I’ve always enjoyed the “sandbox” OS environment Apple created within their products. However, when iPhone launched in 2007, I felt that sandbox restriction became the biggest flaw on this device/platform. I understand, and appreciate, the claims that sandbox environment provides a more controlled and stable user experience. But as a smartphone, the ability to install apps on the device is almost a standard feature. In that department, iPhone pales in comparison to Windows Mobile’s versitility.
One of Windows Mobile’s biggest strength, as is with most Microsoft platforms, is third party app support. There is a variety of productivity suites available on WinMobile, and there are websites like Handango where you can obtain these software, which helps make finding apps you need a rather painless process. From day one, I had hoped Apple will soon open up iPhone to third party developers so that we can finally see iPhone more than an iPod with tagged on phone functionality.
Due to “popular demand,” Apple finally caved and launched their long waited iTunes AppStore on July 10th, 2008. While this is a step in the right direction, Apple still is hesitant on truely breaking down the wall. AppStore launched with over 500 apps on day one. Among the 500, plenty were “crap-ware” (did anyone actually pay $5 for a flashlight app that turns your screen white? I can do that in Safari with one line of HTML thank-you-very-much) or derivative versions on games like Sudoku and poker.
TUAW recently posted am interesting article suggesting possible reasons behind this “phenomenon.” Turns out Apple has greatly limited what developers can and cannot put on their shiny device. Among the cannot’s: any brands/trademarks you don’t own (i.e. no Netflix queue app unless Netflux makes one), and no “plug-in” apps, meaning that no app can run in the background or in ways that alter behaviors of other apps, native or not (i.e. no camera zoom/video recording, or iPod enhancements of any sort).
Some think these restrictions are aimed at curbing potential lawsuits and to maintain a friendly and stable operating environment. But truth be told, firmware 2.0 is by far the worst upgrade I’ve seen in Apple’s recent history. It made iPhone even less stable than any WinMobile device I’ve ever used.
Almost every single app had either crashed or rebooted my phone at least once. The installation process takes much longer than it should over WiFi, and syncing apps with iTunes is painfuly slow. If the SDK limitations were set forth to pretain a seamless user experience, Apple has apparently dropped the ball.
In any case, 2.0.1 firmware was released today. We’ll see how things go with the new update, and if any of these issues are addressed.
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