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Palm Pre developers told to read a book

Developers chomping at the bit to get their applications onto the Palm Pre are going to have to wait a little longer, as the Mojo SDK necessary won't be around until the end of the summer at best. While launching an SDK three months after the device might compare well with Apple's iPhone (which only managed an SDK a year after …

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Sam York

So

When are we getting a GSM version?

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

SDK development

Let's just say that when Apple say they're not doing (or going to do) something, a lot of time they are - if they didn't see the potential for third party native apps when the iPhone came out, then every single software developer out there is a better businessman than Steve Jobs - which is unlikely.

What a lot of people tend to forget is the difference between developing software internally, and developing an SDK to be used by other developers - which needs to be stable and documented in a way that an internal framework doesn't. The alternative would be holding back your device launch while you finish the developer documentation (or, like Android, going with the SDK first).

And of course, Palm's SDK is also a lot simpler than the iPhone's - which isn't meant as a criticism - far better to do a few things very well, and extend the SDK later, than to delay it for a bunch of increasingly niche features.

Matthew Barker

But what about...

Was this a revisionist recounting of the iPhone SDK?

When the iphone came out, Jobs specifically asked for patience with getting the real SDK...at least that was my memory. And when it came, it showed more than a year's worth of polish.

Just a thought.

Cheers.

Kevin (Just Kevin)
Coat

Summer?

The register needs to standardise on a system for measuring time that the whole world can understand. We could use really complex terms like "late 2009" or "September" but that's hard for the low IQ people in the IT world to understand.

Maybe it's because I grew up in the Southern Hemisphere and then emigrated to, ummm, the Southern Hemisphere, but we never talk about time in reference to seasons.

So there's an SDK coming at the end of summer. Last night it was 4 degrees (that's centigrade) and today it's going to be 15. We're two days past the shortest day of the year. So when is the SDK coming? March?

It seems to be an American thing. Maybe the UK like it too. But the whole world doesn't exist in the same season as you.

"It's always September somewhere on the net"

Adam T

Re: SDK development

"Let's just say that when Apple say they're not doing (or going to do) something, a lot of time they are"

Very true. And as Matthew points out, the level of polish shows more than a simple year's worth of good word. The iPhone SDK is still, to this day, one of the finest development kits around, thanks in part to XCode and tools such as Instruments -- these are things that not even Microsoft can compete with.

Still, the great thing about the iPhone (and the App Store & SDK) is that it's bringing things like the Pre out - would we see the same picture today if Apple never released the iPhone?

Adam T

Re: Summer?

Shall we use the Mayan calendar?

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