startupmania

About a month ago I finally got an iPhone through work. Before that, I must admit, I wasn’t really excited about these tiny devices, or Apple’s general attitude, for that matter. They seem insistent on shattering the principles of anyone who believes in free choice and are intent on pissing people off by forcing them to install iTunes and its store on their computers. Somehow, however, they manage to stay away from a Microsoft-esque “evil corporation” image. I can’t even begin to fathom how they do it. Maybe it has to do with the fact they sell hardware and a design ethos rather than software.

Anyways, what I had my mind set on was a small laptop, 9-10 inches, that is always connected to the internet, and has a big enough keyboard. When the netbook market finally came along, with the lightweight, long-battery, 3G connected devices arrived, I thought I had reached Nirvana. No need to get a super-expensive ThinkPad X, Asus is giving me a product that’s not only a fraction of the price, but can run Linux!

What these compact computers don’t have, however, is a touch screen and don’t allow the user to “surf with a touch”. After being exposed to the touch-based interface and the various gestures that can be performed, I found myself on my couch, surfing the web with two fingers. My two desktop computers, one running XP and the other Ubuntu, complete with JBL speakers, 21” screens and a pair of orthopedic chairs, were left orphaned in the den. I, in the meanwhile, like the masses, am counting the days till the iPad comes along and I am hoping that the bigger touch-based keyboard of the iPad will indeed allow me to hammer out long texts.

After I’m done playing online, the next obvious step is downloading any and every israeli application written for the iPhone. I can’t help but think that if a few hundred thousand busy Israeli will leave their desktops, even for one hour, and while they’re standing in traffic or waiting in line at the post office, or even zoning out in front of the TV, and will start surfing through the iPhone and iPad, then the need for Israeli-oriented iPhone apps will skyrocket, apps that will replace the services previously offered through a plethora of websites.

Any self respecting organization will have to offer its iPhone users the same services offered to a desktop-surfer. They will have to write a matching iPhone application that will even have to surpass the website capabilities, and probably rework many of their website to support the iPhone format. All this future development activity is really interesting. Suddenly, developers will have new input devices, beyond the mouse and keyboard, to take advantage of. They will be able to make direct use of information coming from a camera, GPS, a compass and a ton of other sensors.

After realizing that I’m interested in getting up close and personal with the iPhone development community, I started playing around with some iPhone dev. tools and invited some like-minded people to start a blog about iPhone application development. Luckily, they agreed and so we are pleased to announce the launch of iPhoneInside.

Over the next few months, we will cover how to install an iPhone development environment (yes, it involves getting a new mac, or upgrading your old one, and a requires a $100 license – life with Apple may be pretty, but cheap or easy, it ain’t). We will also develop a StartUpMania iPhone application, and then tell you exactly how we did it – step by step, as well as interviews with the leading personnel in the Israeli iPhone development community. Lastly, we will provide news and coverage of all the latest iPhone happening from around the world.

Then the iPad will come along, and we’ll tackle that.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum