“Apple’s iPhone 3.0 software did add some highly coveted features for customers, but most industry watchers said this release was aimed at making the iPhone the most attractive mobile platform for developers,” Marin Perez reports for InformationWeek.
“Consumers have flocked to Apple’s App Store and downloaded more than 800 million apps in about eight months, and developers have created more than 25,000 programs,” Perez reports. Addressing “the amount of hardware features Apple gives content creators access to, [Apple] rolled out more than 1,000 application programming interfaces aimed at letting developers create rich mobile software.”
“‘The iPhone is a platform that’s easy to build a professional-looking app quickly, but the main negative was the software development kit was limited,’ said Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol, which has an iPhone app.’What they did today changed it quite dramatically, and it’s a positive sign for the developer community that Apple’s opening up the phone more with the APIs,'” Perez reports.
“Apple also has opened up the dock connection to let accessories ‘talk’ to the iPhone, and manufacturers will be able to create custom protocols… ‘There’s a whole class of capabilities tying into the physical world that have been talked about for years but haven’t been realized,’ said Charles Golvin, analyst for Forrester Research. ‘This lets accessory makers capitalize on that promise,'” Perez reports.
Perez reports, “‘It is absolutely the most attractive platforms for developers,’ said Golvin. ‘When you include the iPod Touch, you have an audience of more than 30 million users who want to do new things with their devices. The new release gives developers powerful new capabilities to extend rich apps to a hungry audience.'”
Full article here.
