The iPhone SDK has been a long time coming. Apple has been working on it since before last June’s WWDC ‘07, despite pushing the “You can build amazing web applications” message. The reason for pushing the only-web-apps decree was because the API, tool-chains, development environment, etc, weren’t ready.
Back at WWDC ‘07 the development community felt slammed by the news that we couldn’t build native applications or otherwise access the great hardware features of the device. We grumbled and asked questions, and were told it was a marketing/branding/positioning decision.
Back then there was a feeling of something amiss. The voice of the engineers at Apple seemed to speak, “one more thing.” Every time an attendee took the mic and posed a question about iPhone access (there were a lot of these questions) the engineers responded with wobbly words about web apps while exuding a sigh of, “it’s coming…”
It just flat-out felt like Apple had to make their June 29th release date for the device and they couldn’t get the SDK complete. Standard feature-drop. The typically well groomed Apple machine was recovering from an all-nighter just to get the iPhone itself released.
At the time I wasn’t certain of an SDK in the works. As most developers returning from WWDC I was dejected – they have to have an API, they just have to! I even agreed to a bet in early July ‘07 with my company president: Apple releases an SDK within one year of the iPhone release.
I’m looking forward to March 6th for more than winning a bet. On Thursday I find out if my prediction was correct and if I read the Apple folks. If we get a healthy suite of tools I’ll have validated my assumption that Apple had an SDK under way prior to WWDC.
UPDATE: Cartwright Reed reminded me the bet was an official iPhone SDK from Apple that iofy could use. This is important since I (and all developers looking forward to the SDK) could still lose if the SDK is only accessible to companies blessed by Apple. So far this seems unlikely.
