UIKit Day
Today, Apple held a press conference about the iPhone developer roadmap. I took notes while watching the keynote. So here they are:
- Enterprise functions look pretty cool. This means ActiveSync licensing, IPsec VPN, WPA2, mass device config, and remote wipe.
- They renamed UIKit to "Cocoa Touch". Twitter people immediately started going on about how that'd be a great name for a porno. (I still saw a reference to UIKit somewhere in the Xcode demo though.)
- Core Location is a new API they announced today for location-aware applications. Pretty sweet.
- Developer tools are: Xcode, Interface Builder, Instruments, and the much-awaited iPhone simulator.
- Not sure what Interface Builder exports, given that Mobile OS X doesn't have .nib files. :/
- TouchFighter. It's essentially an Apple-built StarFox clone. In full 3D and positional sound. If it ever gets multiplayer, it is the killer app.
- AIM. They managed to make a decent-looking client, much nicer than Apollo or MobileChat today. I want it. (Icon sucks though.)
- Super Monkey Ball. It's tied with TouchFighter for best game. Give it the fun minigames from the GameCube versions and this wins it.
- Someone in the audience laughed when the App Store's badge showed an update was available, probably because of how much it looks like Installer or Cydia's badge.
- Apparently iPod touch users have to pay (again) to get this. Fuck you Apple. Or rather, Sarbanes-Oxley.
Oh well, at least this means there's actual documentation for some of the shadier APIs now. Worst part of the keynote: when Steve said there were refreshments right out the door, and there actually weren't.
