15. Why develop for
iPhone?
• Roughly 18-20 million iPhones sold to date
16. Why develop for
iPhone?
• Roughly 18-20 million iPhones sold to date
• 30 million if you include iPod Touch
17. Why develop for
iPhone?
• Roughly 18-20 million iPhones sold to date
• 30 million if you include iPod Touch
• iTunes Application Store (iTAS)
18. Why develop for
iPhone?
• Roughly 18-20 million iPhones sold to date
• 30 million if you include iPod Touch
• iTunes Application Store (iTAS)
• Indirect marketing through association
35. Other business models
• Cydia: an alternative app store for jail-
broken phones
• Everyone’s a criminal
36. Other business models
• Cydia: an alternative app store for jail-
broken phones
• Everyone’s a criminal
• Australia
37. Other business models
• Cydia: an alternative app store for jail-
broken phones
• Everyone’s a criminal
• Australia
• 1.7 million iPhones with Cydia installed
38. 2 Development Paths
• Standards HTML + CSS + Javascript web
apps running in Mobile Safari
39. 2 Development Paths
• Standards HTML5 + CSS3 + Javascript web
apps running in Mobile Safari
• Native apps written in Objective-C
40. 2 Development Paths
In the beginning, Apple told us that there
would be no SDK and all applications would
be Ajax applications.
There was much rejoicing from web geeks
and much angry shouting from 3D game
programmers.
42. Web Apps
• No need to learn a new toolkit
• Safari supports CSS3 and fast Javascript,
plus access to GPS and the accelerometer
43. Web Apps
• No need to learn a new toolkit
• Safari supports CSS3 and fast Javascript,
plus access to GPS and the accelerometer
• Developers can target a single device with a
specific screen size
44. Web Apps
• No need to learn a new toolkit
• Safari supports CSS3 and fast Javascript,
plus access to GPS and the accelerometer
• Developers can target a single device with a
specific screen size
• Updates occur instantly on the server
50. Native Apps
• Direct hardware access (3D, Camera, GPS)
• Faster, compiled code which can be sync’d
51. Native Apps
• Direct hardware access (3D, Camera, GPS)
• Faster, compiled code which can be sync’d
• Apps have icons and can be sold in iTAS
52. Native Apps
• Direct hardware access (3D, Camera, GPS)
• Faster, compiled code which can be sync’d
• Apps have icons and can be sold in iTAS
• Access to iPod, Calendar, Address Book...
53. Native Apps
• Direct hardware access (3D, Camera, GPS)
• Faster, compiled code which can be sync’d
• Apps have icons and can be sold in iTAS
• Access to iPod, Calendar, Address Book...
• XCode IDE and debugging tools
56. Native Apps
• XCode IDE and debugging tools
• Must learn Objective-C, Cocoa
• Must port to other platforms
57. Native Apps
• XCode IDE and debugging tools
• Must learn Objective-C, Cocoa
• Must port to other platforms
• Apple can reject your application at whim
58. Native Apps
• XCode IDE and debugging tools
• Must learn Objective-C, Cocoa
• Must port to other platforms
• Apple can reject your application at whim
• Relatively few Objective-C coders around
62. Hybrid Web/Native Apps
• Wrap Safari in a Site Specific Browser (SSB)
• quot;A site specific browser (SSB) is a software
application that is dedicated to accessing
pages from a single website. SSBs typically
simplify the web browser by excluding the
menus, toolbars and browser chrome that
are external to the workings of a the site.quot;
63. Hybrid Web/Native Apps
• Wrap Safari in a Site Specific Browser (SSB)
• quot;A site specific browser (SSB) is a software
application that is dedicated to accessing
pages from a single website. SSBs typically
simplify the web browser by excluding the
menus, toolbars and browser chrome that
are external to the workings of a the site.quot;
• The best of both worlds.
66. TheScore iPhone Edition
• First commercial iPhone app in Canada
• Rails app which processes and caches a
seriously evil XML feed and presents a
customized iPhone user experience
67. TheScore iPhone Edition
• First commercial iPhone app in Canada
• Rails app which processes and caches a
seriously evil XML feed and presents a
customized iPhone user experience
• http://iphone.thescore.com/
68. TheScore iPhone Edition
• First commercial iPhone app in Canada
• Rails app which processes and caches a
seriously evil XML feed and presents a
customized iPhone user experience
• http://iphone.thescore.com/
• #1 iPhone sports web application
69. TheScore iPhone Edition
• Announcement of App Store presented a
dilemma: stick with proven tech
investment, or follow the hype and re-write
70. TheScore iPhone Edition
• Announcement of App Store presented a
dilemma: stick with proven tech
investment, or follow the hype and re-write
• After experimentation, we realized that we
could create a SSB and potentially add
additional features
71. TheScore iPhone Edition
• Announcement of App Store presented a
dilemma: stick with proven tech
investment, or follow the hype and re-write
• After experimentation, we realized that we
could create a SSB and potentially add
additional features
• “Native” app a huge success, no waiting for
approvals on changes or bug fixes
73. TheScore iPhone Edition
• Rails’ lets us implement features faster,
which means cheaper
• Content easily re-purposed for other
mobile platforms such as Blackberry
74. TheScore iPhone Edition
• Rails’ lets us implement features faster,
which means cheaper
• Content easily re-purposed for other
mobile platforms such as Blackberry
• Facilitates iterative development and
experimenting with subsets of users
75. TheScore iPhone Edition
• Rails’ lets us implement features faster,
which means cheaper
• Content easily re-purposed for other
mobile platforms such as Blackberry
• Facilitates iterative development and
experimenting with subsets of users
• Most users have no idea it’s hybrid
77. Business Models,
Revisited
You sell 25k copies of an app for $1.95.
That'd be $50k, except Apple takes 30% so
we'll sell 36,500 copies.
Let's assume a 3% conversion rate from
people reading about the app to sales.
78. Business Models,
Revisited
That means that you'd have to have 1.2
million people consider buying your app, or
about 5% of the total number of iPhone
owners.
That seems unrealistic without a marketing
budget.
80. Business Models,
Revisited
Customers subscribe to a web service for
$5/m ($60/year).
You need about 1000 customers, once you
factor in payment and infrastructure costs.
81. Business Models,
Revisited
Oh, and in year two... it’s all profit.
With a one-time purchase, there is no year
two. There’s not necessarily a reason for
them to give you any more money.
82. Business Models,
Revisited
iPhones feature the most sophisticated
mobile web browser in history
83. Business Models,
Revisited
Full support for CSS3 transitions and a
lightning-fast compiled Javascript interpreter
84. Business Models,
Revisited
Are you still so convinced that people need
to click on an icon to consider a service to
be useful?
Why not take the power back?
85. Business Models,
Revisited
Publish your app as a web service for
iPhone. Potentially you could support
Android, and other platforms, too.
Provide an optional Site Specific Browser.
90. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• Employee #1 at Unspace
• Creator of Haml, the most
popular Rails template engine
91. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• Employee #1 at Unspace
• Creator of Haml, the most
popular Rails template engine
• An outspoken queer developer
92. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• Employee #1 at Unspace
• Creator of Haml, the most
popular Rails template engine
• An outspoken queer developer
• Wrote iWik on a dare
93. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• iWik was created because
Wikipedia looked like shit on
iPhone, and was hard to use
94. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• iWik was created because
Wikipedia looked like shit on
iPhone, and was hard to use
• Hampton’s app took requests
and used public APIs to fetch the
data, which was then scrubbed
and reformatted for the iPhone
95. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• iWik sold well over 60,000
copies at $0.99 a copy
96. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• iWik sold well over 60,000
copies at $0.99 a copy
• The first version was built in
three days while visiting home
97. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• iWik sold well over 60,000
copies at $0.99 a copy
• The first version was built in
three days while visiting home
• A hybrid web app, all it does is
format something freely available
98. Meet Hampton
Catlin
• Wikipedia offered to buy iWik,
instead of harassing him
• In addition, they brought him in
on contract to run their mobile
division on a nice retainer
• Wikipedia is his dream job
100. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
God.”
Matthew 19:24
101. “Not gonna lie... it'd be easier to get
Steve Ballmer using an iPod, than for you
to get a straight answer on why Apple
rejected your app.”
@peteforde http://twitter.com/peteforde/status/1461939233
102. Secret Laws
• This is John Gilmore
• Sun employee #5, and
co-founder of the EFF
• Unsuccessfully sued the
US Supreme Court to
force them to
demonstrate which law
kept him from flying
anonymously
103. • I assumed that Apple would be pretty
liberal in their curation of iTAS
104. • I assumed that Apple would be pretty
liberal in their curation of iTAS
• I was wrong
105. • I assumed that Apple would be pretty
liberal in their curation of iTAS
• I was wrong
• Any guesses on the first app I heard about
being rejected?
129. • Native apps will be able to expose an
interface to the new Spotlight functions
130. • Native apps will be able to expose an
interface to the new Spotlight functions
• Connect to Mail, Calendar, iPod
131. • Native apps will be able to expose an
interface to the new Spotlight functions
• Connect to Mail, Calendar, iPod
• Safari remembers web login credentials
132. • Native apps will be able to expose an
interface to the new Spotlight functions
• Connect to Mail, Calendar, iPod
• Safari remembers web login credentials
• Peer-to-peer Bluetooth
133. • Native apps will be able to expose an
interface to the new Spotlight functions
• Connect to Mail, Calendar, iPod
• Safari remembers web login credentials
• Peer-to-peer Bluetooth
• Push notifications
144. Rhodes: An open source framework that
lets you write a mobile app in Ruby, feed
it through a processor, and output code
to run on multiple platforms.
http://github.com/rhomobile/rhodes
145. Canvas: The HTML5 canvas tag supported
in every major browser except IE. It
supports powerful vector drawing and
shading... and with advances in Javascript
speed, could pose a serious threat to
Flash, which doesn’t work on the iPhone.
147. Tools
• Best iPhone developer blog: MobileOrchard.com
• Best free iPhone research and case study:
theamazingiphone.com
• Cool library to connect your apps to Rails:
ObjectiveResource: iphoneonrails.com/
148. Thanks!
I will be posting the
URLs from this
presentation on:
rethink.unspace.ca
pete@unspace.ca
@peteforde