Apple today announced that its revolutionary iPhone will run applications created with Web 2.0 Internet standards when it begins shipping on June 29. Developers can create Web 2.0 applications which look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and which can seamlessly access iPhone’s services, including making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using Web 2.0 standards can extend iPhone’s capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.
“Developers and users alike are going to be very surprised and pleased at how great these applications look and work on iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable.”
Web 2.0-based applications are being embraced by leading developers because they are far more interactive and responsive than traditional web applications, and can be easily distributed over the Internet and painlessly updated by simply changing the code on the developers’ own servers. The modern web standards also provide secure data access and transactions, like those used with Amazon.com or online banking.
While cool…not the least bit surprising. So much for the FUDsters…
This news is lackluster at best. I still can’t run FileMaker Pro or Quicken on the iPhone, like I can on my Treo. No iPhone purchase for me!
macbill wow that’s pretyy amazing i didn’t even know FMP and quicken were available for the treo rock on I’m glad you not purchasing one though that means I might to have a chance to get one after I come back from vacation in July.
This sucks. There is only one reason why there is no real SDK. AT&T doesn’t want someone to write a VOIP application. They want you to use their network instead of a wireless IP network when using the phone.
Get ready to be taken for a ride by AT&T everyone. The iPhone will be known as the “device that could have been” but AT&T’s greed will kill it.
@Jeff
Oh please. Go whine somewhere else. You don’t have to keep posting the same thing on every new story. The iPhone is going to rock. You’re already complaining like you’ve looked into the future and have seen that it sucks so much. What an idiot. And who cares if there’s no VOIP!!! It’s a damn cell phone!!! Unless you’re some idiotic highschool girl who has to have the phone to her ear every second of everyday there are many plans you’d never have to worry about minutes with. My whole family gets 1200 minutes that roll over every month PLUS free nights and weekends and we never go over. We’ve got like 7000 minutes saved up.
I swear, some people are such morons. Fine don’t buy one. Leave them for the rest of us with brains.
I’m not entirely clear how these Web 2.0 apps will work. Will you have to download the code from some developer server everytime you want to use them or will the code reside on the iPhone? If you have to download each time what about the tens of millions who live in rural areas where the only connection is a dial-up?
bah, this is just another way of saying that u can only develop widgets for the iPhone. (with the addition of a limited API that gives access to some of phone features)
this cannot be used to develop a skype client, etc…
no VOIP, or AIM, no iPhone for me, i completely agree with jeff; this is the AT&T iPhone 🙁
bloo, u apparently have absolutely have no idea how phone contracts work elsewhere, we pay by the minute here, and for each text message, and we pay over 8 dollars per hour for data.
i could have saved a lot of money if apple had not made that deal, and i will have to pay the full price of 999 dollars for that phone, because such deals are forbidden here.
@Martin
I’m assuming you’re not from the US? oh well, I guess that sucks for you. Plus, if you’re not from the US, you have no idea how everything will work for the iPhone where you live. I’m sure AT&T doesn’t have anything to do with your service, so why are you complaining now when you don’t even know how it will be.Plus, it’s not Apple’s fault that your phone companies like to bend you over when it comes to airtime.
Did you people really think that Apple was just going to come in and not have to play by ANY of AT&T’s rules? This is a business…..people want to make money. It’s not worth doing unless someone makes money. You can’t expect everything for free.
It’s really sickening reading all this negativity today. You people complain like their are better alternatives to what Apple is doing just because they’re not doing things exactly the way you want them to be done. FALSE. Apple is innovating, and that’s more than I can say for other companies. Stop all the damn whining.
Oh, and can someone remind of when they said the iPhone is going to be $999? Never heard that.
1. iPhone is not 3G, therefore you cannot talk and surf at the same time, unless you are in range of a wifi network.
2. No 3G means the phone-as-modem feature, if it is even allowed by AT&T, will be slllllooooowwww.
3. AT&T likely have veto power on every single native app that Apple would put on the phone.
4. iSmudge
@bloo
We’re whining because we are disappointed in the limited scope and number of today’s announcements. Maybe that’s the fault of too much hype in the dozens of Apple blogs or maybe that’s our own fault for too much wishful thinking, but clearly the respondents on this thread are not alone. The rapidly falling stock price makes it clear that the majority of stockholders also were disappointed. It has nothing to do with whether there are better alternatives to Apple. There aren’t. But even a good company can have a weak day, and that’s what this was today. A mediocre performance.
For VOIP you should be able to use jajah.com web based,
Think about it. iPhone will support Web 2.0 apps. We haven’t gotten updated iLife or iWork this year. Are they going to go to Web 2.0 and be useable from iPhone? How about other apps? This could mean that you could use any app that’s available online on your phone! Could you edit a photo in Photoshop’s online edition coming out this year? Could you do your banking online through Quicken or Quickbooks from your phone if they come out with online versions? Is Apple porting Safari over to Windows to make it the interface for Windows users to use iLife and iWork Web 2.0? I don’t think we grasp the magnitude of this announcement. This could be the end of platform dependent software. No Mac specific Version? Who cares.
Most of the folks posting here seem to be missing the point. Perhaps the shareholders are also. (Their loss)
The iPhone is not a platform for yesterday’s heavy client apps. FileMakerPro? Quicken? Come on. If you were hoping for a miniaturized hand-held Mac, you will be disappointed.
On the contrary – Apple is positioning the iPhone as a platform for tomorrow’s web-based applications. Gmail. Salesforce.com. Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Backpack. Flickr/Picasa Web Albums. MyOwnDB instead of FileMaker. Dimewise instead of Quicken.
The whining is predictable. Let ’em whine for they have no vision. While I am fully agreed that Apple and AT&T are doing lots of stuff to meet their business models (duh!), these constraints are also leading to new ways of doing things. And these new ways, albeit baby steps, will lead to larger changes.
Apple is embracing web-based apps as the way of the future, especially on constrained handheld but connected platforms. (Note that Apple has a flourishing local rich apps business in Final Cut, etc.) This concept is actually not even new, even MS has gone this route with Live, except for those who insist on having local apps on smartphones. But this is like getting rid of floppy drives and going to USB.
And it’s just a matter of time before Leopard’s QuickLook and Back to the .Mac comes to the iPhone, and you’ll be able to access and view documents from your home Mac from anywhere in the world. Now about that missing video-out…
Unlike the close-minded whiners, Alec and Ryan really get it. For those who think strategically, Apple is making a huge statement to developers. It really is a Wow! It clearly reveals Eric Schmidt’s role on Apple’s board, and confirms Schmidt’s comments about Apple and Google having common interests.
But that said, there’s still a very important place for Mac Pros and rich pro app software (and even iMacs and iLife), at least until we can have an octo core and omnipresent 802.11n in a handheld without frying our hands.
@bloo
u said “so why are you complaining now when you don’t even know how it will be.”
Apple is not going to include apps on our iPhones that AT&T does not want on theirs.
i’m unhappy because a deal made for the US will limit what i can do with the iPhone here.
yes Apple is responsible for this, they know how phones are used all over the world, and the rest of the world is a MUCH bigger market for phones than the USA (15 times larger ?)
Aha! Found the missing video-out.
It’ll be another $49 Apple gadget, an Apple iPhone dock with power in, and video out to a projector.
With QuickLook on the iPhone, will I be able to show Keynote transitions??? If yes, then that’ll mean even more revenue, so buy Apple stock!
boo wrote:
“Oh, and can someone remind of when they said the iPhone is going to be $999? Never heard that.”
do u really expect the phone to be prized the same in countries were they cannot be locked to a carrier ?
i’m not 100% certain about the exact figure, but obviously the phone is going to be WAY more expensive than 499, because carriers are just not allowed to have exclusive rights to a phone.
phones and carriers are like cd’s and cd players, gas and cars over here, no deals.
@ Alec
photoshop can not be scaled down to a web 2.0 app.
web 2.0 = the web = gmail, google maps etc, not photoshop.
no mark, they are telling (real) developers that they are not welcome.
martin,
wrong. in the not too distant future, web based apps will be used by more people more often than local apps. and i’ve already said in an earlier post that i still believe and apple believes that local apps are very necessary, just not in a connected handheld device).
google. yahoo. microsoft. adobe. the first two have way more web-based apps than local apps. the third sees the writing on the wall but is struggling with how to protect its Office money-making cow through the transition. and even the fourth is spending its innovative energy on the web.
if you plan to make a living developing apps, then you may want to rethink what that means. apple is as it always is and has been and will be – it has a vision of the future, and it will force its developers and users to go along or get lost. so yes, it is telling those few who do not want to follow its vision that they are not welcome. count yourself in or out.
I think bloo works for Nokia. Some of the other posters were from RIM and Sony Ericcson. They’re all losers and do not know how to handle it!
Consider this:
1. What OS does 3rd party apps run on?
None – they run on Safari
2. OK, what does Safari run on?
OS X
3. And on what else…?
Um, Windows XP and Vista
This isn’t the first post on this, but consider that now iPhone programs will run on the majority platform without modification. Apple takes care of the compatibility via Safari. Windows users now have another way to experience Mac programs, and at no extra cost the developers. And the developers have a much larger market for their wares.
Very clever.