Developers race to create app for Apple’s revolutionary iPad

“It can be difficult to write software for a gadget without being able to touch it. But that has not stopped developers from rushing to create applications for the Apple iPad,” Brad Stone and Jenna Wortham report for The New York Times. “For small start-ups and big Internet and media companies alike, the iPad, and tablet computers in general, beckon as the next wide open technology frontier.”

“For many of them, getting apps onto the iPad will be a challenge, at least at first. Apple has provided only a few companies with iPads on which to design and test their software before the device’s release on April 3,” Stone and Wortham report. “The rest have had to make do with software running on a Mac that mimics the iPad, a disadvantage when dealing with a device that Apple is pitching as a new way of interacting with media.

“The few companies that did receive the device — including Major League Baseball, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — have been subject to Apple’s long list of rules,” Stone and Wortham report. “The companies must agree to keep the iPad hidden from public view, chained to tables in windowless rooms. “

Stone and Wortham report, “And Apple has told all other developers who have downloaded its iPad programming tools to remain silent about their apps until later this month. Apple’s addiction to secrecy does not seem to have damped enthusiasm among developers.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]