a restricted SDK. Keep hoping for SDK for everyone. Clap! Clap! You believe! You believe!
10:35. Demo shows connecting view layers and control layers. Teh rock! iPhone simulator: runs on Mac and simulates the entire API stack. YAYAYAYAY!
10:35. Debugger shows visual CPU, memory, frame rates of your program. Can work on two apps at once to optimize programs for iPhone battery life (hah, what life?) and performance.
10:30. GUI interface designer. Yes! Less crap with CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, 320.0f,480.0f) if you know what I mean. This does not mean NIB files--they're not used on the iPhone. Probably just frame layout rectangles. Which will still rock.
10:30. Palm is down 0.20--but then again there's not much down to go for that stock. RIM is down almost $2.
10:30. SCM remote debugger.
10:30. Xcode will provide complete APIs for the iPhone SDK.
10:30. Most advanced mobile platform out there. Borrowed heavily from OS X. Dude, we knew. We knew.
10:30. I'm really pleased to hear about the people picker because right now that's a bear to do.
10:25. Multitouch events, accelerometer, people picker, camera, alerts.
10:25. Open GL ES (as expected, the embedded version of OpenGL) Video Playback. But no sign yet of Xvid/Divx. So probably just MP4. Audio Recording (i.e. Celestial framework), no video recording as far as we can tell. Hardware acceleration, GPU.
10:25. Core services: Collections, threading, sqlite, preferences, URL utilities. Looks like no direct access to the hardware/Dock port for accessories. Location-aware applications so Apple *will* make the api public for that. Core Audio, Core Animation (as expected).
10:25. We are now arguing whether it's Cocoa Touch or Cocoa touch. The screen shots say "Touch".
10:25. iPhone dev center down for maintenance.
10:25. Official statement of the record: I am kookoo for CocoaTouch.
10:20. SDKs are like ogres and onions. They have layers. "Cocoa Touch" Just add milk. Schramm has spotted Xcode logo, Safari, Settings, Address Book, Camera and another logo.
10:20. S. Freaking. D. K. Starting today: Opening the same Native APIs and tools to build our iPhone apps. Or something like that. Brett stutters when he types. On the screen there's an SDK box, with an Xcode logo and an iPhone picture.
10:20. Great apps on the iPhone. There are over 1000..what...WEB apps? We don't want no steenkin' web apps dude. Blah blah blah.
10:20. Nike and Disney will use the Enterprise stuff.
10:15. Remote Wipe: Across the Intranets, IT managers breathe a sigh of relief as they now know they can easily delete Project Runway episodes from employee devices at whim.
10:15. Phil is now pushing meeting changes to "Bob". Or Vice Versa. Or something like that. Really, do we have any interest in Phil S.'s meeting schedule? Bring on the SDK. Demoing remote data wipe now.
10:15. New iTunes icon. Music notes instead of that silly arrow.
10:15. Dont' forget kiddies. This is a Phil demo. So if Phil is doing cool stuff, imagine what Steve is going to bring.
10:15. The existing applications will be integrated with Exchange. Email, Contacts, Calendar.
10:10. Heh. RIM is down on the stock exchange as of 1PM ET.
10:10. And we have demo! (Are we amazed that Microsoft is doing this? Nah. They make money from it. M$ likes money. And Apple will make lots and lots of money too.)
10:10. Customers want MS Exchange on the iPhone. Apple has licensed Active Sync.
10:10. All these things will debut in the next iPhone software release.
10:05. Push contacts, global address list, Cisco IPsec VPN, authentication, certificates, enterprise-class WiFi (WPA2/802.1x), security policies, enterprise configuration tools, remote wipe.
10:05. iPhone for Enterprise needs "great email integration" Push, baby.
10:05. Stanford is giving away iPhones to its faculty. They're buying hundreds of iPhones for faculty and staff. (Mat Lu rethinks his academic position. Palo Alto? hmmm!...)
10:00. Phil Schiller will be talking about enterprise. (You should hear Mike Rose's Phil Shiller impression. It's amazing. "Hey there Steve! We've got some rilly cuuul stuff to annance")
10:00. For mobile browsers, Safari pwns 71% of the market. (And just wait until Mobile IE 8. The Safari percentage will be even higher!)
10:00. iPhone has 28% of the Smartphone market. RIM has 41%
10:00. Good morning. Welcome to the Apple event. The Steve is in the house.
10:00. The bewitching hour. We are breathless with antici...(wait for it, wait for it)...pation.
9:57. "You've got Mat!" Mat Lu has just joined us. Yay! Scott asks: "How 'special' will this special event be?". He adds: "If I don't have full Exchange support on my iPhone by this evening I will be... not surprised."
9:55. The intrepid Engadget dudes (Hi Ryan!) are heading in. AOL Employees are sighted--hey! We work for AOL. Kind of. As contractors. Why not us? Imagine: AOL on your iPhone. "You've got Mail! I mean a phone call!"
9:50. TUAWians complain that we never get catered breakfasts. On the other hand, we never get invited to big Apple press events either. But a croissant or two would be nice.
9:30. People are busy arriving and registering at the event. No live "in-line" reports yet but things appear to be subdued. Instead of the Macworld geek crowd, today has journalists and executives mingling with a catered Apple continental breakfast.
