Exclusive: Third Party Cocoa iPhone Apps Coming

Posted by Doc Logic on 06/27/07 in Apple, Featured

In the midst of the excitement surrounding arguably one of Apple’s very largest product roll-outs, the iPhone, we still are left to wonder if and when we will see third parties able to develop native Cocoa apps for the hot little device. During one of the many evening parties which took place during WWDC I overheard something very interesting from a key member of the iPhone development team that answers at least part of our question.

When this particular iPhone Engineer first arrived at the party I saw them be asked several times to get out their iPhone and show everyone, a request to which they diligently declined every invitation. After the group had calmed down a bit I observed the Apple Engineer talking with another party-goer who asked them every-one’s favorite question, “What’s up with Apple not allowing third party Cocoa Apps on the iPhone?”

The iPhone engineer’s face went somber and replied “Wait. All I can say is just wait. We haven’t done everything we are going to do… The iPhone Application story is not over.”

The party-goer tilted his head to the side, obviously wanting more details and asked “So, are there going to be third party Cocoa apps on the iPhone?”

The iPhone team-member smiled and responded simply “Yeah. There will be.”

When pressed to tell when “there will be” third party iPhone apps the engineer declined to answer anything more than “Soon”.

So how soon is “soon”? Who knows, we don’t even know Apple’s reasons for not allowing iPhone Cocoa development. It could be security concerns as they have discussed in the past or to ensure a consistent and high-quality user experience as some pundits have purposed. Personally I would guess it’s a combination of these two factors and the result of the Mac OS X teams being overworked already between Leopard and iPhone development and not having the time to create an iPhone SDK. Whatever the reasons for the current lack of third party openness, it does definitely seem that Apple wants to see great third party apps like Delicious Library and Frenzic on the iPhone, basking in their native Cocoa glory, as much as we do.

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15 Comment(s)

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Mike said on

June 27th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

Since this is not “confirmed” by apple (or anyone else for that matter), I think your headline to this article is quite misleading.

+10

Miles Evans said on

June 27th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

Well if it counts for anything…The guy who submitted this story is someone I would consider extremely credible.

-6

Alex said on

June 27th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Interesting I was there too. In fact I was standing just behind your right shoulder. The “Yeah. There will be.” was in fact directed at someone who was creeping behind my right shoulder and asked “Will there be wifi support.”

Sorry to burst your bubble like that.

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haha said on

June 27th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

correct me if I am wrong but aren’t common widgets cocoa as well? so … ultra boring AJAX/web 2.0 widgets (or apps if you like .. I would call them mobile safe webpages too but that would offend the fanboys) that run on safari platform can be ‘third party cocoa apps’ the official is talking about?

I hope that I am wrong …

-1

Bob said on

June 27th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

Widgets can be JavaScript, Python, Ruby, or Cocoa. They can be most anything, really.

I head similar rumors at WWDC after-parties from other Apple folks trying to save face, knowing the developers were about to drop-kick them out of the parties just for SJ’s assinine and insulting presentation of a non-feature as a feature.

There’s just no telling.

-4

m said on

June 27th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Imagine an iPhone with Skype. Who needs ATT?

moo said on

June 27th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

Widgets are not Cocoa. The tricky part is that some of the languages available are able to call Cocoa commands. So theoretically, a widget would allow devs to do anything they wanted, just the interface would be made with CSS and html instead of something like interface builder.

-2

BS said on

June 27th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

Are you kidding me? Someone overheard someone who probably knows nothing at a party that took place two weeks ago? Sounds like someone is digging deep for iPhone Week.

Banapana said on

June 27th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

Exactly. AT&T is scared to death of 3rd party developers on the iPhone because you don’t have to use their wifi. if you worked on a campus or anywhere with a dense wifi network you’d hardly need the phone feature–or their minutes.

My bet is, Apple said, “It’s gotta be unlimited data!”
and AT&T responded, “Then no audio or video ichat!”

-1

Solo said on

June 28th, 2007 at 12:42 am

Duh?

Apple’s marketing hype machine is on full steam focusing solely on this June 29th date, there is no place for whatever comes out in the future.

Steve’s keynote with “You can just make web based app and use CSS to make it look like a built in app. No download needed. Just go update your web servers now” left everyone hungry.

But he won that one. Steve’s got you all wrapped around his little finger. The world ends on June 29th, and whatever comes out for the iPhone on that date is written in stone. Unchangeable forever. Not even software is getting updated. You have to live all your life with 4 (or Gig of storage (my non-ipod mp3 player is already laughing) but more important, you have to live the rest of your life with this hideous main screen, glaring its hideous unbalanced rows of 11 icons, with the empty spot screaming at you “WTF are you looking at? Are you looking at me? You got a problem?”

-8

mark said on

June 28th, 2007 at 4:23 am

Interesting info. I hope it turns out to be true…. However, you wrote:

“…When this particular iPhone Engineer first arrived at the party I saw them be asked several times to get out their iPhone…”

“I observed the Apple Engineer talking with another party-goer who asked them every-one’s favorite question…”

With all due respect, the word “them” always refers to two or more people. So it’s, “I saw him asked…” or “I saw her asked…. If you’re talking about one person, you can’t say, “I saw them asked.”

-2

mark said on

June 28th, 2007 at 4:26 am

Hmm. Somehow I lost a close-quote after “I saw her asked….” Oh, the irony of introducing a typo, when talking about grammar. LOL.

-1

Alex Price said on

June 28th, 2007 at 5:06 am

Solo, you’re way off. There will be software updates through iTunes, and the main screen has 12 icons, since the addition of YouTube.

-1

Julian said on

July 1st, 2007 at 8:57 pm

I say arouunndd LEOPARD!! dats probably a good time since ive heard Apple will update iPhone with the Leopard launch so maybe there will be an extra card thrown at us like …LEOPARD will include the iPhone SDK and its the only place to buy it!! says steve. dat would be good AND would BOOSSTTT Leopard sales!!

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Amway said on

June 17th, 2008 at 7:23 am

good!!thanks!