John Gruber,
The conventional wisdom at the moment seems to be that the iPhone is only a consumer device, but the conventional wisdom is wrong. Think about all the hospital/medical demos from recent iPhone events, for one thing.
I also think there is a huge market for professional iPhone apps deployed exclusively inside the enterprise—and it’s going to be big.
CTO at 
Comments
I agree with you Fred: Enterprise Deployment may be a great market for the iPhone; however, I have to point out some issues for professionals:
- One task at a time (no multitask on iPhone)
- No Java support (Even if Sun is on the way) for SaaS : need to code a full native app from scratch (can be long, bugs, …) .
- Short battery life
- No “real keyboard” : I know, it's weird, but a lot of professional people prefer a “hard device” (blackberry like)
Olivier Gardinetti19 June 09 at 7:57 am
Hi Olivier,
Concerning your points,
(1) I don't think multi-tasking is an absolute requirements for professionals. You can share data between application, it's not really a problem.
(2) Yes, that's true you need to do an app from scratch. But the potential of features and design and far more interesting than using the J2ME standard. Giving the quality of the iPhone SDK, the development cycle is actually not that long. Thanks to the tools, optimizing for the iPhone gives far better results from my experience.
(3) I don't think smartphones with the same capabilities can do any better in that regard. Apple does not manufacture batteries. I have to try with the new iPhone 3GS.
(4) If you design your app carefully you can greatly reduce the need for the keyboard.
Fred Brunel19 June 09 at 4:24 pm
Hi Olivier,
Concerning your points,
(1) I don't think multi-tasking is an absolute requirements for professionals. You can share data between application, it's not really a problem.
(2) Yes, that's true you need to do an app from scratch. But the potential of features and design and far more interesting than using the J2ME standard. Giving the quality of the iPhone SDK, the development cycle is actually not that long. Thanks to the tools, optimizing for the iPhone gives far better results from my experience.
(3) I don't think smartphones with the same capabilities can do any better in that regard. Apple does not manufacture batteries. I have to try with the new iPhone 3GS.
(4) If you design your app carefully you can greatly reduce the need for the keyboard.
Fred Brunel19 June 09 at 4:25 pm
I dont know really the iPhone API, but I've understand they're some restrictions to launch other programs from your program on the iPhone, and you can only write on the app folder; But I may be wrong.
Moreover multitasking can greatly increase the efficiency and communication between system/services/programs/…
I know you loved DOS (like me!) but multitasking systems (like Mac OS X !) are far better …
I agree with you about Apple Tools. They're great and efficient.
But, it's a pity Apple doesn't support Java (for now). It would have been more seamless (and costless) to move to this new device for numerous companies.
But if you have time, cash, great developers, the bet can be very interesting.
According to what I read, other devices have a longer battery life (e.g: HTC/RIM) : up to +15%
Sure, the design is the most important part of the app.
Even if you reduce the use of keyboard, the need to type is still (a lot) present (even if I prefer virtual keyboard!);
Emails, reporting, support, all such operations… need to type more than “Hi, I'm around. Do you wanna coffee? Great!”
And a lot of people are uncomfortable ith virtual keyboard because they use also a desktop machine.
Nice debate
Olivier Gardinetti20 June 09 at 4:19 am
(1) You can share data by URL between application. But I don't see why it would be a problem with the enterprise. It's really important to note that most productivity applications (such as Mail) keep their state (Apple recommends to implement that) so that switching between apps is not a problem. Thus, on the iPhone 3GS, launching apps is very fast.
(2) Are you talking about portability or learning curve here?
(3) Using the keyboard in landscape mode (as you can on most built-in apps on 3.0) greatly improve the ease of use.
Fred Brunel20 June 09 at 11:01 am
URL communication may raise some issues when the device is offline.
For the “keep state” option, why not; but I'm not sure it's the most efficient way. Moreover, when you say “is very fast”, what's the kind of apps you launch? small apps or “real” apps?
I was talking about portability (with other OS/devices).
I guess learning curve is quite similar to other API/languages.
Apple tools have, generally, a very good learning curve.
Keyboard: so applications must be recoded for the 3.0?
Moreover I would like to know if the keyboard takes the full screen (with the input field) ? like Wii/Android…
In this case you can't read a page AND editing at the same time.
Actually, some people prefer “actual keys”, because they
feel the key pressing under their fingers. Just an (old) habit…
Olivier Gardinetti20 June 09 at 11:35 am
(1) I meant local URL, you can send data to an app like that. Mail and the browser are real apps.
(2) As I said before, UI is not portable and in that regard Java does change anything. A Blackberry app and an iPhone app are very likely to look very different.
(3) No. Landscape keyboard is already supported since 1.0. I said that Apple is now using it all across it's own apps.
(4) You nailed it down. Only people who have been used to a smartphone before would likely to complain about not having a physical keyboard. New users? They just don't care.
Fred Brunel20 June 09 at 11:45 am
Local URL: even for compressed binary packet? (like an image)
UI is always specific to the device even on different Apple machines. No doubt.
But if you can reuse “old code”, you may make things faster in order to switch to the iPhone (creating the prototype for instance). For a small software company, time is money
Ok for the landscape mode, actually is now the same on other (new) smartphones.
Yeap, you're right. But if you plan to grab professional people (like company with tens or hundreds devices or more), chances are they already use a smartphone with a physical keyboard.
So the question is, do you wan to get new users from a different market, or from the established profesionnal market?
Olivier Gardinetti20 June 09 at 12:04 pm
(1) You can share data by URL between application. But I don't see why it would be a problem with the enterprise. It's really important to note that most productivity applications (such as Mail) keep their state (Apple recommends to implement that) so that switching between apps is not a problem. Thus, on the iPhone 3GS, launching apps is very fast.
(2) Are you talking about portability or learning curve here?
(3) Using the keyboard in landscape mode (as you can on most built-in apps on 3.0) greatly improve the ease of use.
Fred Brunel20 June 09 at 3:01 pm
URL communication may raise some issues when the device is offline.
For the “keep state” option, why not; but I'm not sure it's the most efficient way. Moreover, when you say “is very fast”, what's the kind of apps you launch? small apps or “real” apps?
I was talking about portability (with other OS/devices).
I guess learning curve is quite similar to other API/languages.
Apple tools have, generally, a very good learning curve.
Keyboard: so applications must be recoded for the 3.0?
Moreover I would like to know if the keyboard takes the full screen (with the input field) ? like Wii/Android…
In this case you can't read a page AND editing at the same time.
Actually, some people prefer “actual keys”, because they
feel the key pressing under their fingers. Just an (old) habit…
Olivier Gardinetti20 June 09 at 3:35 pm
(1) I meant local URL, you can send data to an app like that. Mail and the browser are real apps.
(2) As I said before, UI is not portable and in that regard Java does change anything. A Blackberry app and an iPhone app are very likely to look very different.
(3) No. Landscape keyboard is already supported since 1.0. I said that Apple is now using it all across it's own apps.
(4) You nailed it down. Only people who have been used to a smartphone before would likely to complain about not having a physical keyboard. New users? They just don't care.
Fred Brunel20 June 09 at 3:45 pm
Local URL: even for compressed binary packet? (like an image)
UI is always specific to the device even on different Apple machines. No doubt.
But if you can reuse “old code”, you may make things faster in order to switch to the iPhone (creating the prototype for instance). For a small software company, time is money
Ok for the landscape mode, actually is now the same on other (new) smartphones.
Yeap, you're right. But if you plan to grab professional people (like company with tens or hundreds devices or more), chances are they already use a smartphone with a physical keyboard.
So the question is, do you wan to get new users from a different market, or from the established profesionnal market?
Olivier Gardinetti20 June 09 at 4:04 pm
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