I came into Gizmodo’s liveblog of the iPhone SDK announcement a little late, but the good stuff has already started, beginning with the announcement of native Exchange support for the iPhone. If I just worked in a Mac world I wouldn’d care so much about this, but with one too many IT administrators who don’t care to open up MAPI on their Exchange servers—plus the need to get access to calendars and address books—I’m thrilled that this is coming.
The internals of the SDK are really interesting, too. Of course the hacker community has known about this stuff for a long time, but seeing the full list of what is supported on the phone—certificates, Bonjour (aka ZeroConf networking), the Keychain, SQLite, the address book, threading support, location management, audio mixing and recording, video playback, 2D Quartz, plus a touch-optimized version of Cocoa.
And the development tools stack looks great too, including a true iPhone Simulator. Question: What about test automation? It’s been a long time since I looked at Xcode; does it include a test automation framework?
And I would never have expected a heavy emphasis on games on the first demo of the SDK, but all of a sudden it makes sense. The iPhone is not just a Windows Mobile killer, it could also be a PSP killer.
Now. What I’m waiting for is guidance for IT administrators so I can go have a conversation with my IT guy. And, of course, for the first iPhone apps to show up.
Update: SalesForce.com client!