Apple's SDK Announcement: Boo, Hiss or Near Miss?

by Lisa Hoover - Mar. 06, 2008Comments (6)

Apple announced today that it's releasing the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone. We all know what that means for consumers (more apps!), but what does it mean for open source developers?

Well, that depends on who you talk to.

ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn says the move is simply "a way to forestall bigger market share losses to Google." He says it's also tantamount to Jobs finally owning up to the fact that the iPhone is not just a mobile communication device but actually a computer platform, albeit -- and this is important -- a proprietary one. In other words, any love for open source developers is incidental.

Industry analyst Raven Zachary, on the other hand, says this is at least a step in the right direction. Though Apple reserves the right of approval, he expects the company will "only limit this in extreme situations" and adds "Apple review of all source code ...would have been time consuming and expensive."

Essentially, it boils down to semantics. Yes, Apple has opened up the platform for developers to contribute new apps and tools for its product. But they haven't "gone open source," though it's unlikely anyone expected such a successful commercial company to do so.

In case there was any doubt about where open source falls on Apple's radar, Jobs had this to say at today's media conference, "It will be international, this is not an open source project."

What do you think? Did Apple do enough to include the open source community with today's news, or should they have done more?


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6 Comments
 

They can always do more, but as long as they provide good access to open source technologies that users can take and enhance for the APP itself, things should be good enough to get started. Most app developers will not dig into the kernel code to get their apps going. For me - show me the APIs and give me free tools that I am USED TO to hack away!


0 Votes

My big hope is that all of this will lead to more useful business apps for the iPhone--the area where I think it falls down compared to available substitutes.


Sam


0 Votes

With the rise of Android, they have to get some dramatic apps built quickly, otherwise they could get microsofted on the iphone by google...


You really cannot take on an army of developers! Microsoft got that in the PC world. Google gets it in the web world. Will Apple get it in the mobile world?


0 Votes

When do we see the ability to use a non-AT&T provider!


With the SDK, are the VOIP guys restricted from making clients? Wonder what the phone quality will be over Edge? Or even 3G?


0 Votes

I won't be surprised to see Apple do a 3G iPhone soon.


0 Votes

Wonder how well skype will work on edge. Will ATT tinker with the packets? Can they (I mean legally?)


0 Votes
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