Attaboy, Steve! Still more digging to do, but Apple finally succumbed to the negative publicity around the iPhone – pledging to open it up to 3rd party developers by February. Here are Steve’s words – and a hasty P.S for iPod touch owners as well.
Many of the readers of this blog – especially this post – were behind Apple’s about face here – I’ll give you more details in a later post.
It’s not an about face. This is Apple’s first public statement on the matter. It never said it would not release an SDK. It just didn’t say anything. The problem is that many people have no concept how long it takes to prepare an initiative of this magnitude — not just the technology, but legal issues, marketing, documentation, etc. If the iPhone is at least two years ahead of competing technologies, releasing the SDK one year after the announcement of the iPhone will not hurt Apple.
It is an about face. Apple never intended an SDK. The iPod has been out for 5 years…where is that SDK?
I’m going to update this post later with more details…
Its called free publicity.
This move has been strategized from the beginning.
Tell the developers that they can’t have something, and wait for them to complain. Get tons of free press.
Then add the SDK you have already been developing since the beginning and get more free press, and look like the hero.
Iphone, price cuts ring a bell…
I don’t think it was an about face.
Apple may have decided to pre-announce the SDK after seeing how much interest there was.
I believe that Apple has had to prioritize. Releasing an iPhone SDK earlier wasn’t possible without bumping something else.
I don’t think it was an about face.
Apple may have decided to pre-announce the SDK after seeing how much interest there was.
I believe that Apple has had to prioritize. Releasing an iPhone SDK earlier wasn’t possible without bumping something else.