Do you think it's bogus that the iphone has been out less time than...

I think it’s because the iPhone caters to the casual user.
Versus Blackberrys were originally seen as being more work-related?

Developing for the iPhone is not a trivial task.

And yet, based on the comments in the story I linked, it sounds like it’s far & away better (i.e. faster, easiers, cheaper) than app development for any other mobile or gaming platform.

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Holy frijoles! Fluther is converting my quip into piratical as I type it!!!

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Update: only the preview is in piratical. The actual post comes up as I typed it originally. Freaky cool.

Rob: Holy crap! That is so cool!

It’s not bogus. Apple have invested in their platform, produced an easy method of ditribution of apps and then got lots of people excited about the product.

The iphone is simply a more appropriate and more friendly platform for app use than the blackberry is. On the iphone, the sky seems to be the limit. On the blackberry, the keyboard is the limit…

I think the multi-touch interface is definitely a factor.

Yet, another reason I love fluther. Thanks Ben and Andrew
I feel like I’m back on the Disney Wonder and it’s Pirate Night.

wait for a blackberry touch screen to come out, or at least one that has a powerful accelerator integrated, and RIM will be in the app business too.

Your avatar

@Nimis I agree with ye that, that be th’ conception, but what about nokia or palm or windows mobile users? There be loads o’ them and still no m.fluther.com site. I do understand what ye mean about casual vs work though.

@robmandu Ok. I see that it may be cheaper if ye own a Mac (xcode be free), but ye can develop for th’ blackberry using nothing but open source software. And me argument isn’t actually about app development rather than it be on site availability and tailoring sites for th’ iPhone over th’ Blackberry. See what I’m sayin’?

@Lightlyseared Aye I agree with ye on that, but it’s not apple that’s re-branding th’ sites for th’ iPhone. It’s th’ sites.

@Johndole Why be th’ keyboard th’ limit? Th’ blackberry can do most anything th’ iPhone can do. It simply doesn’t have a touch screen. There be loads o’ “app stores”. Lots o’ apps for it as well. So why not websites?

perhaps they should stick with keyboards though

@TWrex wrote, “it be on site availability and tailoring sites for th’ iPhone over th’ Blackberry”.

Ah… well, surfin’ the web on a Blackberry is painful. There’s no javascript support, poor support for standards in general… and those notwithstanding… it’s slo-o-o-o-o-ow to render pages. Chances are, if your web browser is simply named “Browser”, it’s gonna suck.

Even the latest Blackberry Bold, which now has 3G wireless, is a dawg bringing up sites when compared side-by-side to the original 2G wireless iPhone.

In short, I sum up the BB’s problems as:
– poor browser technology (nowhere near as good as WebKit-based Mobile Safari)
– slow processors (nowhere near as fast as the ARMs that Apple uses)
– smaller screens (at handheld sizes, even the tiniest difference in size is very noticeable).

Oh yah, and the battery life doesn’t even compare… amazing what with the iPhone’s more powerful everything going on.

It’s because everything Apple excretes turns into gold. It’s “hot” to develop for the iPhone. Look how much more users Fluther got by offering an iPhone version – would they have gotten that if they targeted Blackberries?

So yeah, it’s unfair, but so is life.

have you seen the blackberry thunder. It’s a click touch screen. It’s no iPhone. Phones were all the same before the iPhone. Apple gave everyone a reason to think of new ideas.

@robmandu Touche. Ye have me there. Th’ browser blows – although th’ new 4.5 browser be loads better. Nowhere near webkit. Slow processors, I’ll give ye as well, but that would belay ye from developing a mobile site? And again, there be still th’ palms and windows mobile phones o’ th’ world. And yeah th’ smaller screen does suck too.

I’m grabbing that HTC Dream th’ day it drops so yeah. I’m all over that. Damn the bb and iPhone. Open Source Baby!

@Vincent I never stated it wasn’t fair. Merely bogus and frustrating. And I can’t say that I be knowin’ whether they would get as many bb users as they got iphone users. Th’ bb be not th’ work device it used to be. More and more young people be using it as their all around device because they can go to myspace (gag) and chat and what not.

tWrex: I’m trying to look smarter, so you’ll take my answers more seriously. ;)

@Nimis LoL I do take yer answers seriously. I gave ye a GA for that first post. Ye’re definitely right about everyone still looking at BB’s as work devices rather than things that everyone uses.

tWrex: A-ha! Now ponder about this…would you have been as likely to GA me if I hadn’t been wearing my glasses?

It’s not about how long the platform’s been around, it’s about how much better one is than the other.

I’m a Crackberry addict forever (I’m on my 5th ‘Berry now, have been using ‘em since they looked like a fat pager), but the browser on the Blackberry is still teh sux, the operating system and development environment is byzantine, and there just isn’t a lot of computing power in there.

— The “Browser” app on Blackberry is barely better than the complete load of garbage that was on my VX-9900, which was so bad I sold it at a $100 loss to get back to the ‘Berry.
— I tried Opera on the Blackberry. It’s user interface was so convoluted that I couldn’t wait to get rid of it, and the Blackberry just doesn’t have the computing horsepower to run such a complex app, as far as I can tell.
— Developing for the Blackberry is not easy. Apple have done a lot to make an API, SDK and marketplace that make it easy to build and distribute apps for the iPhone.

That, and the fact that it’s from Apple, who really really know their way around a consumer product. RIM could learn a lot from them, and I DO NOT mean making a Blackberry that looks like an iPhone.

REAL KEYS, people—it matters!

The websites are rebranded due to the lack of apps for the original iphone. Apple started the web app thing and then started promoting them on its website. Fluther did really well out of Apple putting it on their list of top 10 webapps and if you can get free advertising then people ussually go for it. It’s much better than spending your own money on advertising.

@Nimis I may have, but I woulda thought about it twice before doing it

@dland Ok. I can see yer points, all o’ which be valid.

@lightlyseared Good point. Hadn’t thought about that and it makes sense why there’d be a version for th’ iPhone.

I still believe they’re missing a huge market, because other platforms I’ve mentioned can handle websites well and they don’t have a mobile option either. Be those platforms (palm, windows mobile) stuck in th’ same business category that th’ BB be?

Apple know what people need. A long time ago when steve introduced Mac OS X with the Aqua interface he said how it was hard to make a user interface that everyone likes. Just like how hard it is to make a movie that 5 year old and adults enjoy. The iPhone is great for the average user and the busy worker! Think about it. They’re pretty smart.

@tWrex – then I’ll state it’s unfair :P

Though one might also argue it’s just good marketing. Though then I’d argue that it’s unfair to be more popular because of good marketing instead of good products…

@MrBlogger No doubt. But here’s th’ thing with yer quote. Th’ only reason I like th’ way OS X looks be because I forced myself to use Gnome over KDE. I still think KDE has loads more features and caters more to power users than Gnome ever has or will. And aye. Apple definitely knows what to do to drive a product. They be extremely intelligent.

@Vincentt LoL. I agree with ye wholeheartedly. I guess me gripe with people saying th’ iPhone be for everyone whereas th’ blackberry be for business be that, bb’s support both corporate and personal email. Th’ iPhone did not support Exchange when it first came out. They were quick as diarrhea to remedy that, but they took th’ personal phone and turned into a business phone. So what’s th’ difference then? Th’ process o’ how each one got to whar there at?

Your personal phone is the one you choose, your business phone is the one requisitioned for you by your manager. Blackberry’s have until recently always fallen into the latter camp as that was the market they were aimed at and have succeeded in dominating. The iPhone on the other hand was aimed at the personal user and apple’s core market for the moment is the personal user. Apple didn’t want to target business as BB’s domination was almost total and therefore the investment to make inroads into that particular market would have been massive. On the other hand Apple had already dominated the personal music player market taking over from Sony in a staggeringly short period of time. Mobile phone manufactures had been trying to get in on the act for a while and lets face it most other Mobile’s that played music were not that intuitive to use (unlike the ipod which is almost idiot proof and its this feature that made it the success it is). Therefore it was logical for apple to try and gain market share the other way (ie into the phone bussiness). As business sector would have been a waste of effort (as mentioned), originally they went for the personal sector. When it became obvious that there was a demand for the iphone in business they added it just as BB are now desinging products for the personal sector.

I think it’s particularly ironic that the ‘full web’ on your phone that they talked about for so long has a plethora of specially designed websites!

I made an iPhone web-app for my site and initially, to get a completely working version, it took me about 3 hours, all up. Once I had all the infrastructure of my site in place making an iPhone web-app was easy because of how similar Safari and MobileSafari are, heck I didn’t even need to test the site on my iPhone, I just made my Safari window smaller!

Add to that the fact that Apple have easy to use templates for free download and use in Dashcode and there’s not really anything stopping you from spending a while making a web-app which you know is going to drive visitors.

In our case we had to make a mobile site because ours relies on drag-and-drop for a large part of the interface and we couldn’t provide that on the iPhone (drags are reserved for scrolling), but for others there really is no need (Fluther doesn’t perform very well on the iPhone unless you use the web-app, so that is a required one!).

The reason is because the Blackberry doesn’t handle internet as well as the iPhone. Its not a mobile version or a stripped down version of the internet, this is the full internet! On an iPhone making a web app or even just an app is a snap! Apple really has planned this out very well when making the iPhone.