The first real challenger to the iPhone is coming in about a week.  There are a bunch of reviews out already.  Apple’s App Store and SDK has already done so much to open up mobile application development compared to the old on-deck model.  But I hope the openness of the Android SDK platform will spur Apple to give us even more access to native iPhone functionality.  Because while it is understandable Apple wants to protect users from 3rd party apps that might abuse those features, it is also limiting the development of innovative apps that have a legitimate reason to access those features.  Plus Apple already has a built in safety net from their App store approval process, which Android store doesn’t seem to have.

• Camera – it is so awkward to force 3rd party apps to switch out to the camera app, take a picture, then switch back and pick a photo from the photo roll in order to get a picture.
• Calendar – We would love to have access to the calendar event creation so when our iPhone list application creates a task with a due date we can add it to iPhone’s native calendar.  Without this access a due date in our lists app is pretty meaningless, because we can’t even generate a notification or alarm because we can’t run in the background.
• Real background app – See above.  Without true background processes, it is not possible to write a simple alarm clock.  Apple’s proposed push architecture is good enough for some apps but it won’t work if the phone is out of coverage.  So it is not possible to write a reliable real time alert, such as the due date example.  I know the stability of the iPhone is important, maybe we can get access to the alarm clock so we can set app specific alerts and notifications.
• SMS – SMS is the most direct way for users to send information to another phon e in real time.  It would open up a host of possibilities if social apps can use SMS to message another phone.
• Music library, phone, etc.

Apple’s own applications can do things that can’t be done by 3rd party.  I hope they will gradually remove those artificial limitations to level the playing field.

Tags: Android, iPhone, SDK

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.