Apple is Kidnapping Our Customers
The hardest part about selling software for the iPhone is, of course, that you can’t really do it.
Apple’s fond of saying that you can do everything you need to in their Safari uber-browser, and that Java is a “heavyweight ball and chain.” However braindamaged one may think Java is, saying that you can satisfy all your development by way of the browser is a total cop-out; There are things that you can do in downloadable software that you simply can’t do on a phone otherwise: Having easy access to carrier billing (all other evilness notwithstanding), access to APIs, local storage, and interface control, to name a few.
For every iPhone that replaces any other handset, be it Java ME, Windows Mobile, or basically anything else, we are losing a potential customer. This will of course be fixed eventually — soon, even — either by us outsiders, or by Apple. Meanwhile, they are taking millions of our customers out of the market. I do expect this to make waves in some shops’ bottom lines in the short term. The first generation iPhone is a huge step forward for mobile in most ways, but in at least a couple ways, it’s a big step back.