Now I can test my applications on my actual iPhone, instead of the the simulator that comes with the free SDK.
I am very excited about the iPhone SDK. More to the point, I suppose, I’m excited about the iPhone App Store.
For those who are not aware of how Apple has set this up - all applications on the iPhone will be distributed through the iPhone App Store, which itself will be an application on all iPhones. People will be able to browse and pay for applications directly on their phone (though they can also use their computers, if they wish).
Apple charges a $99 flat fee to distribute all your applications through the store, and they also take 30% of whatever the sale price of your applications is. In exchange, they handle all the hosting, purchasing, distribution, payments, and so forth.
It’s really a great system, for two reasons. First, it makes it very simple for a developer to distribute and sell their applications. Rather than simply putting up a website somewhere and hoping people find it through Google, people can just use the App Store. Personally, I plan to sell most of my applications for $0.49 or $0.99. If they’re any good at all, I’ll recoup the $99 fee easily, and make a bit of a profit besides.
Second, it encourages people to sell their applications. Why is this good, you ask? Because I don’t want some jackass with too much time on their hands creating a free replica of some application I put a lot of effort into thinking up, designing, and creating. The $99 fee encourages people to charge something, even if it is a pittance. None of that pinko commie open-source “software should be free as the birds in the sky!” shit.
Congratulations! Do they reject some applicants, or does anyone with the fee get in?
Now, Apple does not sell the iPhone in my country. (I blame a certain mobile-phone company and its high data rates, but that’s another rant.)
Will the SDK and the App Store also work on the iPod touch? Understandably, they don’t have the actual mobile-phone parts, but there should be a way of querying a device to find out what it can do, right?
In June, once it is out of beta, it will be open to everyone for $99. Until then, they are being choosy. They don’t make you pay the $99 until you are accepted.
I have no idea what criteria they’re using - I was not among the first batch of people who were accepted a week or so ago, even though I applied within of few hours of their announcement. I thought this meant I was out of luck until June, but then I got the email today.
The SDK and iPhone simulator are available for free, to everyone, already - the $99 is for the ability to test on the actual iPhone, access to technical support, and distribution on the App Store. The simulator does not simulate everything (the accelerometer, location API, and OpenGL are not supported), so access to the actual hardware is helpful.
You are correct in that all this stuff applies to the iPod Touch, as well. There are mechanisms in the SDK for determining which device you’re running on.
Hmm did you put anything special on your application?
I’m still in limbo, but I applied a few days after it opened.
Given the in-depth application (:rolleyes:), I can’t imagine it’s anything but random. I seem to remember them asking maybe two questions, one of which was “what types of applications do you want to develop?”. The answers consisted of about 15 different checkboxes (“social networking”, “games”, “productivity”, etc)
I think the other question was whether you were a general app developer or an enterprise app developer.