Apple Releases iPhone SDK, Demos Spore, Instant Messaging

Thursday March 6, 2008 9:28 am PST by Arnold Kim

During the iPhone SDK event today, Apple announced that they would be releasing to developers the same APIs and Tools that they use to create iPhone apps.

Based on existing Mac OS X technologies, the SDK provides a robust package of tools for developers to use to develop iPhone native applications. The SDK is broken down into the following sets:

Cocoa Touch - Multi-touch events, Multi-touch controls, Acceleromter, View Hierarchy, Localization, Alerts, Web View, People Picker, Image Picker, Camera
Media - Core Audio, OpenAL, Audio Mixing, Audio Recording, Video Playback, JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDS Quartz, Core Animation, Embedded OpenGL
Core Services - Collections, Address Book, Networking, File access, SQLite, Core Location, Net Services Threading, Preferences, URL utilities
Core OS - OS X Kernel, BSD TCP/IP, Sockets, Power Management, Keychain, Certificates, File System, Lib System, Security, Bonjour

A software iPhone emulator for Mac OS X is provided to help with development.

Apple wrote a couple of quick demo apps, and also invited software developers to try to see what they could come up with in 2 weeks. EA demoed Spore for the iPhone, with 18 levels, an editor and accelerometer controls:

Also demoed:

- Epocrates - popular drug reference application for physicians.
- Salesforce.com
- AOL AIM (instant messaging client)
- SEGA's Super Monkey Ball

Native iPhone apps will be distributed through the iTunes App Store, with wireless downloads. Developers pick the price, and get 70% of revenue. The 70% will be paid out to developers monthly, and there are no other recurring fees. The iTunes App Store will handle over the air updates to your applications. Developers of free applications will not be charged for Apple to deliver their applications through iTunes.

All this will come with the iPhone 2.0 update, in beta today going to thousands of developers. Customers will get it in June as a free software update to iPhone users. Meanwhile, iPod Touch users will be charged a small fee due to accounting issues.

The SDK will be available for free public download, but there is a $99/year fee in order to publish applications to the iTunes App Store.

Update: Apple has said they will not restrict VOIP (voice over IP) applications that use Wifi, but will not allow VOIP applications that use cellular networks.

Additional iPhone news/details to be posted on our iPhone Blog at https://www.macrumors.com/iphone/.

Top Stories

Analytics Suggest 96% of Users Leave App Tracking Disabled in iOS 14.5

Friday May 7, 2021 1:51 am PDT by Tim Hardwick

An early look at an ongoing analysis of Apple's App Tracking Transparency suggests that the vast majority of iPhone users are leaving app tracking disabled since the feature went live on April 26 with the release of iOS 14.5. According to the latest data from analytics firm Flurry, just 4% of iPhone users in the U.S. have actively chosen to opt into app tracking after updating their device...

Read Full Article • 226 comments

Prosser: Next MacBook Air Could Come in Colors Similar to iMac

Friday May 7, 2021 6:55 am PDT by Sami Fathi

According to Apple leaker Jon Prosser, Apple's upcoming release of the MacBook Air will feature various colors, similar to the colors in the newly released 24-inch iMac. In the latest video of his YouTube channel Front Page Tech, Prosser says the same source who accurately provided him information on the first Apple silicon iMac coming in colors has told him that he recently saw a prototype...

Read Full Article • 354 comments

Tile to Leverage Amazon Echo and Ring Devices to Better Compete With AirTags

Friday May 7, 2021 2:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover

Amazon today announced that it is teaming up with Tile to add Amazon Sidewalk integration to Tile's Bluetooth trackers. Amazon Sidewalk, for those unfamiliar, is a network of Amazon Bluetooth devices that's designed to improve the connectivity of devices like the Ring and Amazon Echo. Tile will now be joining Amazon Sidewalk, and through this integration, Amazon Echo and Ring devices will be ...

Read Full Article • 169 comments

Apple Gave Zoom Access to Special API to Use iPad Camera During Split View Multitasking

Sunday May 9, 2021 2:00 am PDT by Sami Fathi

Zoom, a hallmark platform used by millions during the global health crisis, has been given access to a special iPadOS API that allows the app to use the iPad camera while the app is in use in Split View multitasking mode. This case of special treatment was first brought to attention by app developer Jeremy Provost, who, in a blog post, explains that Zoom uses a special API that allows the...

Read Full Article • 326 comments

Snapchat Rolls Out Dark Mode on iOS

Wednesday May 5, 2021 1:17 am PDT by Sami Fathi

Nearly two years following the release of iOS and iPadOS 13, which included native, built-in, and systemwide dark mode, Snapchat, one of the world's most prominent social media networks, has finally rolled out a dark mode theme for iOS users. Snapchat began testing a dark mode theme of its app design late last year with a small group of iOS users. Now, Snapchat says that as of this week, it...

Read Full Article • 19 comments

Tile CEO: 'We Welcome Competition From Apple, But We Think It Needs to Be Fair'

Tuesday May 4, 2021 9:51 am PDT by Juli Clover

Just after Apple announced its AirTags, Tile CEO CJ Prober relayed his concerns about competing with Apple in the tracking space, and said that Tile would ask Congress to investigate Apple's business practices specific to Find My and item trackers. Prober this week did an interview with Bloomberg, where he further expanded on Tile's complaints about Apple and why he feels that Tile is...

Read Full Article • 453 comments

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney Admits App Store's 30% Cut Is Similar to Consoles, Would Have Accepted Special Deal With Apple

Tuesday May 4, 2021 1:54 pm PDT by Juli Clover

Apple's legal battle with Epic Games is continuing on, and during the second day of the trial, Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney continued his testimony against Apple. Sweeney was grilled by Apple's lawyers, and made several points seemingly favorable to Apple. In addition to mentioning how he prefers Apple's iPhone and values Apple's privacy policies that he's aiming to dismantle, Sweeney...

Read Full Article • 210 comments

Signal Shares the Instagram Ads Facebook Doesn't Want You to See

Wednesday May 5, 2021 1:29 am PDT by Tim Hardwick

Encrypted messaging app Signal has had a series of Instagram ads blocked from the social media platform, after it attempted to show users how much data the Facebook-owned company collects about them and how it's used to push targeted ads. In a blog post, Signal described how it generated the ads to show users why they were seeing them, simply by declaring upfront the information that the...

Read Full Article • 102 comments

Apple Begins Transition to Randomized Serial Numbers With Purple iPhone 12

Wednesday May 5, 2021 9:17 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

MacRumors previously reported about Apple's plan to switch to randomized serial numbers for future products starting in early 2021, and this transition has now started with the new purple iPhone 12 model in multiple countries. With assistance from Aaron Zollo, host of the YouTube channel ZolloTech, we can confirm that the purple iPhone 12 released last month has a new 10-character serial...

Read Full Article • 82 comments