And the whining begins (not you Dan). iPhone was a big hit and will continue to be so without any SDK or third party apps. This will just pile on all the more icing on the proverbial cake. I for one am glad there will be one source for distribution.

You want background operating? Go write for wince. Enjoy all that background operating while your stuff slows down to a crawl requiring a reset. I can still count all my resets on one hand for my iPhone. Including upgrades. And I had one the first day, that speaks plenty for its stability. I can't say that for my winmobile devices, not even after only a month.

Give me a break. If you don't like the terms, don't develop for it. At the very least be reasonable in your requests. There's no way Apple is going to remove distribution exclusivity (nor would the majority of users want them to) and there's no way the carriers are going to allow VoIP without increasing unlimited data plan costs. And does anyone want third-party apps to have full access to the file system or the ability to drag down the CPU while they run in the background? Stop being lazy Paul and conform to the platform instead of trying to make the platform conform to you.

Actually, many of those items aren't essential and I think Rogue Amoeba says so. There are some solid requests (the Media Picker for one) and some really stupid ones (VOIP over the cell network--no AT&T wasn't serious about that unlimited calling plan, why do you ask?). I know they're going for a kitchen sink approach, but a list of actually reasonable and useful items would be preferable.

Some of those requests sound reasonable, like running apps in the background, and having media picker framework. However, asking Apple not to be the exclusive distributor is ridiculous, and there's no way they'll allow VoIP over EDGE. It seems to me like these developers could be a bit more realistic in their requests, and doing so would maybe even get Apple to take these requests more seriously.

These first two guys must be on Apple's payroll.
It will ALL come to be one way or another. Software will be written & distributed online with or with out 'Stevie's" approval. The beta firmware that comes with the iPhone SDK has been modified to unlock and jailbreak the iPhone, even before its public release. Part of the Pwned Project, the hacked firmware will allow you to do anything you want, including the installation of both official and unofficial apps, and even patches

Gimme Gimme Gimme. Don't get me wrong. I don't think Apple should cripple the development of 3rd party apps, but get real. This is a sweet deal. All you developers have to do is write the code and send it to Apple. If you charge for it you get 70% of the revenue. If you give it away, like most are now, they let you put them up there for free!

So what if they have exclusive distribution. The only reason not to allow them exclusive distribution is if you want to send out applications that violate their usage code, i.e. Porn, Malevolent apps, illegal, etc.

I don't think its whining. Its always a tug-of-war between the developers and the releasing company to find a "Happy Medium" where everyone doesn't get what they want. Honestly the Jailbroken versions already have background apps running (Lojack / SMS Notify) and they are not crippling the phones or causing frequent restarts. I do agree though that Apple will never lift its exclusivity from the distribution side, its good business practice to hold on to what's yours. Watch out through because if developers want something changed there will always be a way around it, possibly another Source application? Apptapp? Anyways time will tell!

I'd have to agree that a whole lot of these posters must be on Apple's payroll. It's entirely possible to love the iPhone and Apple's OS and UI and still not be terribly fond of their fascist approach generally.

CURSES! You found us out! Now my Apple minions will need to find another website to post our anti-developer comments.

The hackers and their sympathizers would love to have unfettered access - and very soon the rest of us would have a ruined iPhone system. And let them fanaticize that we all work for Apple! What a joke (if only we could!).

As for Paul Kafasis and his comments; his products are good and his support is good. He should know better then to ask for the moon, or even sound like whining.

And back to the "jailbreak" hackers, do you really believe that Apple is going to allow this type of person to muck up the product? Frankly, you vastly underestimate the hardware and software acumen of Apple if you believe all that these guys are spinning out.

Without allowing applications to work in the background the iphone will never have full instant messenger support. At the moment using any of the IM clients available (Apollo or IM Chat) you have to keep just this app running to stay connected.

The SDK must allow people to enable certain apps to not be cleaned up by the operating system and allow them to run in the background...

Also why can't you turn the T9 dictionary thing off on the Iphone... Big respect to all the UI advancements the Iphone has made over any previous phone... But when typing a message the built in dictionary thinks it knows what you want to type better than you.. E.g. People trying to view .co.uk domains have a constant annoyance with the dictionary... I do wish there was a professional version of the Iphone with all options available through settings.