The iPhone Gets Exchange Support, SDK

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Apple indicated that March 6th would be the day the SDK launched - along with, among other things, more Enterprise features for the iPhone. So what exactly did we hear?

While Steve Jobs opened the presentation, he turned it over to Phil Schiller SVP/Product Marketing and Scott Forstall, VP/iPhone Software to discuss the actual details.

Enterprise

Schiller was first up, saying that enterprise customers have bombarded Apple with a laundry list of desired features, including:

• Push email
• Push contacts
• Push calendar
• Remote data wipe
• Global Address List

Remind you of any company based in Canada? Schiller said all this would be in the next iPhone software release.

And of course, what many expected: Schiller said that Apple has licensed the ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft, meaning they can now support Exchange.

“We have licensed the ActiveSync protocol to build directly into the iPhone.”

Totally makes sense, although it’s still the case that with a virtual keyboard there are significantly more typing errors. I’d be frustrated, myself. That said, don’t expect me to pass up a 3G iPhone.

Schiller then went on to poke fun at RIM and its recent outage issues. And then, of course, the demo!

Schiller demo’ed push email, adding contacts, wiping the phone. And he mentioned that the new ActiveSync support has been tested at several corporations, including Nike, whose CIO endorsed the iPhone as a “plug-and-play enterprise solution.”

With this announcement, it seems that RIM needs to start watching its back, though as I said, many executives would be frustrated sans a hard keyboard - but who’s to say Apple won’t remedy that?

The SDK

The SDK, the other big announcement for today, was demo’ed by Scott Forstall. Of course, developers will be writing for OS X, and using Xcode. He showed off a nifty game, Touch Fighter. It’s and OpenGL / OpenAL game that uses the accelerometer to fly the ship by moving the phone, and screen tap to fire. Sign me up; it looked really cool.

Next Apple wanted to show just how easy it was to write for the iPhone, so Apple invited several companies to send two engineers “to see what they could accomplish in two weeks on an SDK they’d never seen before.” According to Forstall, most hadn’t touched a Mac before.

Apple paraded these developers out on stage:

Electronic Arts showed off something based on Spore.
Salesforce showed off a Salesforce automation application.
AOL - yes, AOL IM on the iPhone.
Sega and Super Monkey Ball.

They even showed Epocrates, which every doctor likely has heard of. Epocrates provides PDA medical software for drug interaction, drug prices, dosing, disease, medical dictionary, ICD9 Code, Medicare Part D, and CME. Honestly, this is a great victory, because while it’s a very specialized vertical market app, it’s also very popular.

How and When?

So now the question would be how and when? How do developers get these apps to customers?

Steve Jobs offered up the App Store, which will be the exclusive way to deliver (approved) iPhone apps.

“The App Store is going to be the exclusive way to distribute iPhone applications. We think we’ve got a great business deal for developers.” Developer picks the price. Developer gets 70% of the revenues right off the top. We keep 30%. No credit card fees for developers. No hosting fees. No marketing fees. And it’s paid monthly. This is the best deal going to distribute applications in the mobile space.”

I’m sure others will chime in about what they think, however. Additionally, there’s a $99 fee to join Apple’s new iPhone Developer Program.

While Apple didn’t explicitly place overly stringent limitations on apps that can be developed for the iPhone, they did say in a slide: no porn, no tools for breaching privacy, no bandwidth-hogging apps, nothing malicious or illegal, and nothing “unforeseen.” That leaves a lot of wiggle room for Apple.

When? According to Apple, both Enterprise and SDK are beta now, with a full release for both via a free iPhone software update (2.0) in late June. Oh, and yes, the iPod Touch will get the same update, but it will have a nominal charge attached, as in Apple’s last major feature update.

Finally, one more thing: Jobs brought John Doerr of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins onstage. After saluting “the world’s greatest entrepreneur, Steve Jobs,” he announced the iFund, a venture capital fund for the iPhone platform, seeded with $100 million.

Doerr said:

“We decided the iFund should be $100 million. That should be enough to start a dozen Amazons or even four Googles. Today we’re witnessing history, the launching of the SDK, the creation of the third great platform — the iPhone and iPod Touch. Think about it. In your pocket, you have something that’s broadband and connected all the time. It’s personal. It knows who you are and where you are. That’s a big deal. A really big deal. It’s bigger than the personal computer.”

Whew, that was a typically exciting Apple session. I’m not sure it’s bigger than the personal computer, because I still prefer touch-typing and a full-sized screen - but it is big. If anyone thought Apple has been off it’s game of late - well, it seems they just reversed that trend.