Chapter 1. Why Go Native?
When the iPhone was originally introduced back in 2007, there was no native SDK. Apple claimed that one wasn’t needed and that applications for the device should be built as web applications using JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. This didn’t go down well with the developer community; they wanted direct access to the hardware and integration with Apple’s own applications.
Only a few months after the iPhone’s release, the open source community had accomplished something that many thought impossible. Despite Apple locking the device down, developers had gained access, reverse-engineered the SDK, and gone on to build a free open source tool chain that allowed them to build native applications for the device. At one point, it was estimated that more than one-third of the iPhones on the market had been “jailbroken” by their users, allowing them to run these unsanctioned third-party applications.
However, the book you hold in your hands isn’t about the open source “hacker” SDK, because in March 2008, less than a year after the release of the first iPhone, Apple publicly changed its mind and released a native SDK to a waiting developer community. Whether this release was in response to the open source community’s efforts, or perhaps because it was just the plan by a notoriously secretive Apple all along, we’ll probably never know.
The Pros and Cons
When the native SDK was introduced, a number of people in the industry argued that it was actually a step backward for developers. ...
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