Well Apple have announced their offical SDK at last as well as the other gubbins in regard to it all

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/iphoneroadmap/

If you think you may download the kit to mess about with it is mac only and a whopping 2 GIG!!!!!!!

And their Enterpise costs a lot of money
http://www.apple.com/iphone/enterprise/apply/

LOL

Think many will stick to jailbreaking and using their free coding environments to make their apps

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/07/apple-unveils-iphone-plan-world

Basically they are taking the iphone to some form of windows for mobile / google bobile software but their pricey version
It will all look and feel nice but eek the cost and the size - rofl.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7283702.stm bbc iplayer now on iphone
And a wish list from the bbc for the phone..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/03/an_iphone_wishlist_for_steve_j_1.html

Well, its Mac only because youre developing for the Mac platform and it would be impractical to port a full development environment over to windows. From what weve seen and what some people with early access have said it is a really good set of tools.

As for the expense, its free to develop apps, but if you want to distribute them its $99, which includes hosting, bandwidth, an equal chance of being found as the apps from the big guys, no credit card fees and a very reasonable profit share for the distribution. For the vast majority of developers there is no chance they could achieve the same exposure and quailty of delivery service for that cost, as anyone who has tried distributing mobile apps without going through the big players like Handango will assert.

As for the enterprise, $299 to be able to develop and distribute your app within the company is pocket change, especially for the development tools you get.

No doubt there are people are going to point to free versions, but really, an enterprise company who want to roll this out will have no problem swallowing the cost.

Which only leaves the price of the handset, which is costly, but again, if youre looking at it as an enabling solution that will improve the efficiency of your workforce, its small change. If the usability (abd there is nothing on the market that comes close) saves even half an hour a week, the phone will pay for itself in no time.

Size - it really isnt that big. I just checked it against my old Nokia 7110 and its shorter (even without the slide open on the 7110), just barely wider and about a third of the thickness.

If John Doerr is happy to stump up $100 million in VC funding for iPhone apps, you better believe this is going to be huge.

Quote from: GoblinWell, its Mac only because youre developing for the Mac platform and it would be impractical to port a full development environment over to windows. From what weve seen and what some people with early access have said it is a really good set of tools.

Ive not seen the final SDK apple have released yet but if theyve made is MAC specific then thats a choice.  The SDKs theyve combined into the final new release were largely provided as Visual Studio tools.

QuoteWell, its Mac only because youre developing for the Mac platform and it would be impractical to port a full development environment over to windows. From what weve seen and what some people with early access have said it is a really good set of tools.

I have no doubt it will be really good and they look to have made the effort, the size is alarming though.

QuoteAs for the expense, its free to develop apps, but if you want to distribute them its $99, which includes hosting, bandwidth, an equal chance of being found as the apps from the big guys, no credit card fees and a very reasonable profit share for the distribution. For the vast majority of developers there is no chance they could achieve the same exposure and quailty of delivery service for that cost, as anyone who has tried distributing mobile apps without going through the big players like Handango will assert.

I can agree with you on this but if your like us who do it out of fun and of which the majority of the jailbreak comunity it is a lot, they should have expanded it a little more to offer more of a range from the small to the more corparate apps.
A bare minimum of say $20 to get it certified as stable and hosted on itunes for example or something at least, no?

QuoteWhich only leaves the price of the handset, which is costly, but again, if youre looking at it as an enabling solution that will improve the efficiency of your workforce, its small change. If the usability (abd there is nothing on the market that comes close) saves even half an hour a week, the phone will pay for itself in no time.

They should do better features in side of it, I am sure these days it wont harm battery life etc, they upped the size with more chips and kept the same power usage.

QuoteSize - it really isnt that big. I just checked it against my old Nokia 7110 and its shorter (even without the slide open on the 7110), just barely wider and about a third of the thickness.

I got a touch and used a iphone mate I know, size as in the software - 2 gig :O

QuoteIf John Doerr is happy to stump up $100 million in VC funding for iPhone apps, you better believe this is going to be huge.

As it matures I think your right, I got no doubt, maybe my post was a little to negative on the issues and not the good, sorry.
I think this and the google phone platform will be right up there and there are signs MS are pushing to be up there with silverlight heading to nokia phones.

Apps for phones etc I think are just finally start to come to life with rich powerful functions, but like the bbc guy said there is still a lot of work to be done on the actual phone services, they cant cope and they are still to costly to run for poor relative perfomance and if these are the signs of power to mobile devices with the web being a key element to that they all need to buck up their game else everyone will have these amazing bits of kit but the service systems being well outdated and not able to function with all these new apps etc.

tbh.. I dont see what is costly about that if youre developing with the intention of distributing/profiting from the apps.

for the people who just want to play around with the phone then they can still just play around etc..

Are there even enough of these devices in circulation in the uK to make such a prospect financially appealing to anyone ?

The average common or garden iphone user is not technically savvy, theyre fashion victims. So I dont see them buying many applications.

It would make most commercial sense to develop for the most popular platforms, and I would imagine windows ce devices to be out there in maybe 100:1 to iphone devices?

And as for business use - the main reason business devices exist is for portable email & messaging

There is no WAY anyone can truthfully say they can type on an iphone as quickly as i can on my blackberry 8800

And Im sure as hell you cant use an iphone as a mobex.

Two major features that a business device is worthless without.

Mark a number of large companies have asked for this and been keen on it, the video from apple of the announcement shows this and ID for example are interested not just in games on the devices.
SteveF touched on it a bit before about his and work I think but a lot of companies have these as company phones for the fact they have the calender web interface etc and in terms of a company area or campus etc these become very handy tools as well as phones and many have wanted better apps or the ability to make their own along with a number of software and hardware changes.

I think software wise it looks like Apple are now doing this and hardware changes hopefully they will as well

there is still a market for apps for fashion victims though....

its financially appealing to some given that there is some venture capital available for it.

I guess it is still taking a bit of a punt on the future popularity/market share of these things

I doubt these will overtake Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices in the workplace.  Most places with the requirement already have a BES server deployed, or less common they use WM to connect directly to the Exchange server.  Itll possibly have some bearing on future deployments, but companies arent going to pull down their BES server, and replace all their handsets just to get iPhones.  Its essentially a matter of cost.  I dont remember the exact figure for the cost of BES server, but I know one of the places I used to support have over 500 Blackberrys out in the wild.  They are under contract to Vodaphone, and the handsets are free.  While im not sure of the exact cost of BES + Hardware + Deployment I very much doubt itll be anything like the £150000 it would cost to replace the existing system, and that only if they wanted to.  

It is interesting though when you think about it if you take a university campus and staff and the possibilities of news, alerts, and a hell of a lot of other uses or aps they could use to be useful, never thought about it before myself till now

Quote from: neXusIt is interesting though when you think about it if you take a university campus and staff and the possibilities of news, alerts, and a hell of a lot of other uses or aps they could use to be useful, never thought about it before myself till now

local college I worked at had WM devices for staff with phones, and pocket PCs on he 11g network for staff that just needed to have mobile e-mail functionality.  Everyone else just had to use their normal Outlook client.

It should expand the functionality of the iphone significantly and I suspect the people who can afford to buy one (I still dont think its that expensive tbh but hey) will pay for the apps and added functionality.

Proper exchange integration and push mail was really needed for someone using it for work. It simply couldnt do what a blackberry could for business until the hacks and these changes came out.

I think the nice part of this is that it will expose people to programming for touch inputs and non keyboard input.  Thats a skill that everyone in the programming world is going to have to pick up on soon.  Doing it first on a *toy* is probably a good start.

edit: The only way I can see iphone overtaking Windows CE and blackberry devices in the business world is when a decent VoIP system comes out and larger blanket coverage of wireless networks.  If all business calls and email data transfer become free over the internal work networks using VoIP technologies then they become a serious contender.  Im still expecting this to be apple and googles next step.  Totally skip the telecoms network and switch exclusively to pervasive wireless and free phone calls using VoIP.

It still cannot do what a blackberry does.

Where are the mobex features? A business device is becoming obsolete if it cannot act as a mobex

It is not a sensible business device. How can I use it as a 3G modem when travelling?

Apple do not have a monopoly on voip. In fact, theyre nothing in the world of voip. Apple and google are absolute smallfry - in fact - totally and utterly insignificant - when compared to the real players in the world of voip - avaya, cisco and the likes of broadsoft. Its not what google or apple do that will decide the future of voip - it will be companies like Broadsoft who actually build the infrastructure.

Business calls and data transfer are already free in the internal networks of large companies, and large hospitals - with wireless from trapeze (And the inferior cisco offerings) and handset providers such as ascomi. Were already rolling out systems that cover large area building sites - a few miles square. Single PoE n radios are also about to be released

I deal with enterprise installs on a daily basis, and I have never even seen an iphone. They are, as you say - toys - when compared to the business focussed devices. Very nice toys Im sure, but I dont see them getting much enterprise penetration any time soon. They have to bend to standards - not the other way round.