iPhone SDK

I suppose that one of the words we can use to describe the iPhone SDK is sexy.

I played a bit with Cocoa a couple of years back so I haven't followed to improvements of XCode. I hear João Pavão complaining about all the bugs but thats about it.

So while watching yesterdays event stream, and while I was looking at the game that the Apple dude wrote in (cof, cof) "two weeks", and all the nice tools, my though was: do the other mobile environments have such a sexy SDK, with such good tools?

The SDK seems better than expected, even for developers who just want to give away your apps. The integration with maps, the photo and pictures, it all seems to fit well. And it all works with both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

The games we saw yesterday, and the fact that you have all that accelerometer stuff built-in makes the iPhone a potential mobile Wii, and I think we will see amazing games for this. I think Nintendo is considering adding a accelerometer to the DS as soon as possible after seeing this. We know (looking at sales of the Wii) that the new controller is the best thing out there (I own a Wii, and my four-years old is starting to be able to control it with precision, scary), so games on the iPhone, its going to he huge.

All this seems like another leap forward for Apple. I mean, competitors like Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, really, do they have the entire package that Apple is offering for download today (err, strike that, maybe tomorrow, the developer site is slashdotted)? And something that you can run on your iPhone and iPod touch today with the beta release of the firmware? My magic ball says: definitively not.

As for the limitations, the two that caught my attention where porn and VoIP over EDGE. The last one was predictable, as a protection to their revenue stream from the carrier deals. But porn, I was surprised. Sure, they don't want to piss off prude consumers, but mobile porn? In a gorgeous screen like that? Dude, iPod XXX series for sure!

The deal to distribute apps ($99 setup, as a "don't waste our time"-fee, and 30% of the price we set for the app) is something I cannot judge. I've never developed for the mobile platform so I don't know how much it cost developers to distributed applications for say, RIM, or Nokia. But on the other hand, no other mobile device producer has the reach of iTunes and the new App Store. Sure, as Rui says often, Apple and the iPhone are a spec in the windshield of Nokia globally, but the ecosystem that Apple is creating is something out of level 18 of Spore.

And jailbreak? sure, the next version will allow you to install applications without the App Store. Thats the logical step for them, to build an alternative distribution channel (I was going to say competitor, but really, it doesn't stand a chance as competitor, but as an alternative, it could be very good). But even so, it will not be worth it for most users, I think.

And me, I have one application I want to write that affects my standard of living. It ties with a e-learning site I operate. The thing is, I'm still running 10.4 on my Macbook and I don't want to change right now, and the SDK is 10.5.2-only. So what is a person to do?

(those iMacs really look cool, and my birthday is coming... hmms... the lower end model is "just" $1100...)