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

November 26, 2008 iPhone Java Development

When the pitcher releases the ball a batter has to decide where they will swing. If they wait too long the ball will be in the catcher’s mitt before they decide. The same logic is why we are developing for the iPhone. Today in the NY Times David Pogue reviews the Blackberry Storm: “BlackBerry Storm Downgraded to a Depression”

Maybe R.I.M. is just overextended. After all, it has just introduced three major new phones — Flip, Bold, Storm — in two months, each with a different software edition. Quality-control problems are bound to result; the iPhone 3G went through something similar.

Web rumor has it that a bug-fix software update is in the works. Until then, maybe Storm isn’t such a bad name for this phone. After all — it’s dark, sodden and unpredictable.

In learning about development for the Blackbery platforms, we have to create a build for each phone and each network. As a developer, I just can’t afford it. Most of my customers right now have Blackberries. I think that in the next year or two they will have an iPhone. I am already hearing word that a few senior executives are asking the IT departments to check it out. We should be one of the first “Real” Enterprise developers who have a native iPhone application. We can do so much more in Objective C than the flavor of Java that runs on the Blackberry. And yes I know how powerful Java is. I also know how hard it is to develop for it.

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whistling kettle 6 months ago 1 point
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Yes, the apps for bb and iphone are quite different. Both come with advantages to one another. It means that should I use both to gain both apps. But, since prez obama using BB, it gained a rocket popularity then.

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gambling 1 year ago 1 point
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It's amazing what you can do with an I-Phone. I'm actually interested in developing my own customized app.

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Customer Retention 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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http://www.customer-retention.co.uk

Busby SEO Test 1 year ago 1 point
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This subject and all the comments and it looks very clear for everybody to stay with the iphone

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1 /people/dewaji/ /people/dewaji/following/ in/dewaji desak dewaji dewaji

frank 1 year ago 1 point
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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?

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http://www.planetfrank.us

Whatismyname 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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Dazza 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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Dan Cornish 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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16 /people/dcornish/ /people/dcornish/following/ http://www.cosential.com

Dave 1 year ago 1 point
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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."

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zvisus 1 year ago 1 point
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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

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Dan Cornish 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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color_chart 1 year ago 1 point
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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..

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Dan Cornish 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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Perspective 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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Peter 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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RKW 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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Kevin White 1 year ago 1 point
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@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.)

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Robert Eubanks 1 year ago 1 point
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Very well said, sir.

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RKW 1 year ago 1 point
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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)

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Sam McDonald 1 year ago 1 point
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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.

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http://sammcd.com

busby seo test 1 year ago 1 point
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Last week i bought two iphone for me and my kid, since he interested to learn to develop app for iphone!

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sribe 1 year ago 1 point
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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 ;-)

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

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