As a longtime participant in the iPhone hacking community, I have often been asked
just what I think about the iPhone SDK. I’ll take a moment to reward those of you who
have purchased this book with an answer. In short, Apple’s iPhone SDK adds some
very nice high-level functionality to clean up an otherwise hideous mess. Deep underneath
the SDK’s comfy pillows rests a very disorganized and poorly designed set of
frameworks, but some of that ugly was also very functional in areas where the SDK is
not. The SDK is certainly good enough to write a high-quality, functional application
for the AppStore (if it weren’t, I wouldn’t be writing about it). The interfaces provided
by the SDK are written well enough for most good developers to design good software,
but most people are unaware of the functionality that isn’t available to them. For those
who cut their teeth in the open source world, the iPhone SDK is still a point of
contention.
If you’re unfamiliar with the politics surrounding the SDK, there are two sets of developerAs a longtime participant in the iPhone hacking community, I have often been asked
just what I think about the iPhone SDK. I’ll take a moment to reward those of you who
have purchased this book with an answer. In short, Apple’s iPhone SDK adds some
very nice high-level functionality to clean up an otherwise hideous mess. Deep underneath
the SDK’s comfy pillows rests a very disorganized and poorly designed set of
frameworks, but some of that ugly was also very functional in areas where the SDK is
not. The SDK is certainly good enough to write a high-quality, functional application
for the AppStore (if it weren’t, I wouldn’t be writing about it). The interfaces provided
by the SDK are written well enough for most good developers to design good software,
but most people are unaware of the functionality that isn’t available to them. For those
who cut their teeth in the open source world, the iPhone SDK is still a point of
contention.
