Just wanted to comment on two blog posts/articles I just read. The first is from All Things Digital and can be found here. Basically the article is a somewhat condemning look at the iPhone. He comments a lot about traveling with the iPhone internationally and also about the keyboard, etc. Some of the stuff he talks about I don’t really know enough about to attempt a rebuttal, but a fair amount of it is either inaccurate or lacking information to the point that it makes me wonder if I can trust what he says on the things I don’t know much about. Two quick examples are him giving the keyboard a hard time in portrait mode. This is pretty subjective, so I’d urge anyone to try it for themselves. I also have found that mine is truly getting better as time goes on, so I wonder how much time he really spent with the phone and how actively he used it. Another part is he leads the reader to believe that when you need the battery replaced, you will have to go without a phone for a few days while Apple replaces it, however, they already have a policy in place that says they will supply you with a loaner iPhone while your battery gets replaced (the loaner will take your SIM card and will sync up all your information as soon as you sync with iTunes).

Now, if you want to give them a hard time about something, I would jump over to this post from Robert Scoble about Apple’s lack of presence at the iPhone developers conference. I think that Scoble is right on in his assessment. It’s amazing that the developers voluntarily organized and are participating in this conference, with no support or even presence from Apple. Apple is losing in two very big ways on this one. The first of which, as Scoble mentions, is that the developers are having to do all of the leg work. They obviously want to build for the platform and help it succeed, but as in 1989, Apple is doing nothing to assist them. The second part they’re missing out on, which Scoble doesn’t touch on, is that by them not participating the developers are going to do whatever they please, and Apple has no opportunity to help guide them in a consistent and unified direction.

The developers are going to find a way to do whatever they want. Apple is missing out. By making it this hard, there is going to be growing resentment in the developer community towards Apple, so as I see it one of two things will happen. Either the developers will strong-arm their way through and make the iPhone do what they want it to, completely bypassing Apple’s desires/wishes/vision for the product (thus destroying a lot of what people like about Apple), or a competitor will rise which makes development easy, and the developers will stop focusing on the iPhone and instead move to the product that doesn’t require them to fight in order to develop for it. Admittedly, it will be hard, and most likely take awhile for a competitor to hope to replace the iPhone, but if Apple thinks it’s not possible, they just need to look back at 1989.

I guess there is a third option, which is Apple deciding to release development tools for the iPhone and releasing a method to develop for it in other ways then just web and Ajax. I hope this happens, but as of right now, I see no signs of it going this route. For the record in case you don’t know me, I am a web developer that is familiar and comfortable with Ajax. To me, a web developer saying they need to do more, is a statement that shouldn’t be taken lightly.