Apple Apps Ahead

[dhilipkumar]

Apple Apps Ahead

Apple is about to remove the shackles from developers of applications for the iPhone.

While iPhone users have mostly praised the steady stream of games, guides and other programs released thus far, many developers have been frustrated by their inability to do more, such as allow users to purchase digital content within an application. Until recently, Apple Inc. has been slow to give them the tools or a blueprint with which to make that possible.

Now the company says it is on the verge of launching a new iPhone operating system -- and a toolkit to help developers of new applications for the handsets. Apple says the new operating system itself will add more than 100 features, including the ability to cut and paste text, and a virtual keyboard for use when the phone is turned sideways, making it easier to type emails. The toolkit is expected to add about 1,000 functions to help developers come up with new applications.

Renegade Apps
Apple isn't releasing the new operating system until this summer, and developers are only now working on the applications that will take advantage of the new toolkit. But some developers have come up with unauthorized applications that will offer some of those same features in the meantime. Note: The unauthorized products don't have Apple's approval and work only on iPhones that have been independently modified to let users download anything they want onto their iPhones. Modifying, or "jailbreaking," your device in this manner will void the product warranty.

An unauthorized program called Clippy, for example, enables cut and paste. And while Apple has said its new operating system will include a quick way to find information anywhere on the iPhone, two unofficial tools, Searcher and QuickGold, already let iPhone users search through contacts, email, documents and anything else that they've stored in their handsets. Another renegade program, xGPS, gives turn-by-turn driving directions, anticipating a feature that Apple says it will begin to offer this summer, using the GPS location technology in the iPhone.

Some developers of authorized iPhone applications are reluctant to talk about their own specific plans. But many say they like the new system's push-notification tools, which allow instant messaging and notification when something new is available on an application, even when it's not running. Developers are also looking forward to adding subscriptions and transactions within their software for the first time.

Guides Gain
For example, Handmark Inc., the Kansas City, Mo., developer of Zagat restaurant guides for mobile devices, says that iPhone Zagat subscribers previously would have received updated reviews only once a year -- when they renewed their $10 subscription. But with the new system, they will be able to get daily updates, something that other Zagat guides on other handhelds, like Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry, already offer.

Other developers are excited about wireless features that will let iPhone users connect with one another in new ways, such as playing games.

"It's going to really allow people to start pushing the limit of what the hardware is capable of doing," says Neil Young, the founder of iPhone game application maker Ngmoco Inc., San Francisco.

online.wsj

[aswinnandha]

apple application is amazing to use  and has more advance feature with this
the user have  mostly praised the steady stream of games, guides and other programs released thus far, many developers
Apple says the new operating system itself will add more than 100 feature the  toolkit is expected to add about 1000 functions to help developers come up with new application