Aussie Linux head: Microsoft more open than iPhone

[iMav]

The world has been turned upside down for Linux developers, thanks to Microsoft's approach to its mobile platform -- today it's the most open functioning platform on the market, says new Linux Australia president Stewart Smith.

The star of application-rich mobile phones, Apple's iPhone, has been met with criticism from the open source community and even confusion by major software developers like Adobe.

Zac Bowling, a developer involved in the open source Mono project, was initially excited about the iPhone SDK, but now calls it a "joke" for the way Apple has locked-down applications on the device.

"The restrictions on what your application is allowed to do is total, laugh-out-loud, crap," he wrote on his blog.

His complaints include Apple's decision to make it possible to run just one application at a time, which has implications for the functionality of instant messaging on the handset.

For consumers that want mobile phone platforms with more apps, the coming months or even years will be testing.

Full Article

[Hitboxx]

Your application is completely closed when the user leaves it like when they get a call or any of a number of actions happen. (specified in the Human Interface Guidelines). Only one application can run at a time basically so no background applications. (Something you can do in the current Open SDK)

That's pathetic. Someone rightly said here, we are indeed witnessing the birth of a new platform, a platform which none but only Appleites can use.

Edit: Why did you choose that title? You should have put something like iPhone SDK is a joke.

[ray|raven]

^Yeah, its pathetic allright.
From the blog linked above:

Porting Firefox would be impossible because it supports downloading and running “interpreted code” with its Javascript engine. Things like Mono could only be used if you included a version Mono with your application, so basically no system wide install. No way to write a usable IM or IRC client on it, since apps can’t run in the background. Since we won’t be able to write plugins for existing apps like Safari, it means no Silverlight/Moonlight and no third party Flash support. IOKit isn’t in the list of document APIs even though its on the iPhone today, so no way to access the dock port to get to the PC or access the Bluetooth hardware. No way to tie into the data sync integration as well, so you can have it sync data with other things on your PC when docked.

Perfect, a phone with a 600mhz processor and will run one app ,
and will close it when you get a call.
Who was the guy who called the iPhone smart?

[iMav]

Originally Posted by Hitboxx

Edit: Why did you choose that title? You should have put something like iPhone SDK is a joke.

saved u the trouble of going thru a report

the thing is that ppl hav only chosen to look at the touch interface and the fact tht there is a sdk released and every1 thinks that its so great the fone rocks and all, ppl wont look at it objectively ... adobe has already said tht porting flash on the iphone is not possible by only sdk they will need more info from apple than just sdk .... goes to show tht jobs indeed pulled off yet another jobs on the world

600mhz to run 1 app .... 6600 pwns it yet again