Well, well, well... it looks like the barely one-year old iPhone is about to grow up fast, as was demonstrated yesterday at Apple's iPhone SDK special meeting, which can be view here.
After reading about Apple's SDK plans and watching the Quicktime rebroadcast, I must say, I was rather impressed with the iPhone's SDK indeed. As predicted, Apple has indeed licensed software from Microsoft that now gives the iPhone what business people not only wanted, but what they needed the most - 100% true compatibility with Exchange. This one development, as many predict, will be a major factor in the iPhone becoming more accepted by business's in the U.S, and indeed, worldwide!
Not only is the iPhone getting Exchange, it will also be getting a lot more software from other business software developers to boot. Salesforce is one company that said that it can now add most of it's software library to iPhone, cheaply and easily..... all 63,000 of them! Their software, as demonstrated, was quite impressive indeed and should prove to be a major factor in not only business's having more reason to adopt the iPhone, but also, it will give more reasons for other business developers to develop software for the iPhone too.
Several companies, EA, Salesforce, AOL, Epocrates, Sega, where all invited to use an early release of the iPhone SDK and all of them where extremely impressed and pleased with what they were able to do with it in a short two week period, and that is with only one or two software engineers apiece. The tools were not only extremely advanced, but much more so than developers were expecting to see. What they were able to do and demonstrate was, as Apple put it - "mind blowing!" I personally was extremely impressed with all of the demos I saw running.
Epocrates, a medical software developer, not only used the SDK to gets it's software up and running on the iPhone, in short order, but also, because the iPhone is, in reality, a miniature OS X Mac computer, they were able to enhance their software in truly fascinating ways. For example, with their "Multi-Check" program, a doctor can now figure out what kind of drug a patient has taken simply by the patient picking out it's color and shape! Imagine how many lives could have been saved in the past if the doctor only could have known what medications their patients took, even though the patients themselves had no idea! Amazing to say the least.
The SDK didn't just impress with it's business and medical software demos, but also in the gaming area as well, as the iPhone seems to be an incredible advancement over what other "ordinary phones" could ever hope to deliver. For example, Sega not only demonstrated one of their console games running on the iPhone, but, incredibly, the software engineer pointed out that the iPhone version was, in fact, a much superior product as it - no longer require a joystick or mouse for imput, as the iPhone's accelerometer's motion sensor itself made game play much more natural, intuitive and fun to use. Simply by moving the iPhone, one could easily move around in a game... a game that just happened to have superior graphics to games on other cell phones and one that they described played as well, if not better, than the original game running on a gaming console.
Apple itself demonstrated a nifty 3D space shooter up game that it developed in only two days, by one or two people. Imagine what they could do in four days, a week, a month or a year? Imagine too what a company like Electronic Arts could do with hundreds, if not thousands, of gaming software engineers and millions of dollars to invest could do in a six month or a years time? EA already demoed their new "Spore" game running as well, if not even better, than the gaming console's version!
Of course, as Fortune's AppleBlog 2.0 pointed out, its not going to be easy pickings for Apple to compete with the industries main smart phone company, Research In Motion and the maker of the popular BlackBerry, but it is certainly doable and I think that Apple, and in short order, will not only do well, but will come out on top. As a consumer phone the iPhone is without equal and as a business phone, it too, will become without equal! Business's that were predicted to stay away from the iPhone in droves are not exactly doing that. In fact, thousands of iPhones are being used increasingly each and every day and now that the SDK and the ability to access Exchange servers natively, the iPhone, after less than a measly year in business, is about to make an even larger impact than it already has, and that is saying a lot.
So, let me say, in conclusion, as I did yesterday, that Apple's new iPhone SDK and it's newer G3 models to be introduced later this year, is going to result in the iPhone becoming a far, far more successful device than it has already is. Just as Windows 95 unleased a torrent of apps, so will the SDK. The iPhone has changed the whole mobile landscape and that by a company that is nothing more than a babe in the business. As Apple matures, in this market, it's influence, it's prestige and it's power will grow exponentially.... not to mention it's profits and market cap. People say that Apple can't possibly compete with Nokia, Samsung, etc. because they have so much more experience and what have you - but I say that Apple is not only competing with them, but is beating them in many, many ways already - in customer satisfaction, ease of use and just plain old innovation, and I predict that Apple will not only be a successful cell provider, but that it will become the biggest and most successful cell company out there. Yes, and by that I mean that the iPhone is about to become the number one mobile device, not only in the consumer space, but more importantly in the business space, and maybe, just maybe, the hand held gaming space, in the years to come as well.
Thanks to the iPhone SDK, you aint' seen nothing yet!
And thats my 2 cents 4 this Friday, March 7, 2008.
Photo Credits: Apple Computer and FreeVerse
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