Yesterday Apple presented the SDK for iPhone to the public. It is nice that they decide to allow third-party applications on their phone, but few things does not convince me.
First, why should a developer yield the 30% of the price to Apple? This seems to me an abuse of dominant position (dominant w.r.t the developer).
Second, the freeware applications will be given for free, but still the developer has to pay a one-time-fee of 99$, to be able to provide applications through iTunes. This is just ridiculous. Third-party applications are an add-on value for iPhone, not a problem. There should be no fee, especially if the application is freeware or opensource.
Third, it seems that there's no other (legal) way to distribute software that iTunes. This is an old story that started with iPod, but in this case it is completely different. The iPod plays music that you are supposed to buy with iTunes Music Store. iPods are dominant on the market; many people have one and once you have an iPod, you may be tempted to buy a mac also. There is basically no concurrents to iPod. This leads to the conclusion that forcing people to use iTunes would increase the selling of both the music and the macs.
With iPhone it is different. It is not dominant on the market (at least outside the US). Android is very promising and (hopefully) about to come. iPhone does not play music, but runs applications. Applications are radically different from music. There is a much more wide community developing free software that free music, and free software has often proved to be better or more appealing that closed one. If it is not possible to easily develop and distribute applications, there is some problem, from my point of view.
I wonder why Apple has a so closed approach to informatics.
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