Apple Developers Get Ready For iPhone SDKApple Developers Get Ready For iPhone SDK

As Apple prepares to release its much-anticipated iPhone software development kit (SDK), expected in February, developers are already hard at work cobbling together Web-based applications for the smartphone without Apple's help.

While the SDK is sure to launch a wave of hype in the press, the real story about how iPhone apps are being developed is much more nuanced. To get the scoop, we talked with Andrew Reuter, a lead developer at Journyx Inc. The Austin, Texas-based developer of Web-based time- and expense-tracking solutions is getting is getting ready to release its own set of iPhone libraries for Web developers.

information: What does the upcoming release of the SDK mean for developers?

Reuter: The SDK is for writing native apps that only run on the iPhone, so it's significant in that sense. But it really doesn't affect developers' ability to write Web apps for the iPhone. They're very capable of doing that today.

I would say that the SDK will spark a chain of events. Once the SDK is released, it will turn more attention to the iPhone. So third-party developers will start writing applications using the SDK, which increases the popularity of the iPhone, which gets it into more hands, which makes it a more desirable target platform, which in turn, causes more Web developers to create apps that support the iPhone.

information: Is it possible to develop applications that are designed to emulate the iPhone's native interface without the SDK?

Reuter: We don't need the SDK to emulate the iPhone interface, except in some limited circumstances. It is possible, although currently problematic, to write Web apps that emulate native iPhone apps. There are certain things that you just can't do like drag-and-drop because the iPhone already knows what it wants to do, so you can't override that behavior.

At Journyx, we've been working on creating some libraries that will let you built apps for emulating different parts of the iPhone, like the home screen and the settings page. While a Web developer can build a page that looks like a native iPhone app, they would have to do it from scratch. Journyx and others like us are going to change that where a developer can easily build an iPhone screen by supplying the icons and the titles because the work of building the screen and making it work the right way was already done by somebody else.

information: What are some of the tools currently available to developers for building Web-based apps for the iPhone?

Reuter: We're starting to see more examples out there for how to develop for the iPhone. The biggest example I can think of is Joe Hewitt, who released a Web app that acts like the iPod part of the iPhone. The majority of Web apps you see out there now are variations on his template.

Ajax has been available in browsers for many years; however, it only gained dominance within the last few years because it became understood how it works in different Web browsers and what the best practices are for developing Ajax apps. Libraries made it easier to write Ajax apps, as well as providing pre-packaged solutions to common problems. That is the best analogy for where we're at with Web development for the iPhone. There are pioneers out there and some problems have been solved.

Web app development for the iPhone will become commoditized, just like Ajax. By commoditized, I mean Web development will become available to more people because the difficult parts will be taken care of.

information: Aren't Web apps problematic when it comes to availability since most require Internet connectivity in order to work?

Reuter: Availability is certainly an issue. But it depends on the nature of the application. If it's a collaborative app where people need to share information, you need network connectivity even if it's a native iPhone application.

information: What are some of the most interesting iPhone Web apps that come to mind?

Reuter: There's a game called Bejeweled, which is one of the slickest iPhone apps that I've seen so far. You don't feel like you're on a Web page at all. It feels like a native iPhone app. It's just one example of what can be done on the iPhone without the SDK.