After nearly a decade of avoiding having a mobile phone the iPhone was the device that made me change my mind. It is a great device that means I use my laptop a lot less because I can surf the 'Net and get my imap gmail on it in a very seamless fashion.
Today Apple announced the iPhone SDK (the website has completely crashed for me....). It will give a whole new ease of life to an already excellent product. One of the greatest aspects of the iPhone is that it is constantly updated with new features like a full computer.
There is a comprehensive write-up on Engadget and Ars Technica of all the announcements today including proper Exchange support.
The SDK gives access via Objective-C to the OS features. You get access to the accelerometers and multi-touch when writing your apps. XCode provides the environment to develop in and there is an iPhone simulator. The features you have access to are:
* Keychain
* Bonjour
* SQLite
* Core Location
* Quicktime media layer
* Core Audio
* Core Image
* Core Animation
* PDF rendering
* OpenAL
* OpenGL ES
The games look pretty damn good on the iPhone fromt he presentation from Super Monkey Ball to Spore to the specially designed Touch Fighter. It looks like a Wii style changing of the game by using the advantages that the device offers rather than dwelling on what is now missing in comparison to gaming systems.
Also the apps created will be distributed by the App Store that will be run by Apple. If you develop free or open-source apps Apple will host them and distribute them for free.
Also there is a leak of the BBC iPlayer for the iPhone mentioned in this comment on Engadget.
