I recently upgraded my iPhone 3GS to the new iOS4. And after using it for the past 24 hours, I’ve found that it changed only a few things. Sorry Steve Jobs — it isn’t revolutionary! The primary change that I immediately liked is the folders or application organization capability but even that is limiting. The 5 screens of apps on my iPhone have been reduced down to only three. Unfortunately, folders can hold up to 12 applications at a time. With this design, a user doesn’t have to scroll to access more apps but it also means that the 16+ games that my boys play couldn’t fit nicely into their own little container. Granted, I have quite a bit more room to spare at the bottom of each application screen but things aren’t as tight as I wish that they could be.
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Last year, Apple acquired streaming music service Lala.com. Lala was unique in that members could listen to new tracks in their entirety (iTunes only allows you to listen to a clip) and then purchase the rights to stream the song for pennies. Timing of the deal was suspicious as Apple swooped in just as Lala announced the pending approval of their iPhone app, which would allow members to access their music catalog via an iTouch or iPhone. While some question Apple’s motive to make the deal (because as a standalone service Lala would pose a competitive threat to iTunes), most expected to Apple bring Lala into the iTunes Store “fold” and give members a choice to either purchase music download or streaming rights.
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Apple has decided to pick a fight with developers. In a recent change to the Terms of Service (TOS) for their new iPhone SDK, Apple has indicated that apps developed with third party software, such as MonoTouch, Titanium, or the upcoming version of Flash, will not be allowed. The new TOS also blocks the use of third-party analytics software, such as Flurry. The details of these changes are well documented by Joe Crawford and Erik Kerr. These changes basically mean that developing an iPhone app using a language other than the native iPhone language, Objective-C, or a C-based languages (C, C++), and collecting user data and device data is no longer allowed. NOTE: Some of the above companies believe that they are compliant with these changes and/or are actively seeking clarification from Apple (see Jeff Haynie’s blog post).
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