On the whole Apple SDK thing

UPDATE: Check out my thoughts on the 2008 WWDC, Apple’s got a power play going and it’s going to pay off!

Well, just in case you missed it Apple announced their SDK plans - I liked Ars coverage but Gizmodo’s had lots more pictures. Naturally I have some thoughts about it. I think, overall, it was a chock full of really good news for me the consumer on a whole bunch of levels.

The biggest wonder I had was how much control Apple was going to have on this. It seems both about what I expected and also much better. That is, Apple is retaining sole ownership of the gateway to getting apps onto the iPhone. The SDK, however, will be widely available to anyone - and I mean anyone, I just dl’d that bad boy. You’ll get your apps into the online AppStore and Apple will handle the rest. If it’s a free app then it’ll be free on the AppStore, if it is not free (and developer’s can set their own price, very un-iTunes Music Store like) then Apple skims a healthy, but not overwhelming 30% off the top. The dev’s get free distribution, bandwidth, promotion and presumably ratings and comments - similar to the way music gets the treatment in the iTMS.

I think it’s a pretty reasonable deal assuming that Apple is reasonable and reasonably quick with vetting apps and getting them in the store. A too heavy hand here may spoil the good feelings everyone’s got for it right now. Assuming a fairly liberal policy, I suspect most will be fine with it and even folks who don’t really like it won’t find it enough of a barrier to actually not develop an iPhone app. But I guess time will tell on that one.

Click on to see more thoughts on enterprise, VC funding and why I think Apple is going to win big.

Another really interesting thing was how strongly Apple’s going after the enterprise market. This is a small percentage of the overall market, but I think it’s an important segment in winning over the hearts and minds of the media. More importantly, it is another way that Apple can start bringing its brand into big business, a segment that it has never had a presence in. First sneak in the backdoor with iPhones and before you know it, iMac’s and Xserves are springing up all over the Fortune 500!

The speculation had been that Apple would make some sort of deal with RIM to get their Blackberry mojo going. Apple quashed all that by going straight to the motherload and building ActiveSync right into the iPhone - licensing that bad boy from Microsoft! I don’t remember hearing anyone talking about that possibility. It’s interesting that Apple would use a technology that works directly with Exchange instead of requiring a separate server like RIM does. It would seem to me that companies may like this simpler architecture and one less point of failure - especially if Apple’s proposed iPhone VPN connecting really actually works so companies don’t have to expose their exchange servers to the world.

I think, though, more importantly than the Exchange compatibility in the long run is that Apple is working special development deals with enterprise users for deeper SDK access as well as custom AppStores to rollout their specific applications. So they’ll get some enterprise developers working on Apples (Xcode only runs on OSX). And I bet custom AppStores want to run on Xserves. And Apple will be developing some serious contacts in the enterprise through this. I’m just saying… he is sneaky, that Steve Jobs.

Personally I think the Kleiner Perkins $100 million fund is just hype. Partly to 10x up Google’s $10 million android prize, I’m sure. Kleiner will invest what money it thinks will make it the most money - that may be less than $100 mil or more. If Android is successful, it may invest more there. It loses nothing by stating this and gains Apple’s favor and becomes the go to VC for iPhone startups.

The problems people have been having are a few fold. First is the sandboxing of all apps - so non-Apple apps won’t be able to write outside their designated area making real interoperability impossible. This may make it difficult for some types of apps, but will largely not affect a whole host of them. Additionally, Apple is providing SDK hooks to access key bits of information like the People and Picture pickers to access contacts and the photo library. Presumably these will grow as demand for more access to built in apps does. Hopefully it will be enough. I suspect that like the 30% skim, for most people most of the time, this will be enough.

Multitasking is another one. Perhaps because of my upbringing with a Treo, this is something that I’m pretty sure I can live without. I’d prefer this over having misbehaving apps running all over the background slowing things down for everyone. Typically speaking, when I leave an app, I’m ok with it stopping whatever it is doing - possibly it’s just ignorance speaking since I’ve not really experienced anything else on a handheld device, but whatever, ignorance is bliss!

What it does seem to kill, though, is IM type apps that need to be constantly running and receiving information, or closer to home for me apps like an offline RSS reader that periodically syncs over the air in the background. Hopefully Apple provides some means to handle these cases. Really, really, hopefully.

I think these negatives initially are not enough to stop the tidal wave of apps coming to the iPhone. If they remain true long term, it may stifle innovation but my guess is that within a year these walls start crumbling and these are addressed either globally, with specific developers or even just with increased scrutiny on apps that need this type of functionality. My guess is that this is a slow start for Apple - they’re being careful because this is all new terrain for them and it’s better to hold the reins too tightly than too loosely.

Overall, I think what Apple is showing off here is the strength of their full stack. They are a pretty unique company in that they have as a core competency everything from designing hardware, to building the OS, working with UI and building applications. There are few other companies with that set of skills. That they provided their demonstrators at the show 2 weeks with the SDK and they were able to do such things as port bits of Spore to the iPhone, as an example, is pretty amazing.

They are really leveraging everything they have with full blown OSX to try and make mobile OSX an easy, easy transition. I suspect, also, that this works both ways. Once you as a new dev are comfortable building an iPhone app, why not back port it to OSX? Again, more back doors to make OSX more popular.

Apple is really good at maximizing the halo effect of it’s consumer products. You can see how it took the success of the iPod and turned that into domination of the digital music business and sold a crapload more computers to boot. The iPhone SDK looks to continue that process - but take it to the next level and bring in not just more consumers but developers and the enterprise into the halo. If Apple can keep this up I’m really curious to see where it is in 5 years. I suspect that Apple is going to greatly expand the smartphone market - beyond taking existing marketshare from smartphone competitors, it will pull in a significant new customerbase from the dumbphone segment. What do you think? Is it all hype? Or is Apple really going to start winning big?

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