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iPhone/iPod touch SDK On The Way

Readers know I’ve been big on Apple opening up the iPhone/iTouch to developers since the beginning. Apple finally came through announcing a SDK will be made available, though not until early next year. It specifically noted Apps will work on the iPod touch as well. About time. All of a sudden these devices went from being cool, but not really worthwhile to having massive potential. Still missing on the iPhone is 3G, but that’s coming, and likely in an ’08 refresh of the product line.

Gizmodo has an interesting banner on top of their coverage of the announcement. Notice the positioning of the Firefox logo. This comes pretty soon after the announcement of the Firefox Mobile effort. Provided the SDK provided is good enough, I think there’s a pretty good chance we will see a Gecko product on the iPhone in the not too distant future. For quite some time it will likely be Minimo based and very simple, not the more robust plans which require Mozilla 2.

On a side note, I’m surprised nobody has managed to get Linux running on the iPod touch yet. I thought that would have happened by now. The iPhone would be somewhat pointless since getting the phone functionality to work would be a real battle.

Some sort of simulator/emulator to aid development would also be interesting, though I don’t think that’s very likely.

Overall it’s great news. Lets see that SDK already!

Below is what was posted on Apple’s site today

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch.

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