Some interesting "iPhone" articles.

Ok, so probably less than a month after having an iPhone, I've been toying with the idea of developing some iPhone apps. Not necessarily to release them on the App Store, but just some personal utilities which do not exist, or I cannot find them on the App Store - can anyone find anything in the App Store, the search, as far as I can tell, is utter poo. In the process of investigating how to become an iPhone Developer, I've encountered a few interesting articles, on different aspects of the iPhone, the App Store & the Mobile market in general. BTW, the barrier to entry as an iPhone Developer is about $100. Without shelling this out to Apple, you only have access to an iPhone emulator in XCode, but will not be able to load any application on the actual device for testing. So anyways, I found this article entitled Caching Apple's Signature Server which appears to be written by iPhone Jailbreak hacker. Besides going into fascinating detail of several methods Apple uses to control what you do with the iPhone, I found the first two or three sections to be a fascinating reflection on where Apple came from (referencing the 1984 commercial) and where they are going (ending up to be the people who they despised in the 1984 commercial). The author also discusses why people do Jailbreak their phones, which, as he puts it, is about choice. Considering the state of the App Store, who can blame them. Which is a good lead in to The Inhospitable Land of the App Store, which I think is almost a required piece for any want to be iPhone Developer to read. The author discusses the risks associated with the App Store business model, not the least of which is the full editorial control App Store reviewers have over the submission and availability of applications in the store. The landscape seems ripe for a monopolistic challenge in the courts some day. The whole scene reminds me of line in the Suicidal Tendencies song Instituitionalized - "Wait, what are we talking about?! We decided?! My best interest?! How can you know, how can you say what my best interest is?" One final article is from Sun's own Tim Bray - Where’s the Mobile Biz? - which is a somewhat more level headed analysis of the overall mobile business, and with perhaps a more hopeful view that the future mobile landscape, stating among other things, that "...what Apple’s trying to do just can’t be scaled up..." I still haven't decided whether I'd cough up some cash to Apple. These articles paint a bleak picture for anyone who might want to be a full-time iPhone developer, which is depressing, but on the other hand, since computers are both my job and a hobby, I could maybe see forking out a bill or two, in order to tinker more with the iPhone and make it even more useful or me.

(2009-09-17 10:29:19.0) // Permalink