Your recent announcement of an upcoming iPhone SDK, made under the radar via your Hot News page, was very welcomed by most iPhone users. We can’t wait to have native version of Skype and Instant Messaging clients on our phone, and not put there via Jailbreaking. This really should have been in software developers hands a year ago, but we’ll take it anyway, if a bit late.

But that’s not what I’m writing to you about today. I’m writing to complain that the most obvious omission in iPhone apps is the fact that we can’t put 3rd widgets on our iPhones. It’s obvious to the most causal user that you already have them running. You can’t tell me the weather “app”, the stock “app”, and probably others aren’t widgets, the same as in the Dashboard, running on the iPhone. When you announced the iPhone, you told us “you won’t need an SDK”. 37Signals proclaimed validation for their ethos, that web apps and AJAX’d apps were the future. And there’s obviously an audience out there for these things (see the Digg and Facebook iPhone versions). But what I imagined was alot closer to a Dashboard widget than a web page running in Safari.

In fact, there was never a question in my mind that we’d be able to develop iPhone “apps” that would run native, with a cool little icon on the home screen, in HTML and CSS and Javascript. I assumed there’s be special hooks we could put in the html that would activate special iPhone features, and there are (text fields called “phone” or “zip” bring up numeric entry screens), but those seemed half baked also. Why doesn’t a “file” field called “photos” allow us to choose photos stored on the iPhone for uploading (to say, flickr)? And why can’t we explicitly tell a text field to bring up the url, phone/number, or qwerty keyboards?

So, I beg of you Steve, make this happen. Let us put widgets on our iPhones. Let us have more control over what our html can do. Let us do what we all thought was going to be possible. You already have all of this functionality there, I’m not asking for anything new here, just flip the switch and make it happen.

Sincerly,

BJ Clark
iPhone Addict and Web Developer

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Steve (or his assistant, secretary, mail reader, etc.),

I have been a devout Apple fanatic for years. I was just about to give up on Apple when you came back. I used the IIe, Classic, LC, Quadra, Powermac, PowerPC, and now Intel Macbook Pro and iMac.

My wife and I both have iPhones. I waited in line 10 hours to get them and was still thrilled when you reduced the price of the iPhone to $399 because I was one of the first people to have one. I love the device too… it’s a magnificent breakthrough in technology. I even switched to AT&T months before the iPhone launch (shortly after the MacWorld Keynote) to be ready when it hit.

HOWEVER… There are many things lacking on the iPhone. No to-do list application, voice notes, sketch pad, games, finder, SSH, text editor, chat, etc. I was excited to hear that it was very easy to develop for the iPhone despite the lack of an SDK on Apple’s part. I was sure the overly-simplistic security on the initial iPhones was intentional, possibly an omen of a forthcoming SDK.

I also understand your frustration with hackers trying to unlock the iPhone to take to other carriers. I am happy with AT&T, and understand the relationship you have with them. Both of you spent a lot of money, time and resources developing the iPhone and the two go together (for the time being). I completely understand your obligation (both contractual and otherwise) to keep the iPhone carrier-locked.

But here’s what I DON’T understand. Why, are you going out of your way to thwart third-party software development? The iPhone is a great device, but it can be a REVOLUTIONARY device. Apple can’t possibly release all the applications users will want. Why limit yourselves and your customers by stifling creativity? Hasn’t Apple always been about thinking “different?”

Please Steve, let the software developers in like you have with OSX. They can make the iPhone what it has the potential to be. Just look at the innovation in AppTapp Installer (Installer.app) and the applications already available. It’s amazing what underground hackers and software developers have done with their spare time! They even got GPS-like location service to work on the iPhone, with no GPS!

Just imagine what they could do with a full-featured SDK to work with!

Yours truly,

Brandon Eley
beley@mac.com

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• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
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