I remain intrigued by the concept of iPhone program development. I think that the iPhone has the potential to make a real impact in the portable gaming market (Touch Arcade is a good source for information about iPhone gaming). Plus, I think that the iPhone is a neat little device and the only cell phone design that has ever appealed to me.
Apple has a page devoted to their iPhone Developer Program, but you still need to sign up before they will tell you any details. Some are complaining about the restrictions Apple has put on native programs written for the iPhone but they don’t sound that limiting to me. I imagine that the more severe ones, such as restrictions on private API’s and open source software, will be eased over time.
I had read before that Apple intended to ban emulators on the iPhone, but I can’t find any official confirmation of that. Apparently there’s no blanket ban, at least according to this: StyleTap officially bringing Palm emulator to the iPhone / iPod touch.
Of course, programming for the iPhone using Xcode isn’t really that different from using the Windows CE, Pocket PC, or Smartphone support built-in to Visual Studio. I’m sure that anyone who has ever used Visual Studio has created at least one “Hello world” program for the emulated smart phone. But has the Pocket PC ever excited as many people as the iPhone?
At this point, my interest in iPhone development remains just curiosity. A few problems remain:
- I don’t own a Macintosh (necessary to run Xcode and the iPhone emulator)
- I don’t own an iPhone (necessary to test programs)
- If I did own an iPhone, I would have travel around 100 miles to use it (according to the coverage maps)
The first two problems could be remedied without too much trouble, but the third would be a bit more difficult.
You might want to consider getting an iPod touch instead of an iPhone if you go down the development path. You can develop fully for it as long as you don’t need GPS/Camera/Phone capabilities for your app.
p.s. It’s Xcode, not XCode. Mac developers are picky about that. ;-)
Thanks for the suggestion. I have thought about going the iPod touch route, especially because it also looks like a very nice device. In the past five years, I have almost bought a Macintosh twice, so perhaps this is just the push I need.
Thanks for the note about proper capitalization of Xcode. Proper usage of names is important, and I have changed my post to match.