Apple to open iPod platform to software developers?
Will Apple soon open the iPod platform to third party software developers?
Right now it's anyones guess. But judging by a handful of recent job listings, it appears that the company is poised to add iPod development capabilities to its widely distributed Xcode development environment.
A recent listing for an "iPod Xcode Engineer for Embedded Systems" seeks an individual who will be responsible for improving and maintaining Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for embedded applications. "The person in this position will be required to work closely with the Mac OS X Xcode team," the listing says.
Meanwhile, a second listing calls for an "iPod Compiler Engineer Embedded Systems" to maintain and improve the gcc compiler in embedded, cross compilation applications. As a lead engineer for the compiler development, "you will be responsible for ensuring that the compiler integrates with the other development tools including the Apple Xcode development environment," the company says.
Xcode is Apple's IDE for Mac OS X applications, which streamlines common and time-consuming tasks by fusing familiar user interface concepts with a mix of performance technologies; the software is publicly available to average Joe, free of charge.
It's unclear if the Apple actually intends to allow developers to write their own applications for the iPod, or if the Xcode integration will be used exclusively by the company to improve interaction between the iPod and its own Mac OS X applications.
In May, Apple formed a specialized division to handle the further development of its iPod related products. Over the last 4 months, the division has entered into a hiring spree and is currently soliciting several new iPod design engineers, product marketing managers, and a channel development executive.
Along with Hewlett-Packard, Apple is expected to begin shipping 1 million iPods a month beginning in October.
Right now it's anyones guess. But judging by a handful of recent job listings, it appears that the company is poised to add iPod development capabilities to its widely distributed Xcode development environment.
A recent listing for an "iPod Xcode Engineer for Embedded Systems" seeks an individual who will be responsible for improving and maintaining Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for embedded applications. "The person in this position will be required to work closely with the Mac OS X Xcode team," the listing says.
Meanwhile, a second listing calls for an "iPod Compiler Engineer Embedded Systems" to maintain and improve the gcc compiler in embedded, cross compilation applications. As a lead engineer for the compiler development, "you will be responsible for ensuring that the compiler integrates with the other development tools including the Apple Xcode development environment," the company says.
Xcode is Apple's IDE for Mac OS X applications, which streamlines common and time-consuming tasks by fusing familiar user interface concepts with a mix of performance technologies; the software is publicly available to average Joe, free of charge.
It's unclear if the Apple actually intends to allow developers to write their own applications for the iPod, or if the Xcode integration will be used exclusively by the company to improve interaction between the iPod and its own Mac OS X applications.
In May, Apple formed a specialized division to handle the further development of its iPod related products. Over the last 4 months, the division has entered into a hiring spree and is currently soliciting several new iPod design engineers, product marketing managers, and a channel development executive.
Along with Hewlett-Packard, Apple is expected to begin shipping 1 million iPods a month beginning in October.
Comments
But if outside developers are ONLY able to add stuff to the Extras menu (and then manually to the main menu), I can see it being remotely possible. That would leave the iPod UI intact.
This screams 3rd party support.
Wouldn't want the iPod's good name to be tarnished...
Originally posted by nagromme
I bet it's only for internal use. Apple wouldn't want third parties messing with the iPod's simplicity and ease of us [sic].
Perhaps the iPod on Linux project has shown them that if they don't provide a way for third-parties to develop for the iPod, people will mess with the iPod's simplicity and ease of use much, much more in order to get that capability...
Originally posted by CharlesS
Perhaps the iPod on Linux project has shown them that if they don't provide a way for third-parties to develop for the iPod, people will mess with the iPod's simplicity and ease of use much, much more in order to get that capability...
Apple should so release iTunes for Linux.
This could be a sign of expanded iPod development, indeed, but not necessarily open development. My hunch is that they'll still pick and choose who gets to develop what at least until the iPod's market is mature.
I'm willing to be surprised, though.
Originally posted by sinclairZX81
Apple should so release iTunes for Linux.
omg, yes, yes YES!!!!
The Xcode team isn't chartered to support the iPod team (and they've got way too much on their plate still trying to catch up to where Metrowerks stopped at several years ago), so the iPod team is looking to hire some folks to make it happen.
Dumb upper management. Extra dumb. No biscuit for you.
Originally posted by ct77
I just hope we don't see iPods starting to crash because of poorly written 3rd party apps.
Yup, my iPod crashes enough using 1st party code thank you very much.
Jobs downplayed existence of iPhone on several occasions, but with the advent of Sony Ericsson "Walkman" line of mobile phones, that was really successful, I doubt Apple can't ignore this market any more. Why anybody wants to buy two devices, if he can get exactly the same functionality in one package ?
This makes a lot of sense to me.