Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Apple iPhone Review - .NET Developer Edition

After the price drop, I got an iPhone “for my wife”.  My 8525 has most of the features of the iPhone and then some.  It has 3G and can stream internet radio.  I have a choice of 3 browsers for it, thousands of other 3rd party apps, and I can write code using the same language I use for my day job.  But I can still do more with less effort on the [wife’s] iPhone.

 

It all comes down to different philosophies on software and hardware.  Apple dictates with iron fist the entire platform from hardware to software, providing developers a limited API for customization.  Microsoft sells the OS and guidelines for hardware, and tools to let developers do just about anything possible with the devices.  Each approach has its merits.  I can sense frustrated Apple developers guiltily sneaking peeks at the .NET Compact Framework after hours, and what .NET dev doesn’t seem a little depressed with their now bulky, unpretty clunker of a phone?

 

Even so, the Windows Mobile platform isn’t dead.  I suspect Microsoft has more than a few developers busy coming up with an answer to the iPhone.  In the meantime, my recommendation to .NET developers considering an iPhone?  Read up:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneHIG/

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneHIG/iPhoneHIG.pdf

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