The iPhone: Now with More Developer Opportunities

Apple's release of the iPhone 3G S was, not surprisingly, big news at WWDC 2009. While many believe that the iPhone 3G S is not a game-changer like the iPhone 3G was, the release of the iPhone 3G S and this week’s upcoming release of the iPhone 3.0 OS are important events for developers.

Here's why.

What’s New in the iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3.0 OS

First, the insides of the iPhone 3G S are beefier. At the heart of the new iPhone is a CPU based on ARM's seventh generation Cortex-A8 core. There's also a PowerVR SGX graphics core and support for the Open GL ES 2.0 3D graphics API. And to boot, Apple has given the iPhone 3G S more RAM than its predecessor.

What's this mean? The iPhone 3G S is much more powerful; Apple claims it can perform up to twice as fast as the iPhone 3G in a real-world setting. That in turn means that the iPhone 3G S is capable of delivering a much richer multimedia experience. Thus, it's no surprise that game makers, for instance, are sensing opportunity. The gaming category is already the top category in the App Store.

Second, Apple has added some hardware niceties that have give developers more capabilities. There's a new camera, which offers 3MP of resolution and can capture VGA video at 30 frames per second. And there's an Accessories API that makes it possible to develop apps that interact with third-party hardware.

Finally, the iPhone 3G S will come equipped with the 3.0 OS, which is set for release on Wednesday. The iPhone 3.0 OS will feature a number of updates of interest to app developers, including:

Mapkit - gives developers the ability to use Google Maps within their apps

Dynamic Map Markers - enables map markers in map-based apps to be updated in real-time.

In-application purchases - make it possible to purchase additional content and features from within an app itself

Push notifications - permit apps to receive notifications even when the app itself isn’t running

While it's possible to argue that all of these things are incremental improvements and some of the most requested features, such as the ability to run an app as a background process , aren’t (yet) being provided, Apple’s updates do offer a wealth of new opportunities for app developers.

Improved performance will no doubt give developers the ability to do more with their apps. The iPhone 3G S upgrades will be especially useful to developers whose apps can benefit from third-party devices. And the iPhone 3.0 OS could boost the App Store economy. With in-application purchases, developers can create new revenue streams and with push notifications, developers can build apps that users interact with more frequently.

Into the Wild

Let’s take a look at how some of these things are going to be used in the real world.

AirStrip OB
AirStrip’s app makes use of the new push notification functionality to give medical practitioners the ability to monitor in real-time the vital health information of a patient. As data, which includes heart rate and blood pressure, is streamed from the patient, the practitioner can receive notifications based upon it.

ZipCar
US-based car sharing service ZipCar has built an app that not only lets users find ZipCar locations but also gives them the ability to reserve available cars at those locations and to unlock the cars they rent using the iPhone.

PASCO Spark
Science education company PASCO has developed an app called Spark which enables the iPhone Accessories API to connect to PASCO-built sensors. This enables students to measure and analyze data collected from the sensors directly on their iPhones.

Star Defense
Star Defense is an iPhone 3.0 OS gaming app that enables players to purchase new content/features directly from within the game using the iPhone 3.0 OS’s in-application purchasing functionality.

Challenges
The improvements seen in the iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3.0 OS come at a cost. As Engadget points out, for instance, the iPhone 3G only supports OpenGL ES 1.1 graphics API. It appears that developers will have a choice: they can build apps that support both OpenGL ES 1.1 and Open GL ES 2 or they can support only one. Apps that only support Open GL ES 2 will therefore be available only to iPhone 3G S owners.

Obviously, the specter of a splintered app ecosystem could be problematic but as Engadget also notes, it’s somewhat expected given the rapid advances in hardware today.
Regardless of compatibility considerations and the impact they have on the development process, the opportunities for iPhone developers are only growing in number and that’s a good thing that will drive further innovation.