Apple ’s iPhone presentations are traditionally fairly contravene events — are they for mean user or just developer ? Going by the feature article the company demo off on Thursday , iPhone 4.0 ’s disclosed change invoke chiefly to consumer . Unlike 2009 ’s iPhone 3.0 event , where Apple spent a raft of time talk about developer characteristic , Thursday ’s edition seemed to gloss over them for the most part , though two of the most interesting additions — multitasking and the introduction of iAd — could mean a mickle for app makers .
Developers I spoke to were more often than not confirming about the additions — especially when looking at it from the perspective of users of the twist .
“ To be honest , I ’m an iPhone user first and a developer secondly , ” saidApp Cubby’sDavid Barnard . “ So , right now I ’m most excited about all the shiny new hooey … hear to Pandora and other streaming audio in the backdrop , better app organization with Folders , etc . ”
Craig Hockenberry ofThe Iconfactory , which makes Twitterrific , agreed . “ As usual with these events they be given to be user - focalise , ” he said , adding that he was looking forward to investigating the more developer - oriented additions . “ Our genuine excitation begin after downloading the SDK and looking at the young APIs . There ’s a long ton of great stuff in there . ”
“ I ’m more delirious about the user - face feature that were harbinger today than I am about the developer features , ” said Instapaper developerMarco Arment . “ Even though most of what was harbinger wo n’t be relevant to my development priority , I ’m glad to see the platform maturing and adding great features . ”
Two, two, two tasks in one!
There ’s no doubt that multitasking was the star pony of Thursday ’s show , as Apple trotted it outin all-embracing detail , running down seven frameworks that would let developers carry out certain unconscious process in the background . And for both developers and consumers , it ’s a welcome addition .
“ We ’ve all felt the pauperism for the ability to easily throw between apps when performing a project , ” Hockenberry say . “ It looks like Apple ’s solved the problem elegantly , as many of us expected . ”
A big part of that elegance is balance , as Barnard points out . “ If developers were given free reign in the background , battery living and performance would suffer immensely , ” he said . “ Apple has descend up with an elegant answer that should be a lot less work for developers whose feature fit nicely into Apple ’s box , but incredibly intriguing , if not impossible , for developers who desire to venture beyond the walled garden . ”
Arment is one of those who may be left out in the frigidness : “ unluckily , the announced option for background functionality do n’t put up a way for me to sporadically download Instapaper customers ’ new saved articles without the app run . ” Still , he added that he ’s glad the feature will be there , even if he has no immediate plan to expend it .
And while Hockenberry was mum about how multitasking might meet into Twitterrific , he did say that he ’d be taking “ a very close look at it . ”
For Barnard ’s part , it was the Local Notifications functionality that grabbed his attention , especially compared to Apple ’s previous insistence on Push Notifications as the solution to multitasking . “ I definitely design on adding Local Notifications to Gas Cubby and Trip Cubby . I ’ve had several ideas for how notifications might be helpful to users , but they just were n’t the variety of show - stopping features that justify the scuffle and long full term maintenance of server - side Push Notifications . ”
Barnard did summate , however , that he was disappointed to see that Apple did n’t issue a more substantial revamp to the fashion the apprisal system shape — one ofMacworld ’s own disappointments — particularly in terms of the fashion subsequent notifications move earlier single . “ It seems passably backward to me that Apple would implement something like local presentment that could importantly increase the frequency of notifications without first making it more likely that they ’ll actually be seen . ”
Money for nothing
“ The power of iAd is that anyone with an iPhone app , no matter how belittled , can be an advertizing publishing company , ” say Arment . “ This was always possible with a few mass - market iPhone ad provider , but the ads were usually of very poor timbre , and most developer choose not to use them . Hopefully , Apple will maintain high standard for the ads . ”
developer seem tentatively excited about the possibilities of iAd , though they remain curious about many of the item that Apple has not disclose . “ The biggest question is how Apple is going to manage iAd , ” say App Cubby ’s Barnard . “ It just does n’t make any sense for advertiser to pay off the same charge per unit for ads in aNew York Timesapp as they would for a sub - par tic - tac - toe game . ” That ’s been the trouble for other companies such as mobile advertizement powerhouse ( and late Google acquisition ) AdMob , he says .
Hockenberry say the Iconfactory — which currently serves ads in its free version of Twitterrific — will keep a confining middle on how iAd shakes out . But Arment does n’t mean Apple induce into the ad biz will mean the end of smaller , premium advertising networks such asThe Deck . “ That ’s not what Apple was direct , ” he said .
At the end of the day , it seems that Apple itself may be iAd ’s most significant proandcon , as far as developers are concerned . “ I ’d expect adman to feel more confident working like a shot with Apple , ” says Barnard , “ but I counter a lot of confusion and growing pains as Apple gets up to speed . My biggest fear as a developer is that iAd will end up being as much a black box as the rest of the App Store is currently . ”
The long and winding road
While we users have to wait until summer for iPhone 4.0 to arrive , developers have the added welfare of induce to flirt with the beta interlingual rendition now , which means they can start implementing 4.0 - specific feature of speech to wow all us afterward this class . And while most of them had only just started turn over into the SDK when I spoke with them , they all seemed to have high congratulations for the latest translation of Apple ’s mobile operating system .
“ [ iPhone ] 4.0 appear to be an incredibly deep release , ” said Barnard . “ After three geezerhood of iPhone and two years of third - party evolution , you ’d think the pace of innovation at Apple would be slowing not accelerating . ”
Arment pointed out that even the feature of speech target at general user are a blessing to developer . “ The self-aggrandising favor Apple can do for developer is to give us more potential customer , so every feature film that seduce multitude buy more iPhones is great for developers . ”
But the Iconfactory ’s Hockenberry perhaps put it the best , when I asked him if he had anything he wanted to add : “ Nope , ” he say . “ I want to go back to calculate at the SDK corroboration . ”
