inside looking out

I’m surprised how many people talk about how closed iPhone is. “I can’t write 3rd party apps!”

How to write an iPhone app:

1. Build your app with Python, Ruby, PHP, WebObjects, Prototype, Dojo … whatever.
2. Host your app on a web site somewhere on the Net.
3. Bookmark your app from your iPhone Safari web browser.

Simple as that.

“But wait!” you say, “it’s not really open, I can’t access <insert-badass-iphone-feature-here>!”. (Do you really think they won’t add any neat extensions?)

Answer? WebKit.org. Apple’s Open Source, ready-to-go solution. So now the steps are:

1. Think up my awesome iPhone WebKit extension that isn’t already in WebKit.
2. Contribute code to WebKit.org. (though, you may want to standardize it first)
3. Wait for clever engineers at Apple to port to iPhone.
4. Sync latest iPhone Software Update.

I eagerly await the Mobile Internet Revolution. Coming soon.

Update: The Apple Engineers are talking…

Technorati Tags: iPhone, Apple, WebKit, Safari

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Life, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.