I can’t believe that Apple actually has in its iPhone SDK agreement a part that stipulates that you can’t distribute “frameworks”. I can’t possibly see the point of this at all. If I came up with what I thought was a really good framework that helps you to build applications much more stable and faster, wouldn’t this be a good thing to share? Wouldn’t it benefit the entire community? It makes sense now why I haven’t seen any frameworks for the iPhone – I always thought this was a little strange because usually there are ones out within days for other platforms. I just can’t believe how many draconian rules have have stipulated for their SDK, it just goes to show that there really is no better alternative at the moment, because otherwise I can’t fathom why developers would stick around.

I have found out though that it is Ok to share sample code, so you can show people an example app that includes your framework and then let them use it from there. This technically means you are not actually distributing the framework but merely sharing code. This is another example of how dumb the rules are, if you can get away with doing it by calling it something else why not just let people do it properly?

Now I have to mention something about Apple’s app review process. The link provided above is from Joe Hewitts blog – he is a facebook employee who develops their app for the iPhone. It is pretty much agreed that the facebook application is probably the best and most useful free app available on the iPhone (Perhaps best of all apps – who knows). They have just finalised their version 3 application and released it to the store for review – now being an important app you would think that it would have been green lighted pretty fast wouldn’t you? Well nearly two weeks have passed and still nothing. I mean how messed up is that? He has a little rant about the process and I agree with him that the process should be scrapped altogether – go and read the post for the full story. Even techcrunch have been getting angry emails about it all.

I said I would write a little more about the iPhone once I had used it for a while. I have been enjoying it quite a lot and it offers a lot of the functionality that I have been waiting for in a phone for a long time now. It is far from perfect and here are a few of my gripes. The battery is dismal, basically it lasts a day and I have to put it on charge every night. If I don’t, it will usually be almost dead by the time I wake up in the morning. The GPS is pants for any kind of navigating. It seems like a cool feature at first but don’t rely on it when trying to find something. Me and my friend were visiting Wolverhampton one weekend to visit another pal and we were trying to specifically find a street whilst driving and it was useless – completely. We ended up using the pretty good GPS/maps feature on my mates Crackberry. For the price of the phone the camera is just shit. I really don’t use the camera on any phone I have had so it does not really bother me but at this price level it is pathetic. So what do I like? I like the OS and user interface as it is very intuitive. I have never really used any browser on any of my past phones because it was just a crap experience whereas it is pretty nice on the iPhone. I like the amount of decent applications (there are plenty of crap ones as well) and how easy they are to find and install from the device. Pretty much all of the core features that I use you can get on the other top phones from the other manufacturers but for the reasons above I just prefer the iPhone. I do like Blackberry’s and a lot of the other smartphones and have played around with most of them. I find that the problem usually with the others (with the exception of the Blackberry) is that don’t seem that polished to me, especially after having used an iPhone and Blackberry. The Blackberry phones are really nice in both software and hardware and after witnessing my friends in action I was impressed. My preference of the iphone between the two is based solely on my own use, but I admit that I wouldn’t hesitate in buying a Crackberry in the future. I just like my iPhone more.

Here are some screen shots from my iPhone showing which applications I have installed. Some I have installed but never really use as they are just for those moments down the pub. My most used apps tend to be in screen order for quick access.

Is the iPhone any good? The answer to this question is hell yeah. I am writing the post from my iPhone. Yes the keyboard gets annoying in portrait but its as good as any other I have used. First off, why did I get one? Well I planned on using a nice nokia n96 on payg to save a few pennies but it turns out that I ended up using it more than I thought and it cost me more than a contract. I thought that the Nokia N96 was the best phone out there but how wrong was I.There are some downfalls with the iPhone and one is the shite camera with no video capability and two the inability to handle MMS messages. This is no major deal to me because (a) I never really take pictures with my phone or video (b) I dont ever get MMS messages and never send them, but it does not matter anyway because there is a free app that adds MMS capabilities to the phone (although not natively). What I do like doing with my phone is getting email and using the internet and in my opinion there is no better phone for this at the moment (although I am looking forward to them adding flash lite properly rather than their weird flash support at the moment).

I never originally wanted an iPhone and thought that it looked weird in the pics and that it was a gimmick. I was wrong, it is amazing I kid you not. Even my mum was impressed when I showed it to her and believe me when I say she has never been impressed with any other gadget I have shown her in the past. I hope to write a proper review at a later date with what I think of it over time and any apps that I recommend. It has even inspired me to try out developing my own app for it, but I need to get a mac again first and I have no money left. I have been planning on getting a new macbook air or pro because I missed my old macbook pro more than I thought but my employer was good enough to get me a new laptop and I cant complain at all with what they got me – a Dell XPS M1730 fully loaded.