Recently, if you’ve been living on planet earth and more specifically the United States section of planet earth then you’ve probably seen a spike in the number of Apple related news and commentary around the internet. It seems that with the recent launch of the iPad and the announcement of iPhone OS 4.0 there has been lots of scrutiny of Apple’s fundamental computing philosophies, business strategies, and developer relations. Neither of those three are mutually exclusive, as they all form the bigger picture which frames how Apple works in the marketplace.
The most noteworthy and widely discussed bit of news is the latest move in switching up a section in the iPhone developer contract effectively further crippling Adobe’s flash platform on the iPhone / iPad. Despite the magnitude of this change in developer relations, I don’t think this is a watershed moment, but it is definitely worth the discourse. I’m largely (and self-admittedly) lacking in iPhone development knowledge. In the short time that I’ve been working in web development, I’ve managed to meet and work with developers from many different and exciting technology camps. However, I have yet to really learn about iPhone development and how it works. Luckily, I got the chance to talk with a iPhone developer and used the occasion to ask a long queue of questions I was curious about. After speaking with an iPhone developer, I now feel I’m able give my perspective as I (finally) feel better informed about everything.
iPhone developers seem to be split on the increased control Apple is exerting over the development environment with OS 4.0. While the majority are undoubtedbly excited and are eagerly exploring new features in the SDK, there are some developers who feel that being unable to use tools such as Adobe’s Flash CS5 to create iPhone apps represents Apple crossing development regulatory boundries that are significantly past anything previously seen. The developer I spoke with told me about Apple’s increasing control over how iPhone apps are developed with every subsequent iPhone OS release. Despite these concerns, the upside of developing for the iPhone and now the iPad is considerably more than other devices/platforms. The interesting note about the most recent is how it coincides with Apple’s battle against Google and Adobe.
Google is without a doubt Apple’s biggest threat moving forward in the mobile space. Android is always gaining marketshare, new devices dropping frequently, and (minus some nexus one issues) a great flagship phone (that seems to be advertised EVERYWHERE on the internet). With these three factors taken into account, its easy to see how Steve Jobs could look at an Android infographic and think “HOLY CRAP!”. Considering the success of the iPad, its evident that Android has a bright future in the tablet space. Whats important here is that everywhere Apple is, Google is right there with them. Apple’s foray into mobile ads highlight how aggressively they are moving into advertising. The unveiling of Game Center is a direct shot at Facebook and Xbox Live in the social gaming space. Both of these new OS 4.0 features are making Apple categorically stronger in the cloud, while offering in-Phone solutions to core services of Google, Xbox, and Facebook. Any developers Apple may have lost with the vicegrip control of what languages they can build apps in and the inability to use cross-compilers, they gained 10-fold by the lure of those two notable features in OS 4.0.
So what does Google do now? Its clear that Apple is slowly boxing them out of their devices and aren’t afraid to develop alternatives to Google’s offerings within their ecosystem. I think we’ll see some surprising announcements from Google in the form of new products and innovations on existing web apps. Google has historically been highly disruptive so disrupting Apple’s runaway success in the mobile space is probably on the priority list for them. The next five months will be fascinating to watch unfold.
