DISQUS

Connected Data: Why we develop for the iPhone or “Swing where the ball will be”

  • sribe · 1 year ago
    Cool. I have some very custom "enterprisey" software on the Mac, and it would be a great fit with an iPhone client. If only I can find the time to extend to yet another project ;-)
  • Sam McDonald · 1 year ago
    I really think you are doing the right thing. These custom java frameworks on a per phone basis really just aren't going to cut it.

    When I look at my future apps I see two phone apps. One iPhone app, and one android app. I think in the near future we are going to see most all of the marketshare (that buys software) on those two platforms.
  • busby seo test · 11 months ago
    Last week i bought two iphone for me and my kid, since he interested to learn to develop app for iphone!
  • RKW · 1 year ago
    But, for those of us who do LOTS of biz emails a day, nothing beats a treo or especially a blackberry for email with the physical keyboard. (I have a touch so its not like I am unfamiliar with the virtual keyboard on the touch and iphone)
  • Robert Eubanks · 1 year ago
    Very well said, sir.
  • Kevin White · 1 year ago
    @RKW:

    Which is great, except for the new - and apparently popular, despite David Pogue saying it's like stale cheese - Storm that has no physical keyboard. Oh, and the QWERTY keyboard apparently has to be specifically enabled in software via some flag to support landscape mode, or else your app - which has a qwerty keyboard on any BB that physically has one - magically only gets the impossible-to-use keypad in portrait mode.

    (I do product support for a PDA software company who fielded several calls about said issue yesterday.)
  • Perspective · 1 year ago
    RKW: The post wasn't about which phone was better for "biz email". . .the post was about application development and where the market will likely go. No one questions the BBs supremacy with respect to e-mail, but if you want your phone to do anything OTHER than phone calls and e-mail, it's hard to reasonably argue the RIM products are better.
  • RKW · 1 year ago
    Which is exactly why I tend to carry a touch in my briefcase (or coat pocket) daily, and a treo in my pocket. 90% of the time when I use the device, its for email. The other times its for surfin or finding something. Usually, if wifi isnt available, evdo and the browser or pocket express on the palm gets it done. But.......in a lousy antiquated way.
  • Peter · 1 year ago
    Actually, I would question it. I have a Blackberry Curve for work, and an iPhone for my freelance/personal business. And I much prefer the iPhone's keyboard. While I miss the search feature that BBs have, there is no question for me regarding which I prefer, for email, and everything else: the iPhone.
  • color_chart · 1 year ago
    Im a website developer and because I build applications for websites and portals I always have to consider which browsers to build for. Obviously I try to find middle ground which meets most of the specifications of all the major web browsers and some of the smaller ones too. Im no expert at building application for mobile devices so I was wondering if there is no middle ground between the blackberry and Iphone or are they so different that you have to build two seperate aplications for each..
  • Dan Cornish · 1 year ago
    Objective C and Java are completely different. We have to support two
    different code bases. There is no middle ground. IN adition we have to
    support different UI code for different phones. This is the main
    reason we do not want to support the Blackberry.
  • zvisus · 1 year ago
    Dan, I'm interested in knowing how you build your iPhone enterprise app business case, because the technology is new there are not many executive types who carry an iPhone for work yet. How did you guys justify the cost of developing an iPhone app at this time?

    I'd like to get my employer to go down the same road but I feel that they'd need to see a pretty solid argument for the cost
  • Dan Cornish · 1 year ago
    HI,

    We are in a unique situation in that we are a private software. The
    only justification here was a feeling that I got when the iPhone came
    out. It was the same feeling I got when I first used Netscape on my
    old SGI computer. The iPhone represents an inflection point. By the
    time a very solid argument can be made, it will be too late. So we
    took the leap, and with Apple selling 40k phones a day, and the growth
    of the app store, we had to start swinging the bat.

    I had a Treo and a Blackberry and the only thing that they do is
    email, which at the end of the day is limited. My iPhone replaces my
    laptop. That is interesting.
  • Dave · 1 year ago
    What's with RIM's product names? I'm reminded of Principal Skinner choosing a detergent brand in the laundromat:

    "Let's see: Tide... Cheer... Bold... Biz... Fab... All... Gain... Wisk. I believe today I will try... Bold."
  • Whatismyname · 1 year ago
    If all you think BB does is email then you don't work in a forward thinking enterprise. We are presently extending a number of our internal applications to BB and it's fairly easy. So are being recoded using the SDK with eclipse / .net package and others are being assisted with 3rd party tools (SAP, Pyxis).

    Good luck getting your "app" rolled out to your users without having to jump through Apple's hoops. We control everything via BES / MDS and the security of our internal data is 100% encrypted end to end.
  • Dan Cornish · 1 year ago
    All the Blackberry does well is email. The iPhone is a portable
    computer. The Blackberry is an email devise with a hacked together
    interface for other applications. BTW, I am writing here as a software
    developer, not an in-house shop. Far different economics.

    Silly argument about Apple's hoops, just FUD. We control everything
    and encryption too including 100% end to end encryption and do not
    have to buy an expensive BES. We can control the entire stack outside
    the devise using open source tools, not expensive proprietary MS tools.

    Typical argument of someone who can not see the train coming down the
    tracks.
  • Dazza · 1 year ago
    For an in-house "app" you can sign and distribute it yourself without submitting it to the app store. There are no hoops to jump through.
  • frank · 1 year ago
    this subject its so interesting for me that I did read all the comments and it looks very clear for everybody to stay with the iphone
    what about nokia?
    symbian is going open source and so on, something to say about it?
  • Busby SEO Test · 1 year ago
    This subject and all the comments and it looks very clear for everybody to stay with the iphone
  • Customer Retention · 11 months ago
    I've just bought the G1 phone and rumor has it that the android OS will be dominating the entire market soon enough Iphone will be history soon.
  • gambling · 10 months ago
    It's amazing what you can do with an I-Phone. I'm actually interested in developing my own customized app.