Starting an iPhone® Application Business For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Understanding the iPhone Platform

In This Chapter

• Accessing GPS location information

• Sensing user input

• Providing application navigation options

• Employing new iPhone 3.0 business strategies

If you want to develop an iPhone application, it helps to have a big-picture idea of the platform for which you're developing an app. The iPhone is simply the newest entry into the field of mobile computing, so a look at the roots and capabilities of mobile computing may help stir up an idea or two, or at least help guide you to the elements of your application that you need to plan for in advance.

This chapter discusses the different capabilities and useful functions that mobile computing has brought to users. We go through different categories of functionality that include networking, hardware, gaming, and user-generated content. Then the focus shifts to the iPhone itself — and its exclusive functionality that you should keep in mind when you design your iPhone application; you may be tapping into one or more of those features yourself.

Apple's Entry into Mobile Computing

Waiting to enter the market allowed Apple to observe the successes and failures of other products:

• Observing the pitfalls of trying to fit pre-existing approaches to computing onto a tiny device, Apple went back to the drawing board on user-interface design, making the screen fill the entire face of the device and increasing the screen resolution to 160 pixels per inch, well beyond a standard monitor's 72 pixels per inch. ...